Kitsap Steel Challenge Report

Yesterday I got the chance to venture over to the Kitsap Rifle & Revolver Club in Bremerton, WA. for a full eight stage Steel Challenge match. I had to be out the door at 5am to be able to be there just a little bit late at 8:20am for sign up and the shooter's meeting. It was raining and snowing when I left home, and didn't look to promising for the rest of the day. After two ferry rides and some driving, I arrived at the range. It was close to freezing, a wind was blowing, and it was raining. It didn't look like it was going to be a very pleasant day weather-wise, but since I hadn't shot since late October except for a few rimfire rounds a couple of days ago, I definitely needed the practice to get back to where I was last Fall.

About midway through the match the rain stopped, and a lot of the cloud cover went away. The wind stopped blowing too, and that by itself makes it seem a lot warmer. With a bit of sunshine peeking through it was still cold, but in comparison, almost balmy!

My first few stages weren't too good, as I was clearly rusty! As the day progressed and the weather improved, so did my shooting, and by the end of the match it was going much better. Not great, but better! Usually after a match I hang around to help put away the targets and target stands, but since the weather was starting to close back in and snow was forecast, I decided to head home as quickly as possible. It was a good thing I did, as part way home it started snowing pretty good, and it was sticking. It was snowing enough that I passed a snow plow going the other way, and he was plowing. Fortunately the snow was coming from a relatively small cell, and ten or twelve miles later I was out from under it and it wasn't snowing.

By the time I got home my back was really starting to hurt, as drawing from a holster uses some muscles that apparently don't get used for too much else, and they were really getting sore. Once home I lay down on the heating pad for a while, until it started hurting less. Once the pain had subsided, went out like a light. It had been a very long day, and I was bushed..........

A little fishin', and stuff

KeeWee and I were planning to fire up our mini land yacht and head over to Banks lake in Eastern Washington on Friday morning. At the last minute the one client she had scheduled for Thursday canceled, so we decided to load up and head over a day early. Getting there a day early makes the trip a lot more relaxing, and you get in a lot more sitting around, eating, sleeping, and of course, fishing! We pull a 12' aluminum boat along on a trailer behind us, and you can barely tell it's there when you are driving. Backing it up is a challenge, though, to launch it, as you can't really see it behind you, and when it gets sideways enough that you CAN see it, it's time to start over.

This was the Fishin' Club annual Banks Lake outing ,and we always have a great time. On Saturday afternoon we even had some pan fried walleye, caught the day before. Boy, is walleye ever delicious!

KeeWee has a post up, along with some pictures over at KeeWee's Corner, so for more on our trip, have a look!

The weather even cooperated all weekend ,with no wind and no rain. I can deal with the rain, but when the wind comes up, you don't want to be on Banks Lake regardless of how big your boat might be.

It made for a nice R&R weekend, but it was over WAY too soon...

Gettin' Ready For Ephrata and Puyallup

It certainly is getting to be the busy time of the year! Two weekends ago we were in Oregon for the Man of Steel Championships, last weekend we were in Yakima, WA. for a steel match and last minute "Tune-up" before this weeke3nd, when we head over to Ephrata, WA. for the Washington State Steel Challenge Championships.

I just got back from the Holmes Harbor range, where I double-checked the zero on my OKO Red Dot sight, and it was right on. Just to warm up the gun a little bit, my first shot was at a 4" square swinging target at 50 yards, and I hit it on the first shot. Definitely more luck than skill, but it was kinda fun to hit it first try. I set up a sheet of paper with a spot in the middle at 25 yards, and took ten shots at it off-hand steel challenge style, to see if I was approximately centered around the spot, and it was, so I should be good to go for Ephrata. Last weekend at Yakima I had four or five stove-pipes, and re-sharpening and case-hardening the extractor seems to have resolved that problem, I hope. I've run about 200 rounds through it without a problem, so it seems OK.

We are taking the RV over to Ephrata on Friday (tomorrow) and will be staying at an RV park in Ephrata, along with some folks from the Kitsap club. Saturday is the Championships, and right after the match we are going to hit the road for Puyallup, where we will spend  Saturday night at the Paul Bunyan range. Sunday is the Paul Bunyan Club Championships, and I always try to make it to that one, even if it's not a steel match. The club championship is essentially a nan-on-man falling plate match. To shoot falling plates well you need to be shooting them regularly, and most of the hot-shots there shoot a falling plate match every week. Even though it's a double-elimination format, I will end up shooting against the falling plate specialists early in the match, so I'm not expecting to last very long before I get eliminated. I hope I can stay in the match for a while, though, as the longer you can go before elimination, the more shooting you get to do!

I've still got to service the RV and give the guns a final cleaning and checking before leaving tomorrow for Ephrata, so I better get to work!

Puyallup Steel at Paul Bunyan

Well, we finally got through a steel match without getting frozen, rained out, or blown away! Although it was a bit chilly at times with the ground being frozen at the start, it was overall a pretty nice day in terms of weather. It didn't start raining until we started home.

As to getting to and from the match, there's a story in itself. The Washington State run ferry system has two docks on the Whidbey Island side, but only one on the mainland side, so if they ever need to do dock repairs on the mainland side, they have to shut down the dock. However, just a few miles South on the mainland dock in Mukilteo there is another ferry dock in Edmonds. It's close enough to the Mukilteo - Clinton Route that you can easily see the Edmonds dock just down the shoreline a few miles. When the State decides to shut down the dock in Mukilteo, they run the regular ferry from Clinton, on Whidbey Island, to the Edmonds dock instead. It seems, though, that they try to make the longer run on the same amount of fuel. The normal crossing time is fifteen minutes, but to go a few miles farther South, it takes them fifty minutes! For a big part of the trip the boat wasn't running much over a fast idle! Since they were running the boats much slower, they also had to cut way back on the number of trips per day they could run, potentially causing long waits to get onto a boat. And the ferry system wonders why they are so universally hated by those of use that depend on them as part of our state highway system!

Anyhow, It took us a bit longer to get to the match than it usually does. The Paul Bunyan club only has five pistol bays, so there could only be five stages set up. There were almost 100 entries though, and this for a local club match! Steel shooting is definitely catching on. The large number of shooters meant large squads, and a long day. When the match was over, it was late in the afternoon, and we were all starving, so a few of us headed over to the nearby airport restaurant for a late lunch/early dinner. The food and conversation was great, and it was almost 8pm by the time we hit the road towards home. Not wanting to spend a bunch of time waiting for a ferry, and then an additional fifty minutes to make the crossing, we decided to drive North to Burlington, then West towards Anacortes, and finally South across the Deception Pass bridge to ge to Whidbey Island. From Deception pass it was still another hour to travel the entire length of the Island to the South end to get home. It ended up taking us somewhere almost four hours to get home.

Oh, the match? I forgot about that part! KeeWee wanted to squad with her friend Jeanette, a new shooter from the Kitsap club, and I wanted to shoot with my usual squad mates James and Scott, so we ended up on different squads, but our squads were side by side for most of the day, so we were able to watch each other shoot. She shot very well. Me, not so much.......

Click ---> for  KeeWee's story about the match, including some pictures.

My 2011 Match Schedule

I finally got around to putting together my match schedule for 2011. Not everything is on the list as some dates have not been set. There are also some dates listed that are matches that will be upgraded to club or regional championships, but I haven't got that information yet. I may not be able to attend all of the matches shown, primarily for financial reasons, but I plan to get to most of them if I possibly can.

It looks like I better stock up on a lot of ammo, as I'm going to be busy!


Feb. 20th      Paul Bunyan Fun Steel
March 5th     Yakima Steel Challenge
March 12th    KRRC Fun Steel
March 20th    Paul Bunyan Fun Steel
April 2nd       Yakima Steel Challenge
April 3rd        Holmes Harbor Fast Draw
April 9th        KRRC Steel Challenge
April 17th      Paul Bunyan Fun Steel
May 1st         Oregon Man of Steel Championships
May 7th         Yakima Steel Challenge
May 14th       KRRC Fun Steel
May 14th       Washington SCSA Championships
May 15th       Paul Bunyan Fun Steel
June 3,4,5      European Steel Challenge championships
June 11th       KRRC Fun Steel
June 18th       Steel Challenge Regional – Piru
June 19th       Paul Bunyan Fun Steel
July 2nd        Yakima Steel Challenge
July 9th         KRRC SCSA & Club Team Championships
July 16-17th Wyoming SCSA State Championships
July 17th       Paul Bunyan Fun Steel
Aug. 6th       Yakima Steel Challenge
Aug. 13th      KRRC Fun Steel
Aug. 17-20   SCSA World Championships Piru   
Aug. 21st      Paul Bunyan Fun Steel
Sept. 3rd      Yakima Steel Challenge
Sept 8-11     Gun Blogger Rendezvous – Reno
Sept 18th      Paul Bunyan Fun Steel
Oct. 1st        Yakima Steel Challenge
Oct 8th         KRRC Steel Challenge
Oct. 16th      Paul Bunyan Fun Steel
Nov. 5th       Yakima Steel Challenge
No. 12th       KRRC Fun Steel
Nov. 20th     Paul Bunyan Fun Steel
Dec. 3rd      Yakima Steel Challenge
Dec. 10th     KRRC Fun Steel
Dec. 18th     Paul Bunyan Fun Steel

  

A TSA Prediction

I'm going to go out on a limb, but I predict that sometime in the next several weeks the TSA security folks at one of our airports are going to catch some evil person carrying something bad trying to get through their security screening. Will they catch him with an "enhanced" pat down, or with their nude photo machine? Maybe both? I predict it will be all over the news, and will conclusively prove that they are doing a great job. Watch for it!

Visiting The Ruger Factory in Prescott, AZ.

The Ruger factory in Prescott, Arizona is the source of manufacture for all of the Ruger semi-Auto pistols, excluding the Ruger charger, which is based the Ruger 10/22 rifle. The Prescott facility is also where a lot of Ruger product development and design takes place, so KeeWee and I had to sign a form that we promised not to let any cats out of the bag, so to speak. We also were very careful to ask first before taking any pictures. When I asked if I could go over and look in a particular machine, I was politely told No! Needless to say, we saw neither cats nor bags, so to speak! Do they have some new things in the development process? Yes. Do I have any idea what it (they) might be from our tour? Nope. Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure it will be one, cool, and two, I'll want one!

When we pulled into the parking lot in front of the Ruger plant, two things instantly caught our eye. First, the American flag and the Ruger flag flying proudly in front of the factory. 

"An Honest Day's Work" by Fred Fellows

 The second thing you notice is the life size bronze statue of a cowboy on a bucking horse. The bronze plaque in front of the statue says it all:

"In the vast reaches of the American West, the work ethic still exists. The man who makes his living on horses that are bound to buck earns his pay. A good hand is loyal to his outfit, meets a challenge, and takes pride in an honest day's work."

Our "Tour Guide" was Jim Elliott, the plant manager. Jim is not only the plant manager, he is also a journeyman tool and die maker and a Cowboy Action Shooter.

Jim Elliott and one of the Ruger machinists in front of one of their machines. It was the day before Halloween. Can you tell?

The Ruger factory is very efficient, and the parts move quickly  from one machine to the next, and on down the line, with little or no time wasted in between.The section of the factory manufacturing the Ruger .380 LCP has a sign hanging over it calling it "LCP Alley".

The machine starts with a chunk of shaft, and ends up with the LCP barrel!

Ruger LCP Slides, almost complete.

As I mentioned, there were a lot of times that I refrained from taking pictures, and I've mostly confined the few I did take to small and specific details, rather than wide angle shots of their manufacturing lines. As I mentioned to Jim, though, being the machine junkie I am, if I lived in Prescott I'd probably pay Ruger just to work there so I could play with all of the neat machines!

How many times have you heard that when you buy a new gun you need to fully strip it, clean it, degrease it, re-lube it, and then put it back together before heading out to the range? No so with the Ruger Semi-autos. There is no shipping grease, assembly oil,  cosmoline, or anything like that used when they are assembled. They are lubed at the factory with the right stuff, and you don't need to clean them until you get them dirty!

Someone on the Internet (sadly, a Gun Blogger) stripped and cleaned a brand new Ruger pistol, and then failed to properly re-lube it before assembly. He had degreased it pretty well, and the dry metal on metal now produced a poor trigger feel. (DUH!) He then complained about what a poor trigger the Ruger had. I'll bet with a bit of the right lube it smoothed right out. As gun bloggers we have a responsibility to make sure our reviews are as accurate as possible, and to clearly separate personal preferences from actual deficiencies. There are a lot of readers that look to us for our opinion, and we owe it to our readers to be as accurate and unbiased as possible.

I did take a couple of pictures of their trigger pull gauge machine.The machine actually plots the trigger pull on the screen of a laptop computer. It looks to me like it even shows how smooth and linear the pull happens to be. I want one!

Trigger Pull machine.

The Trigger Pull graph.

After the pistols are assembled and checked, they go into the test area where they are test fired. We donned hearing protectors and entered the area to watch the testing. I watched as the tester would slip a full magazine into the LCP and then rapid fire the gun until empty. Do they baby them? Nope! The also have a "Brass Catcher" so they can collect one round of brass, put it in an envelope, and ship it with the new pistol. The casing comes out of the pistol, into the brass catcher, and slides out the bottom chute into a waiting envelope.

It seemed like we had just started out tour, and suddenly it was lunch time. As we were walking back to the front of the plant and to the reception area, a number of thoughts crossed my mind. I think I can sum it up in two words, Pride, and Quality. The folks out in the plant, in the front office, and everywhere in between definitely gave you the impression that they were proud to be part of an American company building American firearms, and building them to be the best they can be.

With out a doubt, the Ruger facility in Prescott, Arizona is one of the things that's still right about America!

Here's KeeWee's post on the Ruger facility


Disclaimer: KeeWee and I were not hired or paid to write this post. I call 'em like I see 'em, and I was impressed.

Prescott Report

Our travel to Prescott Arizona went just about exactly as planned. Our flight out of Seattle left right on time, and we qarrived in Phoenix a few minutes early. We picked up our Renta-Jeep at the airport, and the drive to Prescott even was uneventful. We even had our choice of three Jeep SUV's. The motel where we are staying has a Mexican restaurant attached, and we had dinner there on Wednesday night. Thursday we had quite a good buffet breakfast at the motel (included in the room charge). After breakfast we drove the roughly 25 minutes from Prescott out to the range.

We arrived just as they were getting the final settup completed for the first day's shooting. They were going to shoot their regular Thursday "Mini'Steel" match and also the first day of the three day Arizona State Steel Challenge Championships all on the same day. For Championship entrants entering three classes, they would shoot their first class on Thursday, their second class ofn Friday, and their third class on Saturday. If a Championship entrant was only shooting two classes, they would shoot on Friday and Saturday, and Championaship entrants only shooting one class would shoot their match on Saturday. Since KeeWee and I are both only entering one class, we will shoot the Championship on Saturday. That meqant that we could shoot the Thursday Mini-Match if we wanted to. COOL! Small problem, though. We only brought enough ammo for the main match, but not enough for two matches, even if one of them is a small one.

We had about an hour and a half until the shooter's meeting, so we decided to drive back into town and pick up some more. One of the guys at the range told us about J&G Sales in Prescott, so that's where we headed. J&G Sales is a little bit off the main road and it sits back aways from the street, but their sign was big enough tyhat we spotted the place and pulled in. Although it was just before Noon on a Thursday, their parking lot was almost full. When we entered the store it was quite busy, with a number of customers at the counter and several firearms sales underway. There appeared to be an excellent selection of hand guns and long guns in stock, although I didn;t have time to do any browsing on this visit. Looking behind the counter I saw what appeared to be and excellent selection of ammo, and few, if any, empty spaces on the shelves. Although there was a short wait to be helped, a very courteous young man waited on us, and even apologised for having to wait. I've been in gun shops that weren't at all busy and it still took much longer than that to even get an employee to help you! We were both impressed, to say the least! I picked out a brick of Federal for KeeWee, and 200 rounds of Eley Sport 40 gr. for myself. I haven't used much Eley Sport, but I ran a few hundrede rounds through my race gun a while back, and it seemed really similar to CCI Standard Velocity. Strangely, J&G Sales had no CCI on hand at all.

We quickly paid for our ammo and scurried back out to the range. We arrived just a few minutes before the shooter's meeting, so I had a few minutes to assemble the guns and get all of our gear sorted out for the match. The mini-match, or "Thursday Steel" as they call it, would be five stages of Steel Challenge, but only three runs on each stage, with one throw-our run per stage. It should go by qiuckly, but it would also be a good chance to get in a little shooting before the main match, so we could be sure everything was working as it should.

After we had everything ready to go we walked over to the covered area to sign up and for the shooter's meeting. I looked up from the signup sheet t osee a familiar face, but for just a second I was drawing a blank. ""I move 2,000 miles tp Prescott so I wouldn't have to shoot against you anymore, and you show up down here anyway!" he says jokingly! It was Jasn Schmaling whom I used to shoot against in the rimfire bowling pin matches in Custer, Washington, up near the Canadian border. Jan is a great guy and an excellent shooter, and I remember having some very close matches against him several years ago. It seems Jan moved to Prescott, and has been doing very well in the local matches. What a great surprise to run into Jan here in Prescott! We didn't get to squad with Jan on Thursday as he was shooting three classes in the Championships s ohe was in one of the Championship squads and we were in one of the Thursday Steel squads.

The Eley Sport ammo was a definite question mark for me, as ammunition definitely performs differently at altitude than it does at sea level.Most of the time I'm shooting within a few hundred feet of sea level, and the Prescott range is close to 6,000 feet. That's a big difference! Some powder produces higher energy at altitude, and some produces less. Why? Beats me, but it all depends on the individual powder.

One the very first shot string on the first stage the second round didn't feed properly. I cleared it, and finished the string, but the time was terrible, and I was wondering if this Eley was going to be a nightmare all day. The second string went fine, though. The third string I screwed up the time all by myself, and even with the throw out of the worst string, I had a lousy time for the first stage. The rest of the match everything ran perfectly, and in no time the match was over. I had managed a couple of decent stages, a couple of OK stages, and the first stage nightmare! Fortunately this was just a fun match, but it was a good tune-up. The light is very bright and there's a lot of glare, so it was good to shoot in those conditions a bit.


we loaded up our gear, and headed back to Prescott for dinner. We had heard there was a Golden Corral Buffet nearby, and we both like buffet dinners, so that's where we ate. After dinner it was back to the motel for a good night's sleep. When I got back to the motel I fired up the netbook, and the results from the Thursday Steel match were already on line. The guys at Prescott Action Shooters have definitely got it together!

Friday was planned to be a big day, starting out with a tour of the Ruger factory, followed with some sight-seeing. We also will need to get the race guns cleaned and checked over for the big match on Saturday.

Stay tuned.........

All Packed, Ready (?) to Hit The Road

KeeWee and I are all packed and ready to head out to Prescott, Arizona. We drive to the local grocery store parking lot, board a shuttle bus, and the shuttle takes us across the Clinton to Mukilteo ferry, and then drives us to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where we catch a flight to Phoenix. In Phoenix we rent a car, then drive to Prescott. We plan to take it easy on Thursday, visit the Ruger Factory on Friday, and shoot in the Arizona State Steel Challenge Championships on Saturday. On Sunday we will again take it easy and do a little sight-seeing. On Monday we reverse the route and fly home. Hopefully things will go smoothly, and we can actually get in a little vacationing on either side of the match.

I should have some internet access while we're in Prescott, so I may get a chance to blog a bit, who knows......

An Interesting Day......

Mount Rainier and a beautiful DC-3 at Thun Field.

The original plan was simple: on sunday morning we'd catch the 7:30 ferry to Mukilteo, then drive the hour and a half South to Puyallup and shoot the Paul Bunyan Steel Match. After the match we'd grab some lunch, then drive back to the ferry and then home. Right...........

Saturday afternoon, the day before, the Washington State ferry folks broke one of the 130 (approx) car ferries. Normally there are two ferries running every half hour each way. Instead of running the remaining ferry a bit faster and heading across as soon as the boat was loaded, they decided to stick to the one round trip per hour schedule, just as if the second boat was still running. Needless to say, cars were backed up for miles and it took many hours to finally get to the dock for the fifteen minute crossing. With that in mind, we decided to arrive at the ferry dock at least an hour in advance of the 7:30am trip, since the Sunday morning boats aren't usually too full, but with only one boat running they may be more full than usual. That plan worked fine, and we made the 7:30 run without problems, other than having to sit in the car on the ferry dock for longer than usual.

The drive to Puyallup was mostly uneventful, although I missed one of the exits due to a combination of fog, construction, and poor signage. At the next exit I was able to loop back around and get back to the correct exit and on our way. By the time we got to Puyallup the fog was starting to burn off, and it looked like we were in for a pretty nice Fall day, not a "Gully-Washer" lake last Saturday at Kitsap.

The Paul Bunyan steel matches are usually only five stages long, and the stage layout is always something different. Double-taps, triple-taps, five on the same plate, plates close together, plates spread out all over the place, you never know what to expect. This time there were a lot of medium difficulty size plates usually quite close together, and sometimes one "Orphan" plate off on one side or the other. All of the stages were very very fast. Since it is only five stages, they let you enter the same class twice with the same gun, or enter multiple classes with different guns so you can get in a lot of shooting. I entered Open class twice and KeeWee entered it once.  Interestingly, all rimfire pistols and all centerfire open guns (optic sights, compensators, etc) are all in the same class. Some of the regulars weren't there as they were of hunting deer as it was opening weekend. Even so ,we had approximately fifty guns entered, which isn't a bad turnout for this late in the year and the weather always being an unknown.

Scott and I had a lot of fun seeing who could get the fastest single run on each stage between us. Scott is an absolutely amazing shooter, and even though he was shooting a Glock 35 in .40 caliber, a much slower setup, our times were often within hundredths of a second apart. On a steel match this is a very bad strategy if you are trying to win, as when you throw caution to the wind trying for fast runs you also get a lot of slow runs mixed in as you tend to miss a lot and have to take extra shots. The strategy for winning is to try to get four good runs per stage first, then go for it on the fifth run knowing that if you mess it up it gets thrown out anyway. We were shooting most every run like it was our fifth run! Since fast misses are always more fun than slow hits, we had a lot of fun, but had a lot of misses, too!

It seemed like the match was over quickly, and our squad picked up all of the target stands and plates and carried them to the storage shed so the guys who set everything up wouldn't have to.

A lot of the scores had not yet been totaled, but I had a look at KeeWee and my scores, and KeeWee had done very well. When I said that they were fast stages, I wasn't exaggerating.  My total time on one of my entries was 45.01  seconds. That figures out to 9 seconds per stage, or 2.5 seconds per shot string. I wish I could get those sort of times on the full scale Steel Challenge stages! Since all of the scores hadn't been totaled, I have no idea where I finished, but we sure did have a lot of fun flingin' lead downrange!

After the match we stopped at the restaurant at Puyallup/Thun Field for lunch and airplane watching. If you enjoy watching airplanes, the restaurant at Thun field is outstanding. Just outside the picture windows is the gas pump, a tie=down area, and just beyond that is the taxiway and runway. In addition to the usual Pipers and Cessnas, there was an amazing variety of aircraft of all types coming, gassing up, and departing. There were several RV's, a Navion, a Stearman, a J3 Cub, a Super Cub, A Pitts s1-S, a ten or twelve passenger twin turbo-prop, and more. Parked in from was a beautiful DC-3. Last month we watched a Helio-Courier land, re-fuel, and levitate back out. Truly a great spot to eat and watch airplanes!

  After lunch we drove back to Mukilteo to catch the ferry back to Whidbey Island and home.  We had no idea how long it would take to get back to Whidbey, but it was approximately two hours to drive North, get on to Whidbey across the Deception Pass bridge, and then drive the length of Whidbey to get back home. There is a cell phone info access number for the ferry system, and that said it would be a two hour wait to get to a ferry. I'd just as soon wait the two hours as spend it driving, so we decided to get in line. The ticket seller figured it would be about two hours too. The ferry system had added a second boat to help, but it only carried thirty cars, so it would help a little bit, but not a lot.

After we had been in line for about an hour they announced that the second big ferry had also broken down, and we were now down to one ferry with a 30 car per hour capacity. I did a quick estimate, and I figured there were at least 300 cars in line and perhaps 150 of them were ahead of us. The two hour drive was looking better all the time! Unfortunately we were solidly boxed in, so getting out at all was a problem. Some of the cars started shifting around, and a few cars got out to drive around. I figured once we got clear, we'd probably do the same. After a bit, though, they announced that the big ferry was back in service, as they were able to fix whatever had gone wrong. About 15 minutes later the big ferry docked, and they started loading. To our relief, we were able to get on board, and fifteen minutes later we were back on Whidbey. Fifteen minutes after that we were home.

If the Swiss can build a 35 mile long tunnel under the Alps, why can't we build a three mile long tunnel (or bridge) from Whidbey to the mainland?

Steel Challenge Championships - Off we Go!

Tomorrow KeeWee and I board a shuttle bus for the ride from Whidbey Island to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, AKA SEATAC, for our flight to Burbank, California. Once in Burbank we will rent a car and drive about a half an hour North to Valencia, California, where we will be spending Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights. On Thursday I will shoot in the Rimfire Division Steel Challenge world Championships. Friday KeeWee and I will hang out at the range and watch the competition. Friday evening is the Steel Challenge Dinner at the Hotel, and Saturday morning we fly home. I may or may not get much chance to blog from California, but I will have my netbook with me, so it's a possibility.

I better go finish packing.............................

Idaho Steel Challenge Championships Report

KeeWee and I left for Coeur d'Alene, Idaho last Friday morning, and about six and a half hours later we pulled in to the Range grounds near Fernan, idaho, where we would spend the night. The range is situated in a beautiful valley in the midst of Idaho mountains and wilderness. The scenery is spectacular, with mountains rising straight up from the valley floor.

When we parked at the range for the night after our drive to Idaho, the Toyota motor started to idle really rough. At any throttle position above idle it ran perfectly. I figured that even though I had cold tanked the carburetor when I rebuilt it several thousand miles ago, perhaps a small piece of junk hadn't come loose, and now it had decided to block one of the idle passages. The new carburetor cleaner solutions, thanks to the EPA, aren't nearly as effective as they used to be, so that's entirely possible. Anyhow, it was still running, and it should still get us home, even if it didn't idle very well.

Saturday morning dawned partly cloudy, and there had even been a little rain and wind during the night. The forecast was for a bit cooler than average temperatures, and that would sure be nice, as it can get miserable from the heat at the Fernan range. As folks started arriving, it was great to see and visit with folks we hadn't seen since last year. We attended a short shooters meeting, and then it was off to the races, so to speak.

We were on a squad with a great bunch of folks, including the to young lads who had shot so well a few of weeks ago at Yakima, and their proud father. The match went smoothly, and after the first four stages were completed we broke for lunch. After lunch we shot the remaining stages. It seemed like the match went quickly.

After the match we gathered in the large covered shooting area on the rifle range and waited for the results to come out. As we were waiting, Mel and Chris Byrne, proprietors of the the Anarchangel blog, now new residents of Sand Point, Idaho, pulled in. Sand Point is not too far from the range, so they stopped by for a visit, and for dinner after the match was over. We visited for a while, and then the awards presentations began.

I had shot the match fairly conservatively, and tried really hard to make sure I didn't try to shoot too fast and end up slower because of having to take follow-up shots, or worse yet, take a penalty for a missed plate. KeeWee shot a solid match, with only a few bobbles along the way, but nothing major.

When the results were announced, it turned out that I had the second fastest score of the day, but the fastest score was also shot by a rimfire shooter, I ended up 2nd. in Rimfire, and Top Super Senior. The shooter that beat me, however, was 44 years younger than me, so we'll see how fast he is 44 years from now! KeeWee was 7th in Rimfire, and was the Top Lady overall.

After the awards we fired up the RV and followed Mel and Chris to the Wolf Lodge steak house on Highway I-90 just East of Coeur d'Alene. If you are ever in the area, this place is an absolute must. It was one of the best steaks I've ever had. Be sure to make reservations if you can, as the place is packed.

After a great dinner and dinner conversation, we fired up the RV to head home, or at least, get as far as we can, so we can complete the drive on Sunday morning. To my surprise, it fired right up and idled perfectly. Apparently the piece of junk had dislodged itself, and things were back to normal. WHEW!

WE drove as far as Cle Elum, Washington, and got some sleep at a rest area there. Sunday morning it was an easy drive home. Road weary, but glad to be home...............

Banks Lake Weekend Report

Once again KeeWee has taken all the good pictures and got her post up before I got anything at all posted. The best news of the whole trip was that the RV, and particularly the rebuilt engine, ran perfectly all weekend. I still wish it had another hundred cubic inches  for getting over the mountain passes, other than that I couldn't be happier with it. Our six and a half hour drive each way across the North Cascades Highway was spectacular. It looked like there was quite a bit more snow than usual for this time of year. KeeWee has a spectacular slide show on her blog, and if you've never been across the Highway 20 North Cascades before, it's something to see.

Once we reached Banks Lake and Coulee Playland Resort we launched the boat and pulled it up on the beach directly in front of our campsite. Then we parked the boat trailer and the RV in our campsite and hooked up shore power. The wind was blowing harder than I liked, so I decided to kick back and see if the wind dropped off by evening. It didn't, but I took a nap instead.

Friday we just took it easy, but I did get in a little fishing, picking up and releasing a couple of small mouth bass. Grand Coulee Dam was pumping a lit of cold Columbia river water in and out of Banks lake, so the North end of the lake was running around 54 or 55 degrees. When it's that cold the bass fishing suffers as the fish are either lethargic, or have headed farther down the lake in search of warmer waters. Half way down the lake near Steamboat Rock (approximately 15 miles?) the water temperature was nearer to 65 or 66 degrees, and fishing was lively. With my 12' boat that was farther than I wanted to go, considering just how quickly Banks lake can get dangerous if the wind comes up suddenly, and it DOES come up suddenly there!

Saturday we spent most of the day on the water, both casting for bass, and catching a few, and trolling for Walleye. I hooked one walleye, but it was 3/8" too short to keep, which was OK as I really didn't want to clean fish anyway. We also picked up a few small yellow perch trolling for the walleyes, but they were small so we put them back to grow some more for next year.

Saturday afternoon our fishing club had a potluck dinner, and the food was wonderful. Everyone was stuffed beyond what a sensible person would have eaten! Saturday evening I got back out for a little more fishing, but the North end of the lake was still slow, and I only caught one bass. The fishing was fun, even if the catching was slow.

Sunday morning we loaded the boat back onto the trailer, hitched the trailer to the RV, and drop the six and a half hours back over the North Cascades to home. We put the boat back into the barn, and shortly thereafter were sound asleep. I did manage to get in some quality bunny lap sitting and petting with Bun, though, as she missed us and was glad to see us back home again, however, before zonking out for the night. Driving the RV across the winding North Cascades highway on a gusty and windy day was a cross between herding mice and wrestling with a small grizzly bear, and I was bushed. Bed felt good.................

Seems It's Always Something......

There's a saying about living in interesting times, and this last weekend certainly qualifies. While driving back from the Man of Steel Championships a few weeks ago I noticed a very slight hesitation in the engine, but only at the end of a long hill on the freeway at close to 70 MPH, far faster than I should have been running the brand new engine. It sounded a little like it was running out of gas, like maybe a fuel pump or fuel filter was in need of replacement. Since I was supposed to be breaking in the engine anyway, I decided to just take it easy on the trip to Eastern Washington for the Washington State Steel Challenge Championships held last Saturday in Ephrata.

The engine ran quite well for most of the trip, but as we were nearing Ephrata is was getting a bit worse, so I stopped at an auto supply and asked for a fuel filter and a new fuel pump. They were out of fuel filters, but the pump was in stock, so I bought it and we headed to the campground where we were planning on spending the night before and the night after the Championships. The fuel pump on the Toyota 22R motor is on the right side of the cylinder head and right in front, so it's really easy to change. Installing the new pump took less than half an hour, counting clean up and putting the tools away. I ran it for a while and it seemed to be just fine. Saturday morning we drove it over to the match and back, and again it ran perfectly, although we didn't get up much over 45 MPH.

Sunday morning we packed up and headed home, but within the first mile it started acting like it was not getting enough fuel. We limped a few miles farther and it started to rapidly get worse, so we limped back to Ephrata. By then it was running terrible. I stopped at another auto parts store and they had the fuel filter in stock. As easy as the fuel pump was to reach, the fuel filter was just the opposite. The fuel pump is underneath and in back near the fuel tank, and up on top of the frame where you can barely see it, let alone reach it. As it always seems to go, the beautiful 70+ degree weather of the day before had deteriorated into steady rain. I resigned myself to getting soaked, and slid under the RV, flashlight in hand to find, and hopefully replace the fuel filter. Whoever designed this fuel filtering setup, however, did have his brain in gear, as the inlet and outlet fuel lines were both flexible rubber, and long enough that you could un-snap the filter from its retaining bracket, allowing the filter to be dropped down low enough that you could just barely reach the fuel line clamps to loosen them, and then to move the fuel lines to the new filter. Of course, I was doing this by flashlight, lying in a pool of water, with muddy water from the underside of the RV dripping in my face. Finally I managed to get the lines swapped onto the new filter, the clamps back in place,  and get it snapped into the bracket. I blew through the old filter to see just how plugged it might be. I was hoping it was really plugged so I'd know that was the problem. It seemed a little bit plugged, but not really blocked. I hoped it was plugged enough to be the problem.

We headed back out of town listening for any sounds of fuel starvation. It seemed to be running pretty well, but there were a couple of huge hills that we would have to climb, and that would be the big test. Once we reached the I-90 freeway and got up to freeway speeds it was obvious that it was running quite well, far better than before I changed the filter. Climbing the I-90 grade out of the Columbia River Gorge at Vantage was the big test, and it climbed it without any problem. The new (well, rebuilt) motor was running strong and smooth, just like it should. WHEW..................

Good thing, too, as next weekend we are heading back to Eastern Washington to do some Bass fishing, and this time we'll be pulling the boat, so we need all the engine power we can get!!

Off To The Washington State Championships

It's Friday morning and KeeWee and I are just about to head East to Ephrata, Washington for the Washington State Steel Challenge Championships. It's one ferry boat ride and about five hours on the road to get there, so that's not too bad. Our route takes us across Snoqualmie Pass, so our new motor in our "Land Yacht" will get a bit of a test, but it seems to be running well, so it should be fine.

We have reservations at a really nice RV park in Ephrata for Friday and Saturday nights. The RV park has WiFi, so I'm taking the netbook along in case we get a chance to do a blog post or so. Some folks from the Kitsap Club are staying at the same place, so we'll probably burn a few hotdogs and set fire to some marshmellows, weather permitting, of course.

I'll try to post once we get there, WiFi permitting.......

Home - At Last

We are now home, ! We have finally arrived home, and what a trip it was! Although  it was a bit of a mess at times with the security guys at Schiphol not knowing their own laws and making them up at the time instead. Even though I had documentation direct from the Dutch Customs office showing them what the laws were, they wouldn't believe me until they telephoned several other offices,and wasting a lot of time, in the process. Eventually they figured out that what I was telling them was true. We barely made the plane, but we did manage. I think Jennifer and I both caught colds again this year, and she is still a bit sore from falling off a bicycle. All considered, though, it was still a grand time we had!

More later, time to recover for now.................

Getting Home, Maybe?

That large terrestrial zit in Iceland has farted again and yesterday's flight from Amsterdam to Seattle was canceled, leaving most likely several hundred passengers stuck in Amsterdam and hoping to get on to Tuesday's flight, which is the flight we are scheduled to return on to Seattle. I have no idea just how Delta/KLM/Northworst will handle this. If they claim it is an act of God that they cannot fly the trip they may be able to avoid any compensation with our extra (and significant) expenses of staying longer and catching a later flight. However, the volcano is not really keeping them from making the flight, it is only keeping them from flying on the shortest route, so they would have higher fuel cost and flight times. To make it even more interesting, the Delta/KLM/Northworst online flight check in system is not working, and you cannot check in by telephone, only on line or at the airport. When I was out of town did our Govmt. take over the airlines and put the Post Office in charge? It kinda looks like it.However it plays out, the 36 to 48 hours are probably going to be really interesting.

For the time being there are still a large number of un-roped goats and clusters seeking intimate companionship.......

Prescott, AZ Steel Challenge

I've barely got rested up from the Gun Blogger Rendezvous in Reno, haven't got any of the pictures posted yet from Reno, and I'm already planning my next shooting expedition.

On October 24th, a Saturday, there will be an eight stage Steel Challenge Match in Prescott, AZ. I've never been there, but the weather should be pleasant, and I've got a few frequent flier miles to use, so why not?

Plans are to fly into Phoenix mid-day on the Friday 23rd, rent a car at the airport, then drive to a motel in Prescott. Saturday night after the match I plan to kill some time in Prescott, then drive to Phoenix and catch a red-eye home early Sunday morning.

If any of you are within a reasonable driving distance of Prescott, why not come and shoot a Steel Match with us? I'll get more info on the match in a later post, but for now I'm curious if there is anyone in the Prescott area I can correspond with about arranging a motel and finding a place to eat. If you can help, drop me an email at blog(at)whidbey(dot)com.

Thanks!

Driving Thru SoCal With Guns? Read This.....

If you are driving up or down the Coast to get to Reno and the Gun Blogger Rendezvous, David at Random Nuclear Strikes has some good advice regarding routes and some areas to avoid due to local firearms laws. Be sure to check the comments too, as there's a lot more good advice there.

We've Arrived in California

All of the travel went exactly as planned. To give credit where credit is due, the TSA guys were excellent and professional, ticket agents, not so much, but no problems really. We got a Chebby HHR, which seems to be sort of a PT Cruiser competitor. It seems to drive OK, the air conditioning works well (YAY!), and it keeps up with traffic. Horsepower doesn't exactly roll your socks up and down, but it's adequate.

We grabbed a bite to eat once we got checked in, then I unpacked the stuff and set up the range bag for tomorrow. Tomorrow's the big day for rimfire and I start shooting around 8am.

Time to get some sleep..................