Blogger Blastorama - After Action Report

After a wonderful breakfast at the Clover Patch Cafe, complete with a enthusiastic BS session over the breakfast table, we headed out to the CWSA range.

First stop was the bowling pin range. We set up an assortment of full size pins and pin tops just to get warmed up.

After we'd shot a few tables, we set up full size pins on the back edge of the tables for KeeWee and AnalogKid to have at it, two out of three. KeeWee beat him two tables straight!

To be fair, however, AK was shooting with iron sights, and KeeWee was using a red dot on top of her Beretta Neos. The red dot sights are enough of an advantage, at least when speed is the name of the game, that in pin shoots we put them in separate classes. Once AK gets a red dot onto his 22/45, we'll have to try this again.

Then KeeWee took on Mollbot, and three close tables later, Mollbot was the victor, but not by much!

To wrap up our bowling pin shooting for the day, JimP faced Mollbot, and JimP jumped all over him, as Jim is prone to do.

Keep an eye on Mollbot, however, as he'd never shot pins before, and with a little practice is going to be really tough to beat!

Jim and Mollbot shooting for king of the mountain. Mr. C. running the timer.

Next stop was the handgun range to do a little "Punkin Blastin'!" Mr. C. decided to carve a Jack-o-lantern with his .22 High Standard pin gun!

Here's some of the punkins set up on the shooting stands.

Mollbot, Mr. C., and JimP sending a lot of lead down range towards the punkins! The .22's punched neat little holes in the punkins, the .38's and 9mm.'s punched bigger holes, .357 Magnum hollow points blew big chunks out of the punkins, and .44 Magnum hollow points, well, the punkins sorta exploded! Great fun!

Here's some of the punkin chunks that were actually intact enough that they could be picked up. Most of them were in little pieces scattered all over the place.

Next stop was the rifle range. We were starting to run out of daylight, but plenty to get in some more shooting, this time at a longer range. Now the wind was giving us some pretty good gusts at right angles to the range. Not too big a deal with a .308, sort of a deal with the 22-250, and a definite concern with .22s. We set up some punkins at 100 yards and 200 yards, and taped up some 3/4" square pool cue chalks at 100 yards.

Mollbot and AnalogKid, along with AK's custom Boomershoot rifle.

AK on the 22-250, and MB shooting the Boomershooter.

The Boomershooter had no trouble hitting the punkins at all ranges, and the pool chalks, although a little harder, still weren't too much of a test. The 22-250 had to work a lot harder, but acquitted itself well.

I didn't have anything in the way of a scoped up rifle, but I DID have a 12" barrel for my High Standard .22 bowling pin handgun fitted with a Leupold 2.5x9 scope, so I swapped out barrels, and decided to give it the old college try. To my amazement, I hit a 100 yard punkin on my first shot! WOO HOO! I was sighted in for 50 yards, and shooting a couple of inches high was about right. The chalks, however, were really tough! A 3/4 inch target at 100 yards with a .22 handgun in a gusty wind, turns it more into a matter of luck, but I did actually manage to hit two of them! You get a nice cloud of blue chalk dust when you hit them. Also very cool!

By now it was getting dark and fingers and toes were getting cold, so we cleaned up all the pumpkin pieces, goo, and seeds, and headed home.

What fun! You shoulda been there!