Tuesdays Range Report
A good day at the range: When the gun smoke finally clears, it reveals a group of otherwise sensible & responsible adults, tooled up to billyo, surrounded by mountains of spent brass, collectively smirking like schoolboys.… & Tuesday was one of those days.
It all started sensibly enough on Bisley’s Melville Range, zeroing weapons & generally warming things up & that lasted for … well it must have been at least 10 minutes. Suddenly the Ruger 1022s were broken out, along with 25 round Butler Creek magazines & in the words of my old CSM, it was time to “get some fooooking rounds down”.
On the ‘advancing man’ lanes, targets start out at 25 yrds & advance towards you as you blaze away like a Mexican anti-aircraft battery. Sadly, the video didn’t really come out that well so I haven’t posted it; suffice to say, I reckon that with my Evolution 1022, I think I could get through 50 rounds in the time available … so I promise to take a better camera to the next shoot.
Now I could bather on about the number of targets that were shredded etc etc I suspect what you chaps want to know about what we got up to later on in the day … & with what
After a quick car park lunch (soup & pasties) it was off to Short Siberia to play with the bigger stuff. Now, I dont for a moment kid myself that you chaps want to hear about how consistent my Remington 700 was
Far from it, I expect what you would like to know about it what happened when a load of over grown schoolboys got the grubbies on a load of buffalo guns!
Firstly, we have done the whole wood v plastic thing before & so wont go there this morning. Secondly, I am a little hazy as to what is was we were actually shooting, but I think they included a Trapdoor Springfield (apparently some grown men go misty eyed at the very mention of that name), a very very old Marlin in .32 cal & two other big b'stard brutes whose names currently escape me
Now, I have never shot black powder before (other than cap & ball revolvers) but it has always struck be that those guys generally seem to be having enormous amounts of fun* - that is when you can see them as they spend most of their range time shrouded in clouds of thick black smoke.
Anyway, aside for the .32, the other two calibres we shot were .577 & .45-70. To give you some idea of how large the ammo is, pictured below is a .45-70 compared to a 7.62 NATO round.
This stuff is frigging enormous & boy oh boy ... does it ever go BANG!
Needless to say, The Englishman ( who has posted some more clips here )was so completely in his element with all of these old firearms that he even put his beloved Lee Metford away for 5 minutes & spent the rest of the afternoon...
errr grinning. In fact he was caught creeping into Fultons later on in the day to eye up an antique Winchester .44-40. Give me a few weeks dear readers, it normally doesnt take me long to talk him into buying anything old. (Englishman, you know it makes sense!) Anyway, thats about it really, other than to say we will be doing it all again, probably sometime in early Feb. Any takers out there?
* Fun & Firearms: yes we have FUN, huge amounts of it, when we play with guns. Its one of the many reasons that the GFWs hate us so much.
Comments
Sounds like lots of fun.
At least one of the old rifles looks very much like an 1874 Sharps (the one in the picture to the right of the Winchester lever action).
Blackpowder is great; almost all my shooting for the past 10 years has been blackpowder, mostly flintlock. I'm still not fully convinced that the percussion cap isn't just a passing fad.
Although as soon as the rain quits here, I'm off to compare a half dozen or so .22LR match loads through my newish benchrest rifle.
Posted by: steveH | December 22, 2006 3:28 AM
Next year when we come over, it's Bisley. That looks like FAR too much fun.
Maybe I could even be persuaded to bring a rifle or two of my own...
Posted by: Kim du Toit | December 23, 2006 3:06 PM