Went up to Dave's place and did some shootin' this mornin'.

Even ol' Red had more sense than to go out in the summer heat, but we were on a mission.



It was gonna be hot today (it's hovering around 100 as I type this), so we decided to start the shoot early. I got up to Dave's place, northwest of Gatesville, around 8:30 AM.



By the time the other guys got there and we started to head out to his back 40 it was 80 degrees and rising, in of the shade of his porch. But, again, we were on a mission.



My reason for coming was to finally get a chance to shoot my AR-15. I've had it for months, but haven't had a chance to throw any lead, so I was lookin' forward to it.



I also wanted to see some of my friends more recent acquisitions. My buddy Joe Reeves here had recently picked up his class 3 papers and a sawed off 12 gage. Note the chest rig of shells. There flechete and friggin' flamethrower shells in there. Lets just say... he's a bit overzealous, but he means well. He's also got a brand new M-4 carbine there that he'd yet to shoot. So it was gonna be a fun day, even if we'd end up sweatin' like slaves by the end of it.



Another friend, and another Joe, Joe Walker, had a new Civil War cavalry carbine to try out. And when I say "new", I mean new to him. It's a fifty caliber Maynard cavalry carbine. I think he said he payed $1300 for it. Some Yankee cavalry soldier used this thing in the war.



Joe had had to clean it up so that it would fire, so this was his day to test it.



It worked beautifully. We all got to take turns with it. I really enjoyed handlin' such a cool piece of history.



Joe and Dave worked on it, tryin' to figure out how to shoot it strait. The sights are offset a bit, so it's kinda weird.



I blasted away with it. Huge fun. A friggin' .50 that's the size of a kids bb gun. Amazing.



The think I really love is how these old guns break open. If I ever have the money I might need to let my collection drift in this direction.



While Joe worked on his carbine, Dave took out his .357 and started blasting away with it. Again, we all took a turn.



Joe Walker had another little pistol he wanted to shoot. I love that 'birds head" grip. It fit's so well in my hand.



Of course, the time eventually came for me to take "it" out. Now, get your mind out of the gutter!



We were puzzled a bit when the first two rounds failed to go off. We decided that the firing pin might have been stuck from sitting on a shelf for a while. Who knows? Anyway, I pulled back on the charging handle and let it slam back harder into the gun, and from the third round on it blasted away like a charm. And it produced a decent palm sized group, with a few stragglers here and there. I was happy. Very happy.

But we were all interested in seein' that sawed-off in action.



I was inspired to strike a pose... my Bruno pose. Joe took it up close to the targets and I got the following action on video. Sorry, no sound, but you can imagine for yourself what it was like.



He let me have a go too, but I decided to shred some rocks and trees in stead of doing any more damage to Dave's back stop. It was fun, but I think I prefer to fold up my AK and blast away with it. You know, home protection!



Then Joe blasted away a bit with his M-4. I think he emptied a clip. You know, just a bit overzealous. Aw hell, I tossed a new clip in mine and we killed some rocks and bushes. That shit is FUN, and it'd be even more fun if we got the local Sheriffs deputies to drive by again like we did the last time we were here. I need to get that stuff on film. Too funny.



Eventually even Dave took a turn with my AR. He even looked a bit more authentic, with the Boony hat and sweat soaked green shirt. He almost looks like a "Victor Charley", accept for the jeans and hearing protection. I don't guess they used that stuff back in the day.



By the time we got back to Dave's place the heat had gone up to about 90 in the shade of his porch, but the thermometer in my car said 98. Yea, it was hot.



We sat around in the shade for a bit, and Dave showed off his M-1 carbines. He's taken great care to see to it that they are authentic, with the correct parts and stocks. He's got two... one made by Winchester and the other made by... I think it's Inland. Not sure. Anyway, he's got a wealth of knowledge about these things, so I always take his word for it.

Anyway, by the time I drove home and started workin' on these pictures I was beat. It's amazing how the heat takes it right out of ya. But I've got to go. Gotta go to the store and get some pork chops for dinner. Bein' off from work like I am I've become the kitchen bitch. And you know, I loves it. It's fun as hell.

So, you guys enjoy the pictures and I'll chat with ya later. Cheers!

Shootin' at Daves, and other stuff.

Went up to Gatesville, or really up west of Gatesville last Sunday and blasted away for a few hours with a few friends. Let's say we were celebrating our constitutional right to piss off a hell of a lot of scared liberals. You might say we were celebrating a last hurrah.



Looks like a mug shot, don't it? Maybe the James Gang, in better times.

God knows how long folks like us will continue to enjoy the right to get together in a field, as generations of our forefathers have done, and practice with our guns. We might soon be beaten down and "civilized", like our British cousins.

I was there a while back, about 2003. I stepped into a gun store in Sheffield, just to see what they had. It was sad. Nothing there but BB Guns, non firing replicas and toys! Sad, to see what these formerly free people have been reduced to. Sad, to think that this new government of ours, which publicly celebrates individual liberty and the individual "right to choose", doesn't trust it's own citizens enough to allow them unfettered access to the very power that average citizens once used to assert American Independence and sovereignty.

I'd bet good money that the leaders of the modern left, if transported back to 1775, would be riding out into the back country of Massachusetts to beg the colonists to pay their taxes, telling them it was their patriotic duty to submit to government authority, and help the Redcoats confiscate the arms of the patriot resistance. And now these nutless wonders run our country? Sad indeed!

But, it's not like the Right hasn't handed them all the ammunition they need to take over. It couldn't have happened without the corruption, mismanagement, and ineptitude of the Republicans in Congress, and the mismanagement of the Bush administration... amplified out of proportion, of course, but the regular rants of the media. They sowed the seeds of their own destruction. And we all were complicit, failing to stand up and shout "NO" when the Republicans outspent the Democrats and failed to live up to their own stated principals.

So, with nothing else left to do, resigned to the "change" that's rolling our way, my buddies and I went out Sunday to keep the faith with our forefathers. We filled the air with lead, and let a few war whoops fly. Maybe a few Rebel Yells too. And when the gun grabbers come, we won't give up these rights as easily, as sheepishly and our British brothers did, or the Canadians, or the Aussies. This is Texas, mother fucker! We don't play that shit here!

Having said all that, I've got to say that I'm proud as hell to see my country, 40 years after Martin Luther King's assassination, electing our first Biracial President. It does make me feel good. It makes me feel good about my own people, like we've moved on from a horrific and repressive past. So God bless this country, and it's resilience, and our new Executive. And please God, grant him the wisdom to know, as so few in our government on ether side of the aisle seem to know... that there is a HUGE difference between what you CAN do, and what you SHOULD do!

God bless this system of ours, with all of it's flaws. It's still better than most others I can think of. Still... but the time is coming I fear when I may not be able to say that any more.

Anyway, rant over. Here's some shots of the fellas and I out blastin' away.



This is Dave, our host, taking a turn with one of the pistols that materialized when we all got there and unloaded our toys. I think it was a .357 Magnum. Kicked like a mule.

This is Dally, loading his Civil War musket with a mini ball. He's the guy that makes all the Civil War loads for these shoots. Works on them at home. All perfect replicas of English Enfield rounds.



Eventually, Belknap (that's the other little fellow there behind me) and I took out our Tokarev SVT-40s and started blasting away. His son (the kid with the western holsters below) set up a good sized rock next to the paper targets and we proceeded to blast it into pebbles.

Then his son took a turn with my rifle. Love that rifle. Fun to shoot.

Well, that was our fun. Lets hope we can continue to do this sort of thing in the future. Cheers!

Shootin' Civil War muskets and my new M-1 last Sunday.

Dave told me weekend before last when we'd driven up to Dallas to a gun show that some of his Civil War reenactor buddies were comin' down the next weekend to shoot and that I should show up. Bring my M-1 and show it off. In the meantime he'd rebuilt the shooting range, nailing a new board up to staple targets to in front of that pile of old ties, and he'd set up a table to shoot off of at the 50 yard spot. I was glad to see the place spruced up.

The human shape on the far left sometimes gets dressed in old jeans and a blue shirt, so the guys can get a few shots off at a Yankee. The steel targets to the right of that swivel when you hit them. Their musket balls flatten when they hit them, while my modern stuff just goes through. We ended up tearin' the hell out of that little disk. Had it swayin' all afternoon. Dave and his dad built this range just after buyin' this land back in the late 1960s. It's a great place to blast away. Fun times.



This bunch of barely reconstructed Confederates even set up a cardboard figure of Uncle Sam holding a government check, telling me "That's old Abe." I just shook my head and mumbled "That's just wrong!", and then Joe here said "I like to think it's the IRS when I shoot at it, and I understood completely. Still didn't shoot at it though. Wrong.

These guys have traced their family histories back and know the battles their Confederate ancestors fought and died in, so it's still a bit personal to them. I guess if they'd won that war the feelings would have diminished by now, but it hasn't. Their knowledge about that time is voluminous, and sometimes I think they take things a bit too seriously. They all portray union troops as well as confederates in their reenactments, but you know from being around them for any length of time where their hearts are. Generally though, it's all in good fun and humor. Once, arriving at Dave's place to shoot after he'd returned from a reenactment, I found him in a Union uniform. I asked him if that was his outfit and he said "only when I'm playin' a target!"

The guy above is Joe Walker. He's retired, about 61, and served in the Navy during Vietnam. He served among other places on the USS Ranger, which is the aircraft carrier that I lived on and taught on a few times in the early 1990s. We have a lot of laughs telling one another stories from those times.

He likes to tell stories about going up north to business meetings back when he was still working. he says that all the Northern guys would behave way too serious, while all the Southern guys would be over on one end of the room cutting up. He thinks that is indicative of some basic difference between Northerners and Southerners. I think there is a difference, but I'm not sure how pronounced it is. I know it did take a while for me to get used to hangin' out with my Yankee cousin in Pennsylvania. Their sense of humor was totally different. I got used to it eventually, getting past the desire to punch someone, and now it's no big deal.



That's my M-1 there, on my bench rest, on the new shooting table Dave nailed together and set up for us to shoot from. Ain't it purdy?



That's Joe shooting, while the other guys reload. I tell ya, this sort of shooting is really fun. The gear is too cool. I don't see myself becoming a reenactor, but the gear makes me want to start collectin' muskets.



One of the guys makes rounds and wads for the muskets that are historically accurate. He makes a batch in different calibers, in different styles typical of Enfields or Springfields, some with "Minnie Balls" and some in "Buck and Ball", and then they shoot them up. I think he sells them at their reenactments. Anyway, like I said, these guys knowledge of the gear and times is unbelievable.



Here's Dave shooting my Garand. After these guys shot for about an hour I brought her out and took a few shots. I got the small round swinging metal target swingin' with a few shots. Thinkin' I should probably quit while I was ahead, I handed it to one of the guys sayin' "Take a turn", and then he handed it to another. They all looked closely at it, oooin' and aaain', and all agreed that it's a very nice specimen, and that I'm lucky to have it. It was fun to let them blast away, and to take a turn with their muskets too. I'm gonna have to pick up one of those sometime soon. Shootin' one is just too fun.

We'll do it again.