8/24/10

OK, so Saturday evening I spent fingering out what guns I wanted to take with me to my brother-in-law Lester’s deer hunting lease. I decided on Mossy, the two Storms, the 7.62x39 Saiga, and the Auto 5 12 gauge. Next I loaded, so to speak, the range bag with ammo. I had 200 rounds of 9mm, 200 rounds of 7.62x39, twenty five rounds of 12 gauge, and thirty rounds of .410 shells. Oh, as for the 9mm, I also had the ten magazines full of ammo for an additional 170 rounds and one in the chamber of Pixie. I also stuck Pixie's shoulder holster in the range bag, just in case. Sunday morning I loaded all that stuff into Fifi and headed to Weatherford. Lester arrived and we transferred my guns into his truck. We rolled west. We kept going west. Eventually we took the Strawn DeLeon exit and headed north. In Strawn we stopped to pee and get something to drink. We headed north(ish) again. After a few weeks of travel, we hit Breckenridge... and kept going. Eventually we turned off the road into a ranch. We drove back into there for a bit and stopped at the camp. It consisted of a shack and three travel trailers, caravans to those across the pond. From there we went to talk to the owners of the land and then set to work checking out the feeders and blinds. Once Lester was happy with the work which needed doing, we found a spot to shoot. He had just bought a new Ruger LCP .380 for my sister and a Kel-Tek 9mm for himself. He wanted to try them out. While we were looking at the Brazos river, he popped off a magazine full of .380 rounds. I was not ready. My ears rang for a moment while I put in my plugs then I popped off a few rounds from the Space Gun. Oh, I forgot to mention this part. When we left the owner’s home and started looking at feeders, Lester told me to grab my “Reach out and touch them” gun. I chose the Space Gun. I hooked up the tactical sling and the gun hung perfectly under my right arm with the grip just in my hand. Lester was impressed with the look. I also had Pixie in the shoulder holster by the way. I was quite the commando. So, back to the shoosting. Lester set up a feed bag with a target printed on it and we shot it up. Another bag was set up and I switched to the Auto 5. I loaded up four shells and racked the first into the chamber. I was a bit nervous but confident that my tuning of the friction rings would solve the recoil issue Linda and Lester complained about with this gun. Yeah, it did not. KA-BLAM! The thing smacked my shoulder and peppered the bag. KA-BLAM! Another shot rang out. I could hear Lester behind me laughing. After the third round I heard him say, “That thing’s really kicking!” I finished off the magazine and went to look at the bag. Oh yeah, he’s dead. Next I took out Mossy, the .410 pump gun. I popped off the five slug shells at a Mountain Dew bottle and made it dance around. When I inspected it however, not a single hole in the bottle. I loaded up five birdshot shells and hit it again. It danced around and this time I peppered it good. Next I grabbed the Saiga. I shot a five-round mag into a fresh feed bag and then had a look. Lester wanted me to step back to a more realistic range and try again. To be honest, I don't know if I even hit the bag at the farther range. I did enjoy shooting the weapon though. I was in “plinker” mode rather than “practice hunting” mode so I didn't really care. We packed up the guns and headed back to close up the camp. He had me drive back to Mary’s in Strawn where we had dinner. Don't order the large chicken fried steak unless you want to have CFS for the next three meals. It was ludicrously big. I ate about 2/3 of it and took the rest to mom. From Mary’s we drove back to Weatherford where I moved my guns back into Fifi. I headed home and did a cursory cleaning/inspection of the guns I fired then wasted the rest of the evening. So, there you have it. I have another subject to bring up tomorrow but it will have to wait until then.