6/3/13

I seem to recall a typo or some other error Thursday but I'm not going back to see what it was.  Friday I had to drive mom to Round Rock for my niece’s high school graduation.  We picked up my aunt “on the way.”  I turned to the west on the I-20 access road thinking I would jump on the east-bound entrance just up from her neighborhood.  “Oh good!” she said from the back seat.  “I’m glad we’re not taking I-35 down.”  I expressed my confusion and ‘splained what I was doing.  She and mom said there was a back road way to Austin so I shrugged and we went that way.  And I've just decided that that story is way too boring.  I'll give the Reader’s Digest Convinced Virgin: I almost missed the exit from I-20, we stopped in Hamilton to pee, we stopped in Lampasas for lunch, we got to my brother’s house, I went to the venue with my sister-in-law and two nieces, we sat, we were joined by the rest of the group, we sat through the ceremony, we waited outside for Madeline, we went to dinner, we drove home… the end.  I sent John a text asking what the plan for Saturday was to be but didn’t hear back before I went to bed.  Saturday morning I sent him another saying something to the effect of, “I am going to poop, shave my teeth, insert my eyes, and head to the shop.”  He replied back something like, “Samantha’s sick.  Let me see if I have to stay home.”  I immediately began making other plans.  I packed up the 7.62x39 Kushnapup, all eight 30-round magazines, and 160 rounds of ammo.  I fingered I would go to the range and sight in the new optic… after we did the shop, if it were still on.  It was not.  I rolled out thinking I'd swing by the Beenbroke shop to make sure once more that it was ok for us to store stuff there, and then I'd head to the range.  I took a long hoon to get to the shop.  There I had a look at the place and spoke to the lady at the office.  Apparently everything is still cool.  I headed to Winchester Gallery.  I signed in and went into the firing line.  I set my target and took a few shots.  I was low and to the right.  Now, usually optics have a little arrow and either “Up” or “Down” on the vertical adjuster and an arrow and either “Left” or “Right” on the horizontal adjuster.  Well, this optic had an “Up” and a “Left” but no arrows.  I had no idea which way to turn the adjusters.  I turned the vertical a few clicks and took three more shots.  I went the correct direction!  I should have left well enough alone since the horizontal wasn’t that far off… but I didn’t.  I adjusted it and that was when I got lost.  I couldn’t tell where, or even IF, I was hitting the paper.  After several rounds of futile adjustments, I finally brought the paper in to half range, say ten yards, and took a shot.  I saw where it hit.  I made a small adjustment and saw where that got me.  I made another and another until I was on the center of the paper.  Then I ran the target to the full 20-yard mark.  Dead.  Nuts.  Center.  I was quite pleased with myself.  I popped off the rest of that magazine and twenty more rounds into the center of the target.  Then I shot the four corners and made nice tight ragged holes out of the aiming point.  I'd say I had no more than a 2.5” spread… at first.  The last two corners began to get sloppy.  It wasn’t until I got home that I realized the optic had begun to come loose from the gun.  I hunkered down on the screws when I found that out.  Anyhoo, after I was done I took the gun home and cleaned it and did that tightening.  I am so pleased with that gun that… well, I'm not sure what.  Suffices to say, I'm ready for the zombies.  Sunday I decided that since I'd had so much luck with the Kushnapup, I'd take the SKS and sight it its scope.  I had fifty rounds of non-magnetic ammo left so I loaded them up into stripper clips and headed out.  Since I'd never even shot this gun, my first concern was “Would it cycle?”  My second concern was “Would it shoot straight?”  Turns out the answers to both are a resounding “Yes!”  I took three shots and they were all very close together… two in the same hole in fact!  I had to bring the target in to make sure I had hit paper with the third!  I adjusted the scope until I was tearing the center out of the target.  I put up a fresh target when I changed from PMC full metal jacket ball ammo to the Hornady polymer-tipped jacketed hollow points.  They all shot a few inches high.  I compensated for that with the last ten rounds and have a target with two ragged holes, centered on the vertical axis, with one set just a few inches high of the bull’s eye and the other dead-nuts on it.  Ok, there were a few fliers, but none were outside the ten ring.  I am super pleased with that gun.  I'm sure I could drop a deer, or anything of that size, from a reasonable distance with this gun.  I'll finish up with Sunday’s tale tomorrow as I've just passed my arbitrary “page break, I'm done” point.  Toodles.