9/17/13

While mom was at Sunday school, I decided to see about hooking up the new TV I bought for her.  I had been waiting for a couple reasons.  1) I fingered it would have a three-prong plug, it didn’t, and b) I wasn’t sure what would be involved in programming the satellite’s remote to work the thing.  Well, as I was watching the DirecTV information channel to get the customer service phone number, they were showing the tutorial on programming the remote.  Damned lucky, I'd say.  Well, I went up to mom’s room and disconnected her old TV and carried it down the hall to the spare bedroom.  Then I began assembling the new TV.  I was planning to use a two-prong to three-prong “cheater” plug thingy until I saw that the TV uses a two-prong cable.  Huzzah!  I set the thing on the table and hooked up the wires then fired everything up.  This TV wasn’t in the remote programming menu’s list so I had to tell the thing, “It is an unknown model Samsung.”  Fortunately Samsung uses the same codes for all their TVs… apparently.  The satellite’s remote turned it on and off, turned the volume up and down, and muted it very much unlike how it worked with the old TV.  I was pleased with myself.  I shut down and waited to hear from mom.  She got home around 1100 h and I showed her the functionality of the thing and she was blown away by the picture quality.  I knew she would be since the old CRT TV she was used to was pretty bad looking.  After we ate leftovers, I took a nap then headed to the gun range with the 7.62x39 Kushnapup.  I signed in and was sent to the rifle range.  Since I was the only one in the RR I used one bench for my gear and shot from the other.  I loaded all four ten-round magazines with Fiocchi ball ammo and sent the target downrange.  I popped off five rounds and pulled it back in.  I was high and to the left… but not left enough to worry about just yet.  I turned the adjuster three clicks “down” and sent the target back out.  The other five rounds from that magazine were just about in the same place.  I turned it another seven clicks.  The second magazine’s first five rounds were about halfway between the center of the target and the other rounds I'd fired.  I turned it another seven clicks… and then someone else walked in the range.  I set my gun aside and moved my gear from “his” bench.  I looked at what he was about to shoot and was surprised to see that it was a single shot rifle similar to the one I'd been grokking at the gun show, the one in .45-70 Govt.  I asked him what caliber it was, not noticing the box of ammo sitting there, and was told that it was, in fact, .45-70!  I asked where he’d gotten it, thinking it might be the one I'd seen and almost bought.  It wasn’t.  He just picked it up at Military Gun Supply and was about to try it out for the first time.  I sat back to watch/hear the thing go off before going back to my gun.  It wasn’t nearly as loud as I expected.  I settled back in behind my gun and fired another five rounds.  They were close enough to the center of the target that I shot the entire third magazine in one string.  As I was changing magazines, the dude offered to let me try his gun… so I did.  I knelt down and rested the thing on the sandbag, loaded a round in the chamber, closed the breech, cocked the hammer, and took aim.  I couldn’t see the sights for shit!  I squinted and finally found what I thought was the right aim and pulled the thing tight against my shoulder.  A smooth squeeze of the tri… BLAM!  Ok, it wasn’t quite like that.  The trigger had quite a hard pull and eventually broke and fired the thing.  It didn’t kick nearly as hard as I expected, nor was it as loud as I expected, but I knew I'd fired something!  It was very cool.  I offered to let him shoot mine and he did pop off one round.  I went back to mine, after thanking him for the shot of his, and finished off the fourth magazine.  I loaded up ten more rounds and offered them to him since he said he was going to be done after he shot one more.  While he was on my gun, he offered me another shot on his.  I took him up on it.  I'm not sure how many of mine he shot, one or two probably, while I loaded his again.  This time I decided to shoot from a standing position… and flinched like the most gun-shy little candy-assed girly-girl ever!  I felt myself do it as the thing went off too.  I think I even pulled the butt away from my shoulder because it kicked way harder this time.  I have no idea where that bullet went.  Not my finest hour!  I gave it back to him and finished off the rounds in my gun.  When I pulled my target in, I/we had ripped an acceptable hole in the center of the target so I declared it sighted in.  I packed up and went out to pay.  I took a bit of a hoon on the way home so I could stop at Chicken Excess and get the chicken strips mom has been hinting about wanting for dinner.  When I got home, we ate.  I cleaned the gun right before going to bed but left it out of the case so I could look at the night time illumination with my night vision in full effect.  Around 0300 h I got up to pee and had that look.  Well, I could see something in the optic but nothing in the room.  Apparently I didn’t protect my night vision well enough when I peed.  Oh well.  What are you going to do?  So, that just about wraps it up for the weekend… and it is only Tuesday.  Hopefully I'll think of more to say… oh!  I'll tell y'all about the Honda Prelude powered Mini tomorrow!