5/19/14

So, a rabbi, a priest, and the cast of “Plan 9 from Outer Space” walk into a bar… no, I don’t have anything more than that.  I’m not even sure why I started with that.  Oh well, what are you going to do?  This was a “Third Saturday” so we didn’t got to the shop this week.  My plan was to take Moe (my bullpup Mosin Nagant) and the Pimp Gun to the range to try them out.  After sleeping in (until almost 0730 h!) I think I went to lunch with mom.  Yes, we started for Red Hot and Blue but wound up at Red Lobster instead.  I don’t dislike RL, in fact I DO kind of like it, but my problem with it is it is a place that “White Trash” thinks is fancy.  I kind of have the same feeling about Olive Garden… but to a slightly lesser degree for some reason.  Perhaps Eye-talian food doesn’t have that same aura of “fancy” that seafood does… somehow.  I don’t know.  Anyhoo, oh wait!  That was not what I did first!  First off I went to the EECU credit onion (which I realize is as redundant over and over again as “ATM machine” or “VIN number”) then to the credit onion here at the railroad to pay my credit card bill.  THEN we went to Red Hamster.  After lunch I took a three hour nap with Dolly.  Around 1630 h I decided to take Moe to the range.  Oh!  I just remembered something else I did before this!  Friday evening I took a bit of canvas from a duffel bag and sewed it to the top of the M1 Garand rifle case thingy I had which almost fit Moe except for the scope.  The bit I sewed on made a little extension/pocket of sorts for the scope to poke into.  My initial assessment of it was, “Well, that looks like ass!” but it has grown on me and doesn’t look half bad… ¼ bad I will grant, but not half.  So, after a long nap on Saturday I pack Moe into the modified bag, grab “eyes and ears,” some ammo and… oh, I guess that was all, and head to Winchester gallery.  I get set up on the range and load the weapon.  Yeah, I can’t get the stripper clips to work for me.  I wind up loading five rounds manually and send the target out.  I pop of those five rounds and reel the target back in.  I’m high and to the left… more left than high though.  I turn twenty “clicks” down and thirty five right on the scope and load five more rounds.  Oh, the gun doesn’t seem to kick as bad as everyone makes it out to… or I’m just not recoil-sensitive.  The second five rounds are moving in the right direction so I give another ten or so “clicks” down and twenty more right.  Now I am getting quite close to where I’m aiming.  I turn a few more adjustments and burn through another five rounds.  When I’m relatively happy with the shot placement, I put up a fresh target and blow ten rounds through the center with about a 2” spread… ok, there was a “flyer” making it more of a 6” spread to be honest.  The last ten rounds I shot at the corner targets and then packed up to leave.  I noticed a couple guys in the classroom behind me and fingered, incorrectly, that they were watching me shoot because they were interested in my gun.  No, they were waiting to use the range, duh.  I paid and left after showing Moe off to the guys running the show.  They seemed to like it well enough.  I went home and cleaned the hell out of the thing.  I never did get the barrel to look shiny and new, but as well as the thing shot, I’m not too worried about a dark barrel.  Sunday mom and I finally made it to Red Hot and Blue for lunch.  I had loaded the Pimp Gun into the range bag along with all of the magazines and 150 rounds of ammo before we left.  This I dropped into Fiona’s trunk before heading to lunch.  When we got home, I went in to pee then hopped straight into the car to go to Whiskey Flats to shoot.  I began loading the magazines when I realized I’d forgotten my speed-loader.  I went out and bought another from the gun shop.  I loaded all of the magazines, three 19 round and two 17 round, then prepared to shoot.  The first 20 rounds were pathetic!  They basically all fell into the “8” ring starting at about 5 o’clock low then “walking” up and around to 12 o’clock high where I was actually aiming.  It was very embarrassing.  Then I unloaded the next 19 round mag into the head… and by that I mean ¾ of the rounds hit the head while the others were off to the right.  Also, quite embarrassing.  I ran the last 19 round mag somewhere close to the point where I aimed then moved on to the 17 round mags.  These I de-cocked the first round to test the double-action first shot trigger pull.  Somehow, and I have no idea why, I was MORE accurate with the long pull of the DA trigger!  When I had emptied all of the mags, I loaded the last of the 100 rounds of ball ammo I’d brought into one of the 19s.  This I alternated de-cocking and firing double-action for one shot and single-action fir the follow up.  My performance was “Meh” at best.  Then I loaded six hollow points into each magazine, because I wanted to hold back twenty rounds to fill the gun later, and tested how it, and the magazines, liked JHPs.  It ran flawlessly.  I, on the other hand, sucked ass.  Well, I mean the dude would have gone down and probably would be taking the “dirt nap” if I needed to use the thing in self-defense, but I was nowhere near as accurate as I would have liked.  When I was done, I packed everything up and left.  I decided to try out the new toll road.  I got on at 1187 and went south to Cleburn where I turned around and headed back north.  It is quite a nice road, as Juan would expect a brand new highway to be.  I stopped at Academy and refilled the ammo supply then went home to clean the Pimp Gun.  Now we’re back at work and hating life, as usual.  And there you have it.