poor Duke had to stay inside

Love,

Tiff

I like going to the shooting range

plinking range

with this hottie.

Brendan L. Sullivan

How do you spend your spring days?

Love,

Tiff

750 mL bottle

We may need to scale back on the .22 usage.

Love,

Tiff

Tristan on his dirt bike

We rode dirt bikes a little bit, but since the ground was so soft from the recently melted snow, only a very little. Dad, Tristan, and I did do some spring maintenance to the bikes however. Cleaned the carbs, helped dad get the fuel drain screw out of the float bowl on tristan’s bike, and changed the brake fluid in both bikes (Tristan’s Suzuki and Dad’s Honda CRF150)

Leander played the piano for me in the morning

Tristan played for us twice

Both Leander and Tristan have excelled at their piano practicing. Tristan especially is very very talented and obviously has the ear and coordination to play some very impressive pieces.

I taught Lee how to shoot the pellet gun.

Tristan came out after a bit to try out the newly sighted in rifle

We also rode the motorcycles again Monday. Dad and Mom started off on the K1200GT and Tiff and I rode the VTX1800. After we rode for about an hour or two we stopped for lunch and switched bikes. Tiff said the BMW is more comfortable as a passenger which sort of surprised me, but it /is/ a BMW after all. Both bikes are great and the handlebar risers that dad has put on the GT make a huge difference. And man is that bike fast. 150HP will do that though

That’s about the gist of our trip… Music, motorcycles, guns, spending lots of time with the family, and lots of good food from mother.

me and my new toy

The morning was cool and we were there soon after the range opened. We were so early in fact, that we startled two grazing does.

deer

They looked at us for a few seconds before deciding to bound into the brush.

Brendan and I set up our targets (plastic jugs/bottles filled with water, a few cola cans, and shotgun shells). I ended up shooting approximately two clips to his one. Who knew I would enjoy shooting so much?

see how happy I am?

bullets waiting their turn for glory

I hope everyone’s weekend had as pleasant a beginning as ours did!

Brendan in his new hat

Love,

Tiff

Savage MkII, Weaver Bases and Rings, Bushnell Sportsmans Scope

Tiffany with her Savage

I was content, however, sighting in and shooting my Savage that I traded my SKS for about a month or so ago. The scope, as I believe I mentioned before, was junk, so I put a Redfield Revolution 3-9×40 on it. The scope mount on that gun was designed years ago when scopes did not have the larger mechanisms near the adjustment pots as they do now, so I had to grind out a bunch of aluminum on Dad’s bench grinder (Thanks Dad). That took quite a while, but I think the end result turned out well.

Savage Model 340 Series E, Redfield Revolution 3-9x40

The bolt still rubs the eyepiece of the scope, but that can’t really be helped I guess. I like this rifle quite a bit, but ultimately I think it will probably get traded for something else a bit more modern. I love the 223 caliber, though so that much will likely stay the same.

At the range and on the bench

Both guns sighted very quickly, however. It took less than one 10 round clip in Tiff’s gun to get it hitting dead center groups at 50 yards, and I think my gun was hitting good 100 yard groups within 12 shots or so. I need to get some 200 yard targets and see if I can shoot it out that far. I think it should be good for it…the 223 doesn’t drop all that much by 200 yards as it travels so fast (about 3200 feet per second). I guess Tiff didn’t get a picture of me shooting this gun….she was too busy playing with her 22

Tiff did let me shoot her gun a little bit

Tiff and I both had pretty good days of shooting on the benchrest line. There were more targets shot than these, but this is what we ended the day (there) with.

These are most of my shots with Tiff's 22LR (non center shots are from sighting in)

Tiff's target with her new gun. Also the squirrels above her arm

After getting our fill of benchrest shooting, we ran over to the skeet field and I shot some skeet with some people there. Tiffany was a sweet wife and “pulled” for us. (“Pulling” is launching the clay, done by pressing a button that activates an auto-loading electric thrower in little concrete houses to protect the launchers from the elements). I didn’t shoot very well, so I decided to call it quits at 2 rounds today. I then realized we hadn’t been to the plinking range yet to do “fun” shooting. I had brought a couple of gallons of water in old jugs, along with Tiff’s orange juice bottle from breakfast this morning, and a coke bottle that was from our trip home from IL Thankfully we got there just as it was emptying out, so we had it to ourselves for the most part.

Precursor to the carnage

I think Tiffany enjoyed this the most as she found she really enjoyed the precise target shooting required to hit the 12ga shotgun shells I stood up out there (Look to my left about knee level…you can just barely see 3 of them in a line). Hitting the gallon jugs was a lot of fun as well. I used my Mossberg 500 with 00 buckshot to blow holes in the far right jug. The aftermath of that was quite fun as the jug essentially exploded with the hundreds pounds of force that blast put through the jug and water. Sadly though, it only lasted for about 3 shots before it was just shredded and no water was left in it.

Mossy 500

I really don’t get to use that gun enough…it mostly sits under the bed with 5 shells of buckshot for a potential home defense situation. One of those things you hope you’ll never need, but you’re kinda screwed if you need it and don’t have it. It’s quite a fun gun though. It looks great; I love the matte black finish with the barrel heat guard. Shucking the action makes such a gloriously intimidating sound followed by the ear-shattering blast as it dispatches 2oz of lead out the end of the barrel.

Lined up for decimation

After that bit of fun, we entertained ourselves shooting the 22′s (I borrowed Emmett’s Marlin 60 again) for probably about an hour at various plastic jugs, cardboard boxes, and aluminum cans. “Plinking” is somewhat more entertaining than target shooting because all of the lightweight targets you shoot at react: falling over, popping up in the air, spinning in circles.

Tiff and her new gun again. She tried standing for some shots

Once we were done here, we went and did a few other things in Knoxville. Had Firehouse Subs for lunch… mmmm

Some of the results of the 22's

Tiff and I woke up Saturday morning to the expectation of a full day of fun for both of us. Tiff had her sewing day with her friends from school, and I planned to go to ORSA and shoot as many rounds of clays as I could take, then do some benchrest with my Savage 340, and I had Emmett’s Marlin 60 22LR to play with on the plinking range.

I ended up shooting 4 rounds of skeet and 1 round of trap. Trap at ORSA is fairly hard. The clays are launched over a ridge that seems to channel the breeze in such a way as it can toss those clay targets in some wild paths. Very, very challenging, but very, very fun. The lowest skeet field (Skeet 1) actually suffers from the same problem to an extent; The high house usually flies the same path, but I saw elevation differences on the low house of ~15-20 feet at the center stake due to the breeze coming off the ridge. Regardless, I’m still more consistent at the low house than high as I keep forgetting to make sure my cheek weld stays consistent on those left-to-right swings. Practice, practice, practice.

Sadly I’ve let my shotgun ammunition stash dwindle. I used to try to buy 100-200 rounds a week to at least keep up with what I was shooting, and hopefully build the stash a bit. Over the winter though I ended up shooting a lot, and not buying much and was down to 50 rounds left after yesterday’s shooting. I thought I was going to go again today with a friend from church, but then forgot that the “Polar Bear League” shoots on Sundays (today was the last week of the league though), so we had to postpone. Regardless, before I remembered that, I bought 200 rounds of cheapo Winchester ammo so I had something to shoot I am being fickle about my reloading plans. I really need to seriously save towards that equipment as it will cut my ammunition cost/box in half. Reloading metallic rounds for my rifle(s) is even cheaper to get into equipment-wise, AND has a higher percentage of savings (about 75-85% cheaper to reload than buying retail).

Meant to shoot the Savage 340, but the benchrest range was pretty full, so I took a bunch of 22 ammo over to the plinking range and ran about 100 rounds through the Marlin 60, shooting some old bottles and other such random targets as people had left out there. I’m impressed with the accuracy of that little gun. Even with just regular open sites, it was trivial to hit a 20oz coke bottle at about 30-35 yards. Made for a fun hour of nailing it, popping it up in the air, then finding it again where it came to rest to do it again… Reactive targets are so much more fun. I think that’s why I like clays so much!

Our small arsenal of guns is about to grow again. I ordered a Savage MkII 22LR Bolt-Action target rifle for Tiffany. She loved target shooting with my SKS even though the 7.62×39 round had a lot of kick. She has not shot my Savage 223Rem at all yet, but she’d probably like it. That said, 223Rem is still pretty pricey ammo to “plink” with at about $8/box of 20 rounds… also ORSA does not allow center-fire rifle cartridges on the plinking range, only benchrest/competition/high power ranges. So the 22LR is much more versatile. And cheaper. And it hardly kicks at all. The Savage is a nice high-quality rifle and the MkII line has the adjustable AccuTrigger for a nice light, crisp trigger pull. Hopefully with a nice scope it will be a tack-driver.

I still haven’t decided what scope to put on it. I just put a Redfield on my Savage 340.

Redfield 3-9x40 on Savage Model 340 Series E 223 Remington

The elevation and windage adjustment “box” on the scope was too large for the original Weaver sidemount, so I had to put a “hi-mount” set of rings on the gun. The problem is (found out after buying the new rings and putting them on….) is that they offset the scope from the centerline of the barrel, so it’s going to be interesting getting it sighted in I think. We’ll see how it does, but my current thought is I might either put the Redfield on the 22LR (overkill) and put a cheaper “thin” scope on the 340, or just accept the non-ideal mount for the time being and maybe trade the 340 for a different bolt-action down the road that allows for normal Picatinny rail mounts for the scope. We’ll see. I haven’t had a chance to do anything more than bore-sight the Redfield on the 340 so far. It’s an absolutely beautiful scope for the money though. It’s definitely going to stick with me no matter what guns get traded/sold/acquired.

One final “project” for the weekend…. I made myself some sandbags for benchrest shooting today. My friend/mentor, Bob Hedrick, from church gave me some empty lead shot bags this morning and I filled them with sand and “sewed”‘ them shut Ruined one of Tiff’s needles in the process… oops. Here’s the result of my $3.64 of sand…

5 "new" sandbags for benchrest shooting

It’s something you take for granted at “commercial” ranges, as they tend to loan them out when you’re there, but being a non-profit club, I’m finding all these little things I’m having to bring for myself. Thankfully none of it is really expensive… like these bags….there’s not $5 in them, and they should last quite a while.

More later when the new Savage comes in

Here’s a few more pics to keep you occupied…

Savage Model 340 Series E

Savage Model 340 Series E

Entrance to ORSA

Sunday afternoon Tiffany and I went to the benchrest range and shot the rifles a bit. I borrowed a 22LR from Emmett so Tiff could shoot with me. I shot my “new” Savage 223Rem. The scope on that gun is horrible….the gun hits about 8 inches high at 50 yards and I can’t get the scope to adjust out. It’s just a cheapo Blaser 4×32, so it’s no huge loss.

Me Shooting the Savage 223

Tiff shot the 22LR (an older Marlin 60) that Emmett let me borrow so she’d have something to shoot. When we stopped at Gander Mountain to buy targets, they had packs of squirrel paper targets (for legitimate target practice for squirrel seasons) and bought those for her to shoot at. I got a pack of the fluorescent yellow targets so I could try to sight in the gun (which was sadly not too successful as you read above). Tiff was hampered by only having open sites on the 22, but she still did pretty well shooting her squirrels at 50 yards.

Tiff's squirrels

No shotgunning today as there is a league that reserves all the clay fields for use on Sundays. I normally shoot on Saturday though, so that shouldn’t normally be a problem. I have a lot of guys telling me to reload the 223 so I’m saving my brass. Metallic reloading is significantly easier to get into than shotshell…less equipment and I usually only end up shooting about 20 rounds per trip, so it’s not nearly as high volume as what I’ll need to do for the shotguns.

Anyhow, I’m excited to finally have my membership active and can shoot just about any shooting discipline there. I’m looking at getting some small rimfire rifle for Tiffany next. I really want a 17HMR, but the ammo is a little pricey for the gun’s intended purpose of higher volume target practice and plinking. 17HM2 is an option, but it hasn’t caught on and all ammo/guns would have to be mail ordered. Sooo, all that said, I’ll likely end up getting a Savage MKII in 22LR with a heavy barrel and put a decent 4x or 6x scope on it. I think I’ve decided on a Bushnell 2-7×50 for my 223. We’ll see.

More next weekend I’m sure, though I’m about out of target ammo for the shotguns. I need to build up my stock of ammo again.

I learned today that Sporting Clays and “5-stand” are not the same game. They have similarities, but are vastly different in terms of scale. In 5-stand there is one shooting platform with 5 positions, and in the field there are 6 or 7 different clay presentations and you shoot a combination of those presentations at each station.

Sporting Clays has (at least at Chilhowee), 14 stands that are scattered around the woods above the club, and each station has it’s own two throwers. All stations are thrown as either report or true pairs, and can be very challenging. All of them are difficult to some degree, and learning how to lead a target that’s dropping down a hillside is quite a challenge, as well as a test of patience as some of the incoming birds come towards the stand from far away…much too far to try to hit with the imp. cyl. and mod chokes I was shooting today. I can see the advantage of extended, knurled chokes in this game….one stand might have two very close crossing targets similar to skeet where a cyl and imp. cyl choke would work perfectly, and then the next stand would have two LONG range targets launched as a true pair where I was wondering if even a full choke would put enough shot out there to hit them. One of the guys I was shooting with proved it was possible though It was astounding seeing him break both targets well past where I would have guessed the shotgun would be useful.

All in all though, I really enjoyed the 14 stand circuit at Chilhowee. The flight paths are extremely varied, and you have to take trees into account as some paths cross between groves of trees so you must time your shots well and do not always have continuous picture of the bird. Even without that fact, the staff at Chilhowee uses the mountainous terrain there to great effect, aiming some birds along ridges, or rising out of a gully. One of my favorite presentations was two birds launched as a true pair, coming up the valley from about 11 o’clock and behind trees almost the entire way. There was a very small window about 20 feet wide where you had to hit the targets between a few trees, otherwise they were in the ground just past the next tree.

If you are in the Knoxville, TN area and enjoy clay sports, you should definitely try out Chilhowee. They are a bit on the expensive side for non-members, but the experience is worth the slightly higher cost compared to most other fields I’ve been do. Check them out at http://www.chilhoweesportsmansclub.com

One of the main purposes of this trip as I mentioned before was to meet these guys who all reload their own shells and were willing to help me find some hulls that were good for reloading as well as showing me some of the benefits of doing so. The light 3/4 ounce loads that Curly uses were amazing. Very light recoil, almost no gun movement, and still capable of breaking every target out there. Even ignoring the cost effectiveness of reloading, merely the wonderfully light, shoulder-sensitive loads you can create makes it worth it. The 1-1/8oz factory loads I have been shooting feel like monsters in comparison. I am definitely looking into the equipment and components I need to start loading my own hulls as soon as reasonably possible. Problem is you kinda have to buy in bulk to make it cost effective….i.e. large chunks of money out the door at once rather than the current method of buying smaller amounts of ammo, but at a greater cost over time. So we’ll see. I’d like to get started soon, but I’m not sure it’s financially that wise/possible.

I’ve been shooting a lot of skeet though recently. I’ve lost track of how many rounds I’ve done… maybe 15 or so. I started out horribly. My first round ever I hit 4. It was really disappointing, and the next couple rounds were about the same. A couple weekends ago I went Saturday and Sunday and something finally clicked. I told myself when I headed out Saturday, “I’ll be happy if I hit 10.” That’ll be 2 better than my previous best.

Unfortunately, when I got there, it seems a bunch of kids were shooting with their parents…and taking FOREVER about it. Also, one of the mothers should not have been holding a gun. She would consistently shoot, then swing the muzzle down, turn and face the group of people and start blabbing about how she missed/hit/chipped a target….all while pointing the gun at them…. Range Officer kept yelling at her about it, and she kept doing it. I’m quite glad I was not on the field with her. So while I waited for them to be finished, a couple other guys and I sat in the range officers office and chatted.

Finally it was our turn. We had a group of 6, but were all fairly efficient about getting through our stations. At the end, I totaled up my scores and had hit a 13! Whoa, maybe I’m starting to get the hang of this We went back inside to warm up (it was about 35 degrees out), and then went and shot one more round before it got dark. This one went even better with a personal score  of 17! I started feeling a lot better about the game at this point, but it was dark and it was not one of the nights they turn on the field lights so we could shoot into the evening.

The next day (Sunday), one of the members of the gun club I am going to be joining invited me to go out shooting at that club. Drove up there and shot 3 rounds of skeet, all of them in the mid-teens. I think they were 14,17,16 if I recall correctly.

About a week and a half later I went back to the ORSA club again with Bob Hedrick from church and we shot 4 rounds and I didn’t really keep track of my scores, just focused on improving my form and learning what I could from the other much more experienced shooters.

Now we’re somewhere around Christmas… Jeanette wrote something about our days of shooting on her blog. Won’t touch on that too much right now. Maybe I’ll write another post.

Today (Jan 2nd), I was invited by yet another person I’ve met locally to go with him and a few of his friends to Chilhowee Sportsman’s Club to shoot Sporting Clays. That field has a large Sporting Clays field consisting of 14 stands, with various presentations and either report pairs, or true pairs. A single round is 100 shots, although there is some way to do a 50-shot round, though I’m not sure how. Anyhow, it was a lot of fun and a great learning experience. Downside is it’s fairly expensive. Average cost for 100 rounds of skeet or trap is about $20… member prices at ORSA are $2.50/25 for a cost of $10/100 which is as cheap as I’ve ever seen clay rounds. The 100 round Sporting Clays at Chilhowee are a steep $37 for non-members, and $27 for members. This is somewhat understandable given that Chilhowee is run as a business, whereas JSHEC is funded by the TN Wildlife Resources Agency, and ORSA is a non-profit organization. Regardless, it’s about the only field like that I know of in the area, so it’s worth the extra cash to shoot such a unique collection of targets once in a while. I can’t see myself going more than a few times a year though at that rate.

Anyhow, I think I’m done with this post. It may not read very linearly as I’ve written it over about 2 weeks, forgetting about it over most of the Christmas break, but I tried to fix the time-sensitive wording to make more sense.