I like going to the shooting range

plinking range

with this hottie.

Brendan L. Sullivan

How do you spend your spring days?

Love,

Tiff

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.

In the shotgun department though, I’ve shot a couple more rounds of skeet at John Sevier HEC since I went to Chilhowee and did my first round I wrote about previously. I’ve registered for the required Hunter Safety Course that is a prerequisite to getting a hunting license if you were born after 1969. That is 4 evenings in late December. I am not exactly sure what, or even IF, I really want to hunt, but I’d like to, at the very least, try. Be a good excuse to bolster the arsenal down the road

ANYHOW, now that you’re caught up, here’s what my wife’s cousin’s husband (is there a term for that relationship???) Kevin, and my father-in-law, Rich, did Saturday after Thanksgiving. Neither of them had ever tried clay games before and I brought my guns with me on our visit to Ohio in hopes that I could find some time to go shooting, so we loaded up the guns and manual trap launcher and a couple boxes of clays and went to Deer Creek.

CZ @ Deer Creek. Kevin got a bird in the picture!!!

Deer Creek has an outdoor rifle range and an “unsupervised” shotgun range. It really is little more than a big grass field with a bunch of warning signs that people use guns there This is the first time I’ve shot at such a location, every other time being at some kind of club that had range officers, waivers, and fees. I do have to say that it’s nice to just yell “pull” and see the bird go up, rather than having to load each clay manually into the launcher, though.

That said, it was a really enjoyable time. There was one other big “family” group there that had maybe 15 people and 3 guns, so they were all taking turns pulling for each other and shooting. We had 3 guns (CZ, Mossberg, and Winchester Model 1300) and 3 people, so one pulled, one shot, and one took pictures and watched. But all that to say, it really wasn’t crowded, and the informal “field” setting with all manual equipment was kinda nice.

Rich and the CZ. Kevin pulling

Since Kevin and Rich had never used shotguns before, I gave them a brief overview on how the two pump guns operated, and the CZ’s over/under action. All 3 of us rotated through all the guns and it was actually a really enlightening time for me as well as I got to shoot 3 fairly different guns back to back and start to get a feel for the finer differences between how each of them handled. If you’re paying attention to the pictures though, my CZ got LOTS of use. I am pretty sure it got picked up more than either of the pumps, although I found myself picking up my Mossberg quite a bit as well. I love how light that gun is, and even with the more significant recoil, it just is a fun fun gun. The fixed cyl. bore choke definitely hurt though if i let the bird get too far out into the field.

Kevin and the CZ. Rich pulling

Each of us would take between 5 and 10 shots and rotate to the next person. Kevin and I started getting creative and started playing a game where we would see who could break the bird first. Rich pulled singles for us and we tried to line up on the clay as fast as possible. I think we ended up tied, or at least very close. A few of them we fired exactly at the same time and it was really hard to say who got the score. But you know, it was more about the fun than the actual score

In the end I think we launched about 150-175 clays (we started with a partial box, so I’m not sure exactly how many we ended up with), and close to the same amount of ammo. I actually am kind of irritated as I keep a log of the shots I put through the CZ, but with each of us swapping guns all afternoon, I lost track of how much we shot through it. I’m going to log 100 I think, which is probably a little over, but “close enough”

1) I need to learn how to track targets RIGHT out of the trap house. Those doubles are impossible to hit if you sleep on the first one

2) I have strongly left-eye dominant vision. This is problematic as I have heard from a few people that I should be shooting “two-eye” to increase my depth perception. That might help except for the fact I completely lose my tracking of the end of the barrel with both eyes open. Need to find a way around this. Am going to try left hand shooting (dreading this), and taping a dot on my glasses to prevent my left eye from being able to focus on the barrel.

3) Force myself to become right-eye dominant. I’ve heard that this is possible, but I’ve heard from MORE people that it isn’t…so we’ll see.

Regardless, Tomorrow I think is going to be a day off from shooting clays. I might just not shoot at all, but I’ve been kinda wanting to shoot my SKS, so maybe I’ll do that.

I will post more of a review next time after I get more experience there, but I did the skeet shooting at Chilhowee Sportsman’s Club where they also have a massive FOURTEEN stand trap range. The people there were friendly as I’ve found most of the people I’ve met at shooting clubs to be. It really has been overall a great experience getting into shooting clay games. Chilhowee Sportsman’s Club is conveniently located a few miles south of Maryville, just off 129 heading towards the dragon. If you’re in the area, they’re definitely worth trying out. Just make sure you stop by the clubhouse first as they do make you sign a waiver…a first for me for a shotgun range.

Brendan trap shooting

the gentleman at the range was very helpful

I got to sit next to that awesome tractor.

I really enjoyed the view:

the upper field

*Brendan posted more details about his afternoon in “Introduction to the CZ”

After leaving the range, we grabbed some lunch/dinner and drove through the Smoky Mountain Park until we reached the Mountain Farm Museum.

historic farm

Mountain Farm Museum

We got to see some interesting buildings. These are actual historic buildings (most circa 1900) from different parts of Tennessee and North Carolina. They were all relocated here as an open-air museum.

Apple House

Apple House from Little Catalooche, NC

The apple house stored apples! Originally, this house was built into a hillside to insulate the apples in the bottom portion from extreme heat and cold.

The farm was right beside a creek and the forest.

Brendan standing by the creek near the museum

pretty water

The farm also had a springhouse from the same location as the apple house.

Brendan by the springhouse

Brendan liked reading the signs

The blacksmith shop was cool. It was moved from Cade’s Cove: my all-time favorite part of the Smoky Mountain National Park.

blacksmith shop

Brendan checking out the blacksmith shop

The farm museum had a pigsty! There weren’t any pigs, but the trough was occupied by another creature.

muddy pigsty

a rat!

I cringe just thinking about it. I made Brendan take this picture, I couldn’t face it. In hindsight, it reminds me of Charlotte’s Web. Didn’t the rat (my least favorite character) hang out in Wilbur’s trough?

We saw some more wildlife outside the barn. The creature running away is a groundhog. And in the words of SATC’s Carrie Bradshaw, the squirrel is “just a rat with a cuter outfit.” I couldn’t agree more.

nature

chickens in the bushes by the house

While the farm museum was interesting and fun, the real excitement was the elk herd in the adjacent meadow!

elk!

a buck

Brendan with the elk

Me with the elk

(Mom, notice my beautiful scarf.)

more elk!

big buck

The elk were amazing. I’ve never seen them before. I can’t believe they are so big.

If only I had seen a bear, my day would have been complete.

Love, Tiff

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