A Truck Full of Guns

Headed off to the range on Monday with a truck full of guns; an AR, a bolt .22 and the newly fixed up Lee Enfield. GWB brought some Ruger action to the party with a 10/22 and a Mini.

It was mostly about the AR and the Mini, starting off at 30 and 50 yards to get the hang of things then moving out to 100. Two very different rifles. I like the wood and steel of the Mini, which makes it more of a "ranch gun" but I also like the Milspec patriotism of the AR. It's argued that the AR is is the more accurate carbine and I think the best group of the day came from it, but in our hands the difference was pretty negligible. I'd say the Mini's  front sight post is better than the AR's because it's thinner but on the other hand, it's easier to fix optics to the AR. Maybe Santa will task his elves to sort me out for an Eotech or the mighty Trijicon...

At 100 yards we took it in turns to go for head shots/center mass. Ten rounds to each in our own time, several times. GWB claims that his nickname in the Service was "Head Shot." I find that unlikely for several reasons.

A tale of two empires

The Lee shot well but the scope had wandered off zero, so we spent some time getting it back in the X Ring and it still wasn't quite right by the end of the day. This might be the Holy Spirit telling me to purchase a Leupold Rifleman; maybe, I'll give the used Burris Fullfield another chance when time and ammo permit. Still, the gun was "hog accurate."

Moral of the story?

Don't be a slacker, get out and shoot.

LSP

Shoot the Lee!

I've been saving a couple of boxes of .303 British thinking, for some reason, that they were hard to come by, which they're not. This foolishness had stopped me firing my Lee Enfield for the last month or so until today, when the scales fell from my eyes. "Don't be stupid, LSP,'" I thought to myself, "take the SMLE out for a spin, you can always get more ammo."

Struck by this ammunition epiphany, I loaded up some weapons and drove off to my Treasurer's farm for a shoot. First off I stalked the acreage with a .22 looking for rabbits - no joy, doubtless because they were 1/2 a mile away gorging on vegetables in the plot behind the barn.

Nothing daunted I set up a target by some hay bales and fired off a box of .45 ACP to decent effect, somewhere in the region of 3 inch groups at around 20 yards. Shot lower left of target initially but got things together after a time and pulled up close to the center.

Then it was off to the combine harvester with the Lee. The advantage of the CH being that you can sit up high on the machine and shoot safely down on the target from appx. 60/70 yards.

Despite ammo paranoia induced lack of practice, the rounds grouped well, albeit a little low. Used battle instead of peep sights - perhaps an error. But that was less important to me than the sheer enjoyment of the action of the rifle, which I find robust and well engineered.

Shoot over, it was back to church for Vespers and a conflab with parishioners who were setting the hall up for a Father's Day reception after Sunday Mass. They figured it should have a theme and chose "On the Beach." I don't know why and didn't ask, but did congratulate their ingenuity.

Have a great Father's Day.

LSP