Alright There, Ye Guns

In a big effort to cheat the stereotype, I went for a shoot; nothing fancy, just an AR, a sporter Lee and a .45. I was curious to see if I was still able to use a gun and hit anything smaller than a barn door, like the silhouette of a green terrorist.

Typical Texas Range

Sure enough, the green "terr" took a beating, mostly with the AR, and I was pleased to see decent off-hand groups at 30, 50 and 75 yards. Not so good at 100, annoyingly, and I had to compensate a bit for an ironic tendency to shoot left. Some sort of trigger issue, probably -- don't pull left, LSP! The Lee shot well for an ancient rifle that I'd porch project 'smithed; it was especially good to note that the $50 2nd hand Burris Fullfield scope hadn't drifted. Well done Burris, well done Lee.

Shoot straight,

LSP

Living The Dream

A big part of Living The Dream is seeing a friend's two young sons take home their first rabbits, learn to clean them on the tailgate and, later that night, eat them. Well done, boys! 

I Shot This Rabbit!

Another aspect of the Dream is watching GWB prep just shot hog legs as you and the team relax under the stars with a glass or two of the right stuff and swap stories of the mighty hunt(s).

Hog Prep

Rumours that The Dream entails fast night drives through the brush with semi-autos and spotlights are totally without foundation, as is:

Team Member: "There's one! I can see its eyes. What should I do?"

LSP: "Shoot it."

Team Member: "I can't do that! It's eating."

LSP: "Maybe you'll donate your gun to Greenpeace and they'll turn it into a rainbow."

The Old LSP

Tomorrow promises more mighty ballistics hi-power, hopefully some "spot and stalk" and Bass fishing. Nothing wrong with that. At all. 

Cheers,

LSP

Ozymandias

By popular demand, I'm posting Ozymandias, which is a poem by Shelley. Shelley was aristocratic, so is Justin Welby, the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, sort of.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away from Welby.

But I'm well-pleased at the performance of my sporter Lee Enfield, which I checked at the range today, prior to a hunting party somewhere in Texas next week. Easier to shoot than the Remington 700 but less substantial.

A Couple of Guns

Shoot on and God bless,

LSP 

Lee Enfield Rising

So, LSP, what's up with the Lee Enfields? I hear you ask in that bated breath kind of way. I'll tell you, not much, that is until today. Here's the backstory.

After more sanding than I care to mention, I'd refinished and restocked a 1917 Mk. III. Being a cheapskate, I put an ATI rail over the action to mount an optic. Being a double cheapskate, I bought a second-hand Burris Fullfield for fifty bucks and put it on the rail. After 60 rounds or so the scope wouldn't adjust for windage and I thought it was broken, like the Church of England but less expensive. The scope lived on my mantlepiece for a year, looking outwardly sleek and deadly, but inwardly I knew it was dead. Until the other day that is, when I decided to drag it off its perch and give it a second chance in life.

I looked at the windage dial, which was absurdly adjusted full right. I winded it back to a place that intuitively felt right, maybe 150 clicks left, not that I was counting, and as I did, I noticed the reticle moving left. Windage worked, obviously. I boresighted, using a King James Bible as a rest, and sure enough, my instinct was right, the scope was pretty much on. Result. 

Turkey

Took the rifle to the range this morning and it shot well enough, achieving 1- 3" groups at 100 yards from the bench, using 180 grain Privy Partizan, which had an easy time of slicing through steel turkey. Not bad for a firearm that's almost 100 years old and certainly good enough for minute of hog. 

Shoot on,

LSP

Ancient & Modern

New Skool, Old Skool

I bit the not so proverbial bullet and went out for a well needed shoot; just a bit of ranging about with one of the Lees and an AR. I say "just" as though it wasn't any great deal. Not so fast; with the cost of ammo being Homeland Security IRS pricey, you've got to make every shot count, before you go broke. Like the economy.

Bore Sight!

And the question in my shooter's mind was, "Is the cheap 2nd hand Burris Fullfield, 50 buck wonder, scope broken?" Would it dial in? Last time I tried I wasn't so sure.

Getting there

It did OK. I bore-sighted the old-skool way by peering  at the target with the bolt out, then gazing like a Chaldee through the scope. Were both sight pictures the same? Adjust accordingly. After things were appx. sorted out at 25 yards I moved out to 50 and called EndEx when the rounds were impacting 1" above the X Ring.

Rule Britannia, DIY

Good result. A $150 rifle, with 1917 history, that I'd refinished and restocked myself coming in as a contender in the "kill the evil hog at 100 yards" stakes. Or whatever. To be honest, I think I'll lose the scope and get a 'smith to fit iron (express) sights. 2 folding leaf would be neat and not too expensive. Authentic(ish) too.

.303 Brit

Shot off a couple of mags of 5.56 afterwards to clear the head. Did best off-hand, oddly. Pathetically inaccurate kneeling and prone. Must have lost concentration in the later evolutions.

Go home and eat ribs

A good and well needed days shooting over, I headed for home and BBQ Country Style Ribs. Result. 

Shoot straight and remember, there'll always be an England, until, of course, that there's not.

God bless,

LSP

Pius XII and the Lee Enfield

Pius XII said this:

“We belong to the Church militant; and she is militant because on earth the powers of darkness are ever restless to encompass her destruction. Not only in the far-off centuries of the early church, but down through the ages and in this our day, the enemies of God and Christian civilization make bold attack on  the Creator’s supreme dominion and sacrosanct human rights.”

I like that. Here's a picture of a Lee Enfield.

I like that too.

LSP

Dog Gun Cash

Jeb

I enjoyed Sunday's shoot so much that I had to do it all over again on Monday. Slight change of firearms -- .45 ACP got into the mix and we spent a little time dialing in GWB's scope to x ring standard. I like that Featherweight. Jeb had fun too.

Get rid of the recoil pad - GWB.

But I couldn't help but notice that the Market has surged, perhaps due to the trillions of dollars liquidity pumped into the beast lately.

no-one gets out of here alive

ZeroHedge guest Tim Price had this to say:

"The modern, debt-based economy requires constant economic expansion if only to service all that debt. So what happens when the modern economy goes ex-growth and stops expanding? Iceland already found out. Greece is in the process of discovering. But we will all get a chance to participate in this lesson. Runaway fiscal and monetary stimulus throughout the western economies is in the process of destroying the concept of creditworthiness at the centre of the modern monetary system."

Cash your paychecks, chaps.

LSP

Just Get Out And Shoot Something

Seeing as 2012 is the Year of the Gun, I thought I'd better go out to a parishioner's range and shoot after Mass on Sunday. I like it there -- just you, the guns and, in this case, my linguistic philosopher friend GWB and his dog Jeb. he's training Jeb for a bird dog.

Jeb

I was pleased with the new Lee and shot moderately well with it, far easier to handle than my friend's Winchester Featherweight. Beautiful gun with a crisp and clear Burris scope but full of sound and fury, which took a little getting used to.

The AR performed like a right little heater; neat to see the muzzle flash in the twilight, though my "walk and shoot" performance against metal plates and a silhouette was fairly dismal. Practice, LSP! Practice.

Then it was back to HQ for curry.

Result.

Shoot straight,

LSP