Score!

As anyone that's been shopping for ammo knows, the shelves are bare. In the reloading world, primers lately seem to be made of unobtainium. Here at the SandCastle, small rifle primers are the rarest commodity. So imagine my surprise at reading a THR post that says "I've got 600 I can't even give them away!".

Well heck, that's exactly what I need! We traded a few emails and found he lives within 25 miles of the SandCastle. This is almost too perfect. As it turns out I needed to visit nearby anyway, so a deal was struck.

This replenishes my stocks of small rifle primers to the point I won't hesitate to shoot what I have.

Score!

ePostal entry

Beautiful day here in the desert today. Seemed the perfect opportunity to make an assault on this months ePostal match.

This match require 5 sets of 5 shots on the target. Each pass would take on the square targets in any order before shooting on the round center "stop" plate.

These matches are a great excuse to hit the range with a mission and a ruler to measure "good" or "bad" and what is broken that needs to be fixed. This target represents my best effort on 9 tries. Now if you read through the rules, lower scores are better with a maximum (worst) score of 125 and minimum (best) score of 25. I shot a 97. Nothing to write home about.

Still this was a lot of fun to shoot. And it's good practice for our local practical pistol matches where time is the metric.

Reviewing the targets, I think I need to work on sight picture... it's not sighted the way I'm shooting it.

(and whose fault is that?) you got it: ME!

Old Car Pics

Not here, but here at True Blue Sam's place.

Sometime back I posted about the absurd Grand Canyon trip the SCSon's class has planned. The short version is it's a 17 hour trip up and back the same day, of which only 2 1/2 hours will be spent touring the canyon. But 2 3/4 hours would be spent eating meals. We decided the schools strip is ill advised and opted to take our own trip. We landed at Grand Canyon Valle (40G) and rented a car for the rest of the trip into the park. This takes advantage of the speed of the airplane and turns what would normally be a 4 1/2 - 5 hour drive to a pleasant 1 hour flight. Ours turned out to be a 9 hour trip up and back with 6 hours at the rim.

Obviously this is where the banner pic came from. Again this is a panorama assembled by Autostitch.

The cars in the airport lobby were a bonus. I saw those and immediately thought "I gotta send these to TBS". The obvious question though is why send them at all rather than post here. Quite frankly it's because I don't know much about these cars. When I think of an old car, I'm thinking late 60's to early 70's. For instance, I saw them in person and completely missed the chain drive on the REO (in my own defense, most of my time spent with these cars involved me looking through the viewfinder of the camera). I'd rather send the pics on to someone who knows them through and through to post and comment.

BTW, TBS's place is also a great place to get an inkling about everything you don't know about using a chainsaw. Here in the land of red tile roofs we rarely have to cut down trees, but about once a year there is a bit of post storm cleanup of downed branches that require some chainsaw work. I've learned a lot there.

Well that's sad...

Pilot heads to his '07 crash site, crashes

"Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board are beginning to investigate Tuesday's crash that killed Sparky Imeson of Helena."

This is sad. Sparky Imeson didn't just write the book on mountain flying. He wrote several and ran the website as well.

Yet another reminder that it doesn't matter how much experience you have, how many log books you've filled, there is no such thing as immunity to accidents.

Woo Hoo, New Banner!

Woo Hoo! We got us a Banner!

Since starting this fling, it seemed we needed an appropriate banner to head the blog. Lacking same, the spot has remained blank. However with today's visit to the state's premier scenic spot, we now have one.... Too bad it doesn't cover another 40 degrees to the right as that's a really spectacular view!

Chrono fun part deux!

I'm on furlough from the dayjob(tm) this week. So what better time than to take the family to the range! Weekends are pretty much SRO this time of year but during the week we have our pick of benches.

My mission for the trip was to chrono several centerfire rifles & loads. It took longer than expected because as we went up through the calibers, the Chrony had to be moved back to save it from the muzzle blast. Five feet was enough for the .22 and .223. But one shot of from the Garand sent the light shields flying. At 12 feet it was far enough to be safe from the muzzle blast, but my aging eyes were barely adequate to read the numbers at that distance. Fortunately we brought along a pair of 9YO old eyes.

The data showed some interesting comparisons. The first two columns compare MilSurp 30-06. First column fired from an M1 Garand and the second from a 1903 Springfield. Same bullet from two different rifles and the semi-auto Garand only sacrificed 6 fps to the Springfield. I expected the bolt action would perform better. At least the impact to my shoulder suggested it would.

The second pair of columns show my reloads in the same caliber and rifles. Looks like I can pep those up a bit.

The third pair shows two different reloads in .223 Rem. I started using the same IMR4895 as used for the 30-06 but there is a note in the Dillon manual recommending against stick powder in calibers less than .30. So I tried some AA2460. As you can see the results are just about even. But the data also shows (even though the graph does not) the AA2460 is more consistent with a standard deviation almost half of the IMR load (33fps for the AA, 54fps for the IMR). Hmmm, cheaper, faster, more consistent. It's just better all around!

The last column shows an 8mm Turkish Mauser firing 1937 MilSurp. The whole package of rifle + 700 rounds sold for under $80 a couple years ago. I don't shoot it much as it's quite the shoulder-crusher. As expected it was the fastest of the group. Also most consistent with a StdDev under 16 fps.

Meanwhile the SCQueen and SCSon brought along a collection of .22s and had fun blasting through a part of a Big box of Federal.

The SCQueen also tried the AR-15 for the first time and found out what a delight it is too shoot. I started her off with just a couple, but when asked if she wanted more, she was only too happy to oblige.

What a beautiful day for a furlough! (But payday-friday is gonna suck).

Story sounds fishy

"Locksmith hired to change locks shot by homeowner"

"The unidentified 26-year-old locksmith expected the home, on the 4300 block of East Campo Bello Drive, to be empty when he arrived around 4:30 a.m. and began drilling out the lock on the front door, according to Phoenix Police Sgt. Andy Hill. When he pushed the door open, he was shot in the hand by the 39-year-old homeowner."

Another version of the story from ABC15 here.
This report says the resident shot through the door.

Color me suspicious. This sounds more like an attempted burglary. If he had legitimate papers to change the locks, there is no reason to be working at 4:30 in the morning.

No word on charges yet. In this climate of foreclosures and unclear titles, I doubt they could get 12 of his peers would agree his actions were unreasonable. But you can bet your next round of ammunition, he will be sued in civil court. Even if he wins, it'll still cost him.

If he shot through the door however, that would be bad.