Man! I sure do miss the good Ol' days...
I used to do one helluva lot of shooting...handgun, rifle, shotgun...
Every weekend was not only another match, it was another type of match.
One week would be PPC, the next bowling pins, the next Bianchi Action,
the next speed steel, and on and on. Then a couple of ranges closed up,
and next the travelling pistol club I was in sort of petered out due to lack of
shooters at the matches. With so many people jumping on the IPSC
bandwagon and its equipment race everybody was spending all their money
on one discipline...nobody could afford to play the other games too.
IPSC was and is still fun as hell...at least now with all the different pistol
classes you can mix it up a little...spacegun one match, revolver next match,
then box stock...and of course there were the rifle and shotgun side matches,
but that's still only one or two matches a month unless you really like to
travel really early in the morning. Happily Cowboy Action Shooting came
along to fill in some of the gaps. CAS is funny in that it's like IPSC, except
that it's a reverse equipment race...you try to get the oldest and cheapest
(meaning costs less) stuff you can find and make it all work for you...unless
you're not there to have fun but to win at any cost, then you blow a load
of money on Ruger Vaqueros and Marlin Cowboy rifles...once again spending
all of your money on one discipline and not doing any other kind of
shooting. To me the shooting is the point of the competition, not the winning.
And usually I will win an awful lot just because I shoot a lot more making
me a more practiced shooter...and if I loose, I don't mind so much as long as
I had fun doing it. Unfortunately I don't shoot much lately...not having
enough fun, more ranges closing, new interests (see my R/C page).
But enough rambling on, let's get to the GUNS!!!
My spacegun, the Bananamatic!
It's a Caspian HiCap with a Caspian
barstock slide, EGW comp & barrel,
Wiegand mount and Tasco PDP3
scope. Caliber? The enigmatic 9x21...
I gotta be different...
Here is Old Reliable. It's a Para Ordnance steel frame
with a Caspian slide and Judycki comp. This was my
first big automatic. It started life as a stock 1911 45ACP.
Then I changed slides, then got an alloy Para frame,
then a comp which very quickly split the alloy frame at
the trigger bow cut (downforce at the muzzle=upforce
at the rear of the slide, ask me if you want details).
I replaced it with a steel Para frame and eventually had
the whole thing nickled (just for shits & grins).
Two particular points of interest are the sights (check out
that fancy front sight!) and the grip area. On the grip,
you can't see it but the big holes in the sides have been
welded over to contain any sympathetic detonations
(big scary words) and the front strap has been ground
down considerably to make a thinner, more comfortable
grip without grip panels (sure is fun taking a bench grinder
to a brand new frame!!!) This gun doesn't see much
IPSC anymore, but it sure does love killing Pins!
And sometimes
you need stock.
The frame started
life on the Para and
by the time I got
done upgrading
that I realized I had
enough parts lying
around to build
another gun! All I
needed to buy was
a set of pins!!
...and in case
you're interested,
that's blue Krylon
on the slide...
Gotta be different!
This here's my good shotgun. This is what I use for IPSC, steel, bowling pins, etc. It's a Benelli 121M1 and it's F-A-S-T !!! It's got a PDP2 scope, speedloader, ported barrel, 10 rnd. tube, an provisions for a bipod. If you ever find one, buy it! It's the model just before the Super90 and it has a tilting block bolt instead of the rotating bolt. The recoil is a lot softer and it's F-A-S-T !!!
Another gun that is no longer the way it was born. This originally was a Colt AR-15 SP1. Now it has an Olympic heavy fluted floated barrel with a Miculek brake. This was built before flattops were a production item, so this one started with a handle which was milled off to form mounting lugs so that a steel base could been pinned on. The scope is a Simmons 4-10x 44Mag with an EPC dot scope riding on top for those close shots (kinda hard to sight on an IPSC target 20ft away through a scope on 6x). I've never done any load development on this because the very first thing I tried (Hornady 68grHPBT and 20.0gr IMR4198) shoots 3/4" at 200yds!
One point of interest is the pistol grip which came off a Ramline folding stock. It has a finger groove (again, before they were popular) and it is at a slightly steeper angle which makes it a lot more comfortable to shoot. And why is it fluorescent green? Other than the psychological affect on the other competitors one must be reminded:
That's not an Assault Weapon, it's a Target Rifle.
My current project for a 3-Gun rifle is this FN-FAL L1A1. It shoots like shit. I have been improving it though. I suppose I could spend $300 on a good barrel and another $100 to have it put on (rebarrelling an FN is best left to people who have done it before...it's kinda involved). Instead I did this...I made a sleeve out of conduit and filled it with Accraglass. It worked pretty good. Now, instead of stringing the shots along a 10" line inclined at about 30 degrees, it shoots a roughly circular pattern of about 6" at 100yds. Next I tried Tubb's Final Finish barrel lapping bullets, but I haven't been out yet to see if it helped.
This shotgun is dedicated to shooting slugs. At several bowling pin matches I go to there are side matches shooting large steel knockdown plates out to 100 yds. This is a Mossberg 5500MKII with a 5" rifled choke, an 8rnd tube, and usually a scope. I cast my own Lyman sabot slugs and they do 3-4" at 100yds...perfect for 18" plates.
One of my good long range guns is my Ruger KM77-VT in 22-250. Another gun I haven't shot a lot but I do know it''s accurate as all hell. Right after I bought it i ran some patches through it to clean out the machine oil and then shot the 55gr Federal Classic ammo I bought with it. I like this gun!! Brand new, off the shelf non-premium ammo and a piece of shit Tasco MagIV scope I shot a boxfull of 1/4" groups!!!!!! Now it has a Simmons 6-20x 44Mag scope, but I still don't have a good place to shoot...100-200yds just ain't far enough :(
Another of my long range guns is my big baby Savage 112 in 300WinMag. It has a 26" heavy fluted barrel and the scope has extremely fine crosshairs. Has anyone ever heard of Emdeko scopes? I haven't, but I've got one. This has moderate accuracy...1.5" at 200yds...but it's hardly broken in yet. Again, I really need a longer range...200yds is boring as hell. As far as the paint job is concerned, let's all sing together:
"Reach out, reach out and touch someone."
This is just my general tramping-through-the-woods gun. Just a plain ol' Ruger M77 in 308Win. A couple cans of spray paint later and it's got a nice camo paint job (actually this is about the fourth paint scheme on this stock...at one point it was blaze orange!)
One of my favorite plinkers is this Ishapore Enfield. I put in a chamber insert so that now it shoots 7.62x39. Cheapammo+Lowrecoil=Bigfun
This gun is nothing but FUN! (well, OK...LOUD too!) This an Egyptian Hakim in 8mmMauser. With a long barrel, huge muzzle brake, homemade stock, and a 30rnd magazine this thing is a fucking HAMMER!! I use it for shooting bowling pins at 25 feet! Big fun!
Simple, straightforward, homebrew cannon. It has a roughly 12ga. bore so's that I can shoot my Lyman slugs through it. MMMM...make BIG SMOKE!
Here I am with my bud' Curly.
I'm feeling a little naked a'cuz I only
gots the seven guns on me.
This here's Slippery Slim
ridin' Ol' Reliable.
All lined up to sling lead at the buffalo.
Looks a bit like my bedroom...
Necessity is the
mother of invention.
The Lee Harvey Oswald Experience
I went to a large match once where the guy running the shoot had set up a side event to help prove or disprove the "single gunman" theory of the JFK assassination. He figured he was going to have upwards of 500 of the best and fastest shooters in the country there, so what he did was clear off the side of a hill and set up a range to simulate the Dallas Book Depository. He built a mock up of the sixth floor perch and ran a cable down the hill with rolling hangers to carry the targets. The cable was at the proper angle such that when the target got to the correct distance it would be at a close approximation of the range, angle, and speed of the JFK motorcade. There were two 6.5 Mauser Carcano rifles made up with the proper scopes and ammo anybody who wanted to make an attempt just had to get in line. One of the biggest debates in the "single gunman" theory is that nobody can shoot that gun that fast. You can hear the time between the shots on the recorded transmissions from a Dallas motorcycle cop. The times were something like 3.66 sec. overall and only about 1.6 sec. between the 2nd and 3rd shots. The "experts" say that that is too fast for a person to fire two shots from a bolt action rifle. Well, that's what this side event was set up to find out with an interview with a reporter from the Detroit Times for anybody who could do it (the match was in Michigan).
Man! Was I robbed! Not only was I the only person to accomplish this "amazing" feat, but I did it multiple times and easily. I also had good groups, with my first attempt (the first time I'd ever fired a Carcano) being a nice 8" triangle in the middle of the target. I even had a nationally known "expert witness" there taking pictures (he took the one above) and making notes. Here's where I was robbed...I didn't do it the way they thought it should be done. Wasn't that the point in the first place, to see if there was a way it could be done? My best total time was 3.02 sec....that's TWO 1.51 sec. breaks between shots! Even when I did it their way I still managed a 1.74 sec. 2nd to 3rd shot time. The official quote to screw me over was "he's left handed, so it doesn't count". What bullshit! Was Oswald left or right handed? Does it matter? Give me a left handed rifle and I'll do it right handed. It doesn't happen very often that a small town boy like me gets to throw a monkeywrench into an international debate, and I got boned on the deal. E-mail me and I'll rant some more...
Well, here's an attempt to piss off some more conspiracy theorists: Maybe Vince Foster just said to himself "I guess I won't be needing these anymore" and threw his glasses over his shoulder before he shot himself...
Here I am killing some pins.
Yes, my gun is blue.
A couple of my bud's getting ready for a quick morning's shooting.
Me and the twins breaking in
the AR-15s I just built for them.
Lots of rounds down range at nothing in particular :)
