Day at the Range

Today was "Shooting the Postal Match" day at the range. USCitizen of Traction Control is hosting this months postal match. What better way to shoot a match, than to shoot it with the host?

It is a beautiful day for shooting. Sunny and cool with a slight breeze. This time we went to the range that USCitizen has a membership, and it is quite nice. Not a range with a set firing line and back stops, just a nice spot on the river to shoot with a gate. Each member has a key to the lock on the gate. To shoot the postal match I brought the Kimber, and I brought my Grandpa's Model 94 and the AR for shooting fun.

Grandpa's Model 94 was the only firearm that did not fail me today.

While shooting the second target for the postal match, the Kimber had a failure to extract. Bloody gun just left the empty case in the chamber. This gun has not failed in forever, now twice in two outings I have a failure. I don't know. The extractor is still nice and sharp, no visible wear. The gun is only about 1/6th of the way through what I thought was it's normal life cycle.

After the Kimber failed me, I found that my Ruger Mk 1 does not like Remington Golden Bullet ammo. Failures to feed almost every round. Good thing I carry several types of .22 in the 'ol range bag. The Ruger liked the CCI Mini Mags and ran them flawlessly. Shot branches of dead trees in the river. If I missed, I got a splash.

Shot the '94 at targets in the river. Made a tennis ball bounce, chopped off a branch at water level, and just had a good time shooting the gun that my Grandfather carried on the range or in the truck for quite awhile.

Started bouncing tennis balls out of the water with the AR. Between doing other things, I shot two magazines through the AR. Making a tennis ball jump is a lot of fun. During the first magazine that USCitizen put through the AR, it jambed. No, jamb is not quite the right word, it seized up. While extracting a round, it seized with the bolt mid stroke. That bolt would not budge. Could not even separate the receivers because I could not drift out the pins. The pins usually pop out pretty easily. So the AR was done for the day.

Three out of four firearms gave me trouble. As you can imagine, I am not a happy camper about that particular issue.

But, it was still a good day of shooting. This range is in a native pecan tree grove along a river. A guy to the right of us was shooting a 9mm automatic short rifle. I did not get a close enough look to determine what it was. Past him was a group with a .50 BMG and off to our left was a full auto AK. As we were leaving, a couple of guys with their children had started setting up for an afternoon of fun with guns. On top of all that, USCitizen brought along his Desert Eagle in .50 AE. Now that was fun to shoot. Throwing 1/2" chunks of metal down range is downright enjoyable. The recoil was manageable, but I did not attempt any double taps. The Desert Eagle was one of the firearms on my list of "firearms I want to shoot", and I appreciate the opportunity to do so today.

As for the AR, I was able to break it down and get it apart when I got home to my tools. It turns out that a blown primer had got itself stuck between the bolt and the receiver, jambing the bolt in place. The ammo I was using was the Adcom M855 that I like so much.

One last thing, before heading out to the range, I put a pot of chili on, it's just about done.

A day of shooting followed by eating chili with friends and an evening with my beautiful V. I am one lucky man.