Category: Shooting

Breda takes a few more noobs to the range.

A picture of the team at the Camp Perry National Championships.  Notice all the black rifles that folks like the Brady Campaign and Josh Sugarmann tell us have no sporting purpose.  You’d almost think the AR-15 was the most popular target rifle in use today or something.

Over at Support Your Local Gunfighter.  That’s one sexy air rifle.  And the shooter ain’t bad either.

It’s occurred to me that I’m not certain that I would like to support Putin’s thuggish regime by helping their economy by purchasing more of their ammunition.  But what if the response to the Russian invasion of Georgia is sanctions?  Would the shooting community be willing to endure even higher ammo prices to teach the Russians a lesson that we won’t stand idly by while the Red Army strangles nascent democracies?

I for one, am willing to make that sacrifice.  I think the cold war is probably back on after this, which would mean the end of cheap supplies Russian made ammunition.

It looks like the major networks are only featuring Chicom athletes in the shooting sports.

Blue Trail Range is still closed, but the picture in this article shows a rifle’s eye view of the firing line, with a bulldozer building up the berm in the back.  You can’t see much sky there, and I don’t think the baffling there allows enough elevation for a bullet to head over that mountain.  At this point, you’re probably either dealing with people who just hate guns, or hate physics.  One of the two.

Coating bullets with pollen as a unique identifier.  I guess if you have allergies, you’ll just have to give up the shooting sports then.

Our monthly IHMSA match is this weekend, which means it’s reloading time for me.  Bitter and I are also taking two new shooters, possibly more, to the range this weekend for some fun.  That means I’ll be a reloading fool.

Last time I did IHMSA, I used a 44 special load for shooting field pistol.  Basically 9 grains of Unique capped off with a 180gr semi-jacketed hollow point.  I think that load was a bit too hot for my tastes.  It headed out about 1100 feet per second.  You just need enough on the bullet to knock the rams over, and I think 900 feet per second would be just fine.  I think I will reduce the load to 8 grains of Unique this time around.

For the AR-15, I’ve tried and like using Lake City brass with 21gr of IMR-4198 capped off with a 55gr FMJ boat tail round.  Heads down range fired from my 20″ barrel AR at about 3150 feet per second, with a variance between the max and min only about 19 feet per second.  Next powder I’m going to try will be Varget, once I use up all the IMR-4198.

Been thinking about a load for reloading the M2 ball I have.  Seems to be that 50 grains of IMR-4895 with a .308 150gr FMJ boat tail round is reasonable for firing in an M1 Garand.  Decapping and resizing 30-06 is rough on the arm though.  Takes a lot more force than .223 or 6.8 SPC brass.

Looks like Blue Trail Range was ready to reopen, but the state decided they needed more time.  They’ve had some ballistic expert help, it looks like:

“Vargas concludes, based on his study of the elevations and theoretical bullet trajectories over the mountain, that it is beyond improbable — and actually implausible — that bullets that have hit residences on the eastern side of Tri-Mountain originate from Blue Trail Range,” she said.

…

State police ballistics experts have also been involved in the investigation of the origin of bullets found in the park as well as shots that have hit homes in Durham that are almost 1.5 miles from the range. The range is on the western side of Fowler Mountain, while the homes that were struck by bullets are on the eastern side.

Clark Vargas, president of C. Vargas & Associates, said the only way that a bullet fired from Blue Trail could have hit homes in Durham were if someone used a specialized shooting technique known as plunging angle fire.

I did my own analysis here, which concluded that fire from the 200 yard range could hit houses on the other side, but I am not an expert, nor did I visit the site.  I’ll take the word of the experts on this one.

UPDATE: Looks like the actual house, that was allegedly hit, is marked now in Google Earth.  Rerunning my ballistic calculations, I agree that there’s almost no chance that a bullet fired from that range managed to impact that house.  It’s well within the ballistic shadow of the mountain.

UPDATE: They are holding a sporting clays fundraiser this Sunday to help save the range.

Blackfork, who’s competing at the National Championship at Camp Perry, has this to say:

Was just off the range and 600 yard line. Pushed into a crowd outside Rock River Arms on Commercial Row for the sixth RR Hot Dog. Sweaty, grimy, tired, unshaven, sunburned, heavily armed men all standing around the condiment table squeezing mustard and relish on seared pork by-products.
Feels like REAL America.

RTWT