Category: Shooting

At the club last night, a few members of Holmesburg were talking about their continuing struggle with the City of Philadelphia to prevent from being closed down.   Their web site has:

Yes, we’re still here. Yes, we’re still in business. No, it’s not a done deal. HF&GPA has four main priorities right now. They are to lobby the Fairmount Park Commission (FPC) for a lease, to get member dues for ’08 in, to recruit new members and to complete the work on club ground that was postponed because of the threatened closing. Please see the Newsletter pages for more information. Thank you all for supporting your club leadership through these trying times. Brighter days are ahead if we stay the course and if we continue in our roles as responsible and hospitable sportsmen and women.

Which is roughly the same as last time I updated.  They are still working with the city to get the lease, but apparently the administration change is making things take a bit longer, and that they may have to seek another extension while the negotiations continue.

I do hope the city does the right thing here.  These folks are obviously not the ones shooting each other over drug turf wars in the City of Philadelphia, but I doubt that matters to a lot of folks who run that city.  If they secure another lease, I will consider helping them out by joining.  At the very least, I’ll at least show up at a few of their matches for moral support.

Shooting through a series of water balloons.

Here is my glorious chicken pin:

I can fairly consistently hit the chickens now with rifle. I’m up to the point with pistol where I can his 7 out of 10 on a good day. I need to work on my pistol skills more to accomplish this. I think I can get another (different colored) pin for pistol.

Over in neighboring West Virginia, they want to require gun safety training as part of PE classes.  I wish I got to shoot in my PE classes.  We did do archery, but that was it.

One wonders whether other groups that claim to be for “gun safety” are willing to get behind a measure such as this?  My guess is no.

Hat tip to Of Arms and the Law.

Uncle relays a story from one of his readers. I agree with Tam‘s assessment in the comments:

You know, not everyone is going to be a shooter, for whatever reason.

I don’t hang out on any golf-specific web forums, but are guys there as worried about getting their wives to come golfing with them as male shooters are to get their S.O. to the range?

I’ve only known a couple of women who were shooters and who had beaux that weren’t at all interested, and neither one really wrung her hands about getting her fella to the range.

She’s right that not everyone is going to be a shooter, but I think I can explain the male mind here. Golf players don’t sweat their sport. No one repeatedly accuses golfers of wanting to murder children, or causing inner city crime. There’s no strong political movement dedicated to the eradication of their “barbaric sport”. I think for a lot of guys they are seeking a bit of affirmation that the significant other really is OK with what they are doing, and won’t someday join with the chorus of people who look down on him because he likes to play with baby killing bullet hoses.

Finally,  I managed to wrangle myself a pin for shooting ten chickens in a row.  I shot a 35 out of 40 overall for that set.  I came very close to getting a pin for rams, but by the time I was on the tenth ram, my pulse rate was so high I could see my heart beat moving the rifle, and I missed.  Damn!  But hey, I’ll take my chicken pin.  Turns out I don’t do well when I don’t eat before going to the match.  I do better when I eat first.  I’ll have to remember that.

NRA has a survey up asking for input from people who shoot on federal lands.  Pennsylvania has little in the way of federal land that’s not under jurisdiction of the National Park Service, except for Allegheny National Forest out west.  But I figure my western Pennsylvania and readers from The West might want to have some input.

Looks like Mike Huckabee has some muzzle discipline problems of his own.

I went to a range just north of Blacksburg, VA today to try out the new Chrony.   I got the Alpha model Shooting Chrony.  I have to say, it’s a cool piece of a equipment.  Cool in the sense that I now know my loads are pretty inconsistent.  I’m on par with Wolf ammo, which isn’t good enough for my likes.  I shot five rounds of everything I had.  Velocity for .223 averaged 2717 fps out of my 16″ barrel, with high being 2775 and low being 2640.  Velocity for the 6.8 Remington SPC upper was 2149 on the low, 2212 on the high, with 2181 being the average.

One thing I will say, is that Silver State Armory’s 6.8 Remington SPC loads are consistent with 2421 being the low, and 2453 being the high, averaging 2436 fps.

I’m using Sierra Game King 55gr jacketed soft point, with 20 grains of IMR 4198, using CCI small rifle primers.  For the 6.8, I’m using the Sierra 115gr open tip match bullets, 22 grains of IMR 4198, with CCI small rifle primers.  I’m guessing my variability has to do with not precisely measuring each load?  But for plinking I don’t really care too much.  It’s consistent enough for that.