I don’t get the opportunity to shoot much around here, so when it does come up I like to take full advantage of it.  I took the three pistols I own as well as the .270 and the kid’s .22.  I was planning on taking the .30-06 but I didn’t have any shells for it.  I had to buy shells for the .270, and if I also bought for the .30-06 we could have been looking at quite a bit of money for some pissing around.  I started digging out the essential gear for going to the range…and it quickly be came obvious why this isn’t something a guy can do on just a whim.  To be fair, if I was going with a pistol or the SKS, I could just grab a gun, ammo and some ear protection and fly out the door…but I wanted to dial in the .270 and to do that it takes the weighted rest as well as a spotting scope.  It doesn’t seem like those two things really add to much to the over all gear package…but with the weighted rest you have to bring the weight bags…I needed an extra ammo can for the extra brass and the kids little spinning gopher target.  More than enough shit to be hauling around for an afternoon.

When we got to the range there was one other guy there and two guys leaving.  This is a pretty good setup for me, I prefer to have no one there but on a sunny Saturday afternoon that’s an unrealistic expectation.  Not long after we arrived an older guy and 2 (I assume grand kids) showed up.  This gave me an opportunity to place some targets down range…well just one target as I soon found out the stapler was empty.  I had brought extra staples, but of course I didn’t check the damn thing before I walked the 100 yards down range to put up the target(s).  I decided to wait for another break in the action to put up more instead of holding everyone up.

The kid enjoyed shooting at her gopher for about 15 min…then she was ready to go off playing in the trees.  This is her usual entertainment out there and wasn’t a real big deal.  It keeps her occupied and gives me some time to focus on what I’m doing instead of watching her to make sure she’s safe and correct.  I set the .270 up on the weighted shooting rest and started turning the various knobs to adjust things.  I was a little skeptical about the usefulness of this contraption when I bought it, but it did look like it might be handy.  After putting a few magazines worth of ammo through the rifle I was wondering why I hadn’t bought something like this years ago.

I can’t remember exactly what brand mine is, and googling it seems to only return results for “cadwell lead sled”.  That’s not what mine is, it was about 40 bucks cheaper, but it does the exact same thing in the exact same way.  Maybe the cadwell one is lighter to carry around or something…but that was pretty much irrelevant to me.As you should be able to see from the picture, you set the rifle in the rest and adjust the up and down so it fits you right as you are setting at the bench.  Then you adjust the up and down to put it on target, as well as a fine left and right adjustment.  Once you have it dialed in all you really have to do is touch the trigger.  The weight bags helped to really cut down the recoil of the rifle.  I don’t know how much it cuts it down…but I went through 50 rounds and didn’t feel anything in my shoulder.  Had I been shooting the rifle against my shoulder without any form of reduction or just in the clothing I usually wear I would have been pretty bruised up and somewhat soar the next day.

It took me about 1/2 a box of ammo to figure out how to use the rest.  My first instinct was to position in the rest about on target then try to hold the rifle into my shoulder pocket as I normally would.  This turned out to give me very erratic results and frustrate me.  In the interests of being “safe” I would chamber a round, leave the bolt up and adjust things so the rifle is sighted in…then I would put the bolt down.  The force required to put the bolt down is pretty negligible but in a situation like this it’s enough to throw the cross hairs off target.  My option at this point was to either man handle the rifle into position or adjust things with the rifle in an unsafe state…neither was very appealing.  Then it finally dawned on me…drop the bolt and engage the god damn safety….

After I put the safety on I was able to move the dials to position the rifle exactly where I wanted it.  Flipping the safety off is a straight forward flick of my thumb, which didn’t move the cross hairs at all, then a brush of the trigger and we’re off.  I spent the next 20 rounds dialing in the sights.  This gun was my brother’s and he was a very good shot.  But obviously the gun was sighted in for his “style” and range.  Traditionally I sight the rifles in for 100 yards then adjust based on my judgment of the target’s distance once in a live hunting situation.  It took some turning and tuning, but after several rounds she got dialed in quite nicely.  I did all the “gross” adjustment on one target..then when I was able to put shots in the inner circle, I moved over to shooting at a fresh clean target.  I put about 10-15 rounds into the clean target, all but 1 within a 4″ group.  I don’t know what happened with that one shot…but we’ll call it an aberration.

Anyone serious about shooting needs to pick up a device similar to this.  It takes out most of the human factor and puts the gun right on target.  You get reproducible conditions so you can accurately make adjustments to the equipment each and every time.  The only real draw back to this rest is that it has to be, by nature, “loose”…meaning it has to be able to move every time the gun goes off.  If it doesn’t have any give in it and stays in a hard static position the rifle will be damaged after it’s fired.  I could spend significantly more and get one with some kind of shock…but it’s not that necessary yet.  The benifit of it jumping around after each shot was that it made me really think about the positioning and setup each and every time.  There were no (or almost no) throw away shots because it wasn’t seated right against your shoulder or you were holding different this time.  You got everything back into position…dialed it in and hit the trigger.  It takes more time…but it’s worth it in the end.

I also bought myself a spotting scope…now it’s a really cheap ass spotting scope and one day I’ll drop the cabbage on a better one, but I wanted to get one to gauge it’s usefulness at the range.  This helped me identify the location of each shot very easily and make adjustments accordingly.  The scope on this rifle isn’t good enough to do that…so I needed something else.  One day maybe I’ll teach sam to spot for me.  It would be nice to have her on scope with an identical target to what I have down range and mark off each shot with a pen.  Something like that might be necessary when I start reloading ammunition…but we’ll see.

I also shot a bit with the pistols…and it became clear very quickly that I need far more practice.  Shooting a rifle is a simple concept and so is shooting a pistol…basically.  With a pistol you are so much more unsteady and don’t have the different balance points…add to it the inherit inaccuracy of the firearm (compared to a rifle) and you have a whole lot of work to do.  I need to refine my stance and grip on the pistols then we can work on dialing it in a bit.  I was shooting at about 20 yards…which is quite a bit further away than I’d be shooting in a “self defense” situation…so I’m not all that concerned about it…still, it would be nice to be more proficient.

I’ve also decided that I need to start reloading.  I’ll get away with not reloading for the 9mm…but for the 40 and the .270 it’s going to get very expensive very quickly if I don’t.  I figure a guy can cut his cost in 1/2 with reloading (if not a little less) and you should get the same load every time.  To get that certainty with factory ammunition you have to spend quite a bit…so I guess maybe your savings/quality ratio will go up even further.  The old man has all the equipment and dies…the only thing I would think about buying is a tumbler.

We’ll see, I need to get some information from buddies that are reloading and I’ll use that as a starting point.

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I have been contemplating getting a few of the accessories I had been missing or had broken for the muzzle loader.  I needed to make sure it was still accurate and useful for hunting before I bought those items.  SO off to the gun range I go…

I get there and shove a charge down the barrel, put the cap on and throw it to my shoulder….pop…no bang.  Shit!  I pull the nipple off and see that it is very corroded.  I replace it with a new one…shoulder the weapon..pop…BANG!  Life!  I shove another round down the barrel and it worked fine.  A few more rounds and she seems pretty accurate.  I guess it will work for hunting…

When I get home I have to deal with the real pain in the ass of shooting this god damn thing…the need for an immediate cleaning.  That is by far the biggest pain and deterrent from shooting these fawkers.  It seems a little strange, but the first step in cleaning them is to run hot soapy water up and down the barrel.  Afterwards, it needs to dry good then gets oiled up.  It’s such a process…

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The old man has started leather working again, and he showed me the gun belt he was building for his .357.  The design on the holster was the same as mine…and that sparked my desire to find that holster again.  It has to be at the house somewhere.  I looked everywhere I could think of…nothing.  I had searched the gun cabinet several times, but it is poorly lit and I had never taken everything out to do a complete search.  This time I took all the guns out and searched as completely as possible.  Buried deep in the corner of the cabinet…there it was.

It has been kind of a pain to walk around the hills with no secure way to carry the pistol, I could have bought another holster but it wouldn’t have been the same quality and certainly not the same design the old man put together for me.  Beyond that, there are very few items that carry any sentimental value for me.  Guns and hunting have always been a common ground for the old man and I.  We spent most of my adolescence and early adulthood fighting, but we got along well when we were hunting.  For quite a while I took for granted all the leather work the old man did for us, wallets, sheaths…etc…now with his failing health these items are no longer being made.

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As part of the preparing effort, I have written down all the serials of my guns along with an approximate purchase date.  I’m sure the pistols would be gone and never seen again, but the odds of the rifles surfacing are slightly better I’d think.  It surprised me how many of my guns have been gifts from the old man. The first one was an woodchucker .22.  This is bar none the best kids .22 I have ever seen.  It is spot on accurate, the action is smooth and you can drag that thing through a swamp and it will still fire.  It’s a very nice little gun.  It’s quite small and must have been designed for a kid.  The next was a .30-06 he gave to me after my first deer season.  It was a caliber we didn’t have and it’s a versatile round for many forms of big game.  The next year, he gave me a muzzleloader.  A summer later, we went down to the Williston area to visit the old man’s uncle.  He had a double barreled fox/savage 12 gauge.  I was enamored with the gun, so the old man bought it for me.  After carrying that gun around hunting pheasant it became very clear it just wasn’t a practical weapon for me at the time.  Then came the first gun I bought for myself.  I decided I needed a short barreled .45 with an over sized ring.  I went in to Scheels and they advised me the gun I wanted wasn’t made….so I bought a .30-30 in the same style (years later…my brother bought the exact type of rifle I wanted…don’t make it my ass).  I traded off my very -very- heavy double barreled 12 gauge for it, upon reflection that’s a trade I’d like to have back.  In any case, I was now without a shotgun…that isn’t a situation the old man was going to let last long.  He bought me an 870 shortly there after.  It’s short…light…and I haven’t put a round through it yet.  After that I bought this “cowboy style” vaquero .45.  A guy from back home gave it to the old man to make a holster for it.  He told us to go ahead and mess around with it some if we want…after I put the first round through it I decided I needed to have that gun.  I took a job flippin burgers to make the money to buy it off him.  After that came the .270.  I had wanted one for awhile, but the .30-30 was doing everything I needed it to as far as hunting was concerned.  I had started using a smaller round for the .30-06 for deer and that didn’t tear them up as bad.  The .270 was my brother’s rifle…so it’s a love/hate relationship.  After that I picked up the Glock…because the woman told me I wouldn’t do it.  The same year, the old man picked me up a 9mm…because we didn’t have one.

I spent a lot of time growing up pissed off at the old man…upon reflection it seems he was paying attention to the important stuff.

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Fast forward to now.  I’m not on the farm anymore and I get to experience the joy of picking up my own equipment.  Not that it’s a bad thing…it’s just a shitload cheaper to use the old man’s tools.  This past Sunday I picked up Smith’s Diamond Sharpening Stone from Scheels for 20 bucks.  I wanted something of decent quality, but it also needed some type of hard case so it didn’t break when I carried it around in my back pack.  From looking at the package, this item fit the bill perfectly…but would it sharpen my knives?

I have a little bit of a variety of knives.  I have a pocket knife from buck, then two hand crafted knives.  one uses a commercial blade and one is completely hand crafted from start to finish (by my old man).  I used the stone on the buck knife first.  The buck had a very good edge on it from the factory, so I don’t know that I’ve ever sharpened it.  The stone has two sides, a coarse side and a fine side.  Obviously if your knife is extremely dull, you cut it on the coarse side, then finish up with the fine side.  For the buck, I went right for the fine side.  In just a few swipes I found it virtually as sharp as the day it came from the factory.  At this point, I was satisfied the sharpener fit the bill and would do what I wanted it to…not impressed mind you…just satisfied.

Later on that evening I decided to put an edge back on all my knives.  I grabbed the hand made knife with the commercial blade.  The steel is this is just like a regular high quality hunting knife you would buy from the store.  The metal is stained a bit from being in the sheath (I’ll polish that out next time I go to the farm) but the edge has always been good.  It’s about a 5-6 inch blade.  The handle is made of deer horn that curves back in to your palm as you hold it.  My dad used to make cases for the guy that built these knives.  One day I made a comment about really liking the style of this one and the old man bought it for me.

I slapped this knife to the stone for a little bit, then tested the edge.  It seemed to be sharpening only 1/2 the blade.  I switched up my technique a little bit and tested the edge again, perfect.  It took me a little bit to get use to the need for a long complete stroke instead of small circles that I use on a wet stone.  When I switched from the circles to full length strokes the edge was on almost instantly.

Then came the real test of this pig.  The knife I use the most is the one my old man made for me.  He used a torch to cut the shape of the blade from a drill disk.  He used horn and leather to build the handle. Given this knife hasn’t been through a commercial tempering process, the edge on it is a little finiky.  It takes a bit to put one on there, but it lasts for a long time.  I decided to start grinding this one on the coarse side, then flipped it over to fine and ground that out a little.  It didn’t take long at all and this one had a good edge on it too.

After putting this stone through the gambit of blades, it seems like a pretty damn good little tool.  The key to this little bastard though, is the technique used for sharpening the blade.  If you use the proper technique, it takes no time at all to finish up an edge.

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I’ve been looking more and more at reloading prior to this purchase.  After buying a house I’ve got a garage where I can setup the equipment to reload and I have time to look at doing all this…especially over the winter.  The old man has all the equipment I need, and it’s been a pretty standard practice for us in the past to acquire the dies when you buy a new caliber, I just picked up dies for the .40 s&w.  I’ll keep up a log on this page about the progress and load performance as I figure out what works best for each gun.  I’ve done the preliminary math and by reloading I can bring my cost per round down from $.30 to $.12…which is obviously pretty significant.

We’ll see how it goes I guess.

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I am always amazed by the level of ignorance that surrounds me when it comes to firearms.  The first question out of people’s mouths “you have it locked up right?”.  First and foremost…what the hell business is that of yours?  but beyond that, how does having a gun under lock and key instantly make it “safe”?  Obviously the underlying theory is that if the child can’t get a hold of it, it can’t hurt anyone.  The problem I have with that is it’s not an “if” the child finds the weapon or finds a way to get a hold of it, it’s “when”.  I fully understand that sooner or later the kid is going to put her hands on a gun when she “shouldn’t”.  If I were to hide it away, it’s would be like finding dad’s playboys.  It’s nothing terribly interesting, but it’s the idea of something being forbidden that makes it more interesting and more “fun” to do.  One day, she’s going to be home alone and she’s going to stumble across the safe where I’ve hidden the pistol, then she’d find the key or make a point of finding the key to see what’s in the box.  After she sneaks down to open the box, she’s going to find something interesting that she’s never seen before.  She’s going to wonder how it works, and start playing with things…then unfortunately she’s going to find out how it works…with a bang.

Some people would say not to keep the guns in the house at all.  That’s not going to happen, I enjoy shooting things.  It’s a great stress reliever and it’s immensely enjoyable.  What about when she’s at a friend’s house?  We live in a community where people do quite a bit of hunting, fishing and shooting.  Chances are sooner or later she’s going to be at someone’s house where they have some firearms.  How do I know they are going to have them all unloaded and stored properly?  I can never bank on that…so I have to control the only thing I can control…the child’s attitude towards guns.

The -only- successful long term solution to gun control is education.  Allow the child to handle the weapon in a controlled environment.  Allow her to unload it, load it…school the child in proper firearm safety.  Through education, when she decides to handle the gun without me around she will know what to do and how to be safe with it.

Let me ask you this question…how much real teaching in involved with licensing a child to drive a car?  They get a semester of book education in school, they get a month or so of school sponsored driving education? (that’s what we got, drive a couple hours a day for like a week or so)   Then they are suppose to have a permit to learn to drive with their parents for 6 months before they take their actual driving test.  Is anything really learned in that time?  If you really valued teaching your kid to drive, you would educate them over the course of an entire year so they had both dry and slippery conditions to drive in.  Outside of farmers, how many people give their children a bit of driving time before they get their permits?  So we have probably 6months of actual hands on driving.  Then we give them the keys to do something alone that could potentially kill a bus load of babies.  Yet, this is considered a social norm?

By the time my kid is allowed to go out on her own with a firearm she will have completed 8 years worth of firearm safety training.

I leave the keys for my car in the house, not under lock and key.  I leave my medicine cabinet unlocked, I do not lock up the knives in my kitchen…and I allow my child pretty much free access to the Internet.  I let her cross the street without asking me for permission, she can ride her bike around the neighborhood, and this summer she’s going to learn how to cut grass (it won’t be one of her chores, but she can learn how so she knows…I might die or something sooner or later).  Every time I change the oil in the vehicles or work on something outside she’s out there watching and helping so she knows how to do it.

Fuck off, don’t tell me I’m unsafe you tree huggin fuck.  I prefer my child educated and not kept under control from fear.

“keep one in the chamber to deal with my anger” – Twisted Nut Productions

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Enter the black powder rifle.  Unless you actually shoot one of these shoulder mounted cannons you can’t really appriciate what goes in to actually using them.  Black powder is leaps and bounds more corrosive than standard smokeless powder used in todays modern rounds.  Even pyrodex, although less corrosive than black powder, will still fuck up a barrel like nobodies business if neglected long enough.  It’s been years since I’ve had the time to come home for black powder season and even longer than that since I’ve had the money to afford the trip/time off.  This year I have both so I thought I’d give it a go again.  Since it falls on thanks giving weekend as well it’s an ideal time to get back in to it.

My old man and I have/had identical rifles, Thopson Center Hawkin Renegade .54 calibure.  It’s a little beefy for deer but good enough for moose, elk and bear.  Several years ago we had problems with both of them.  I used to loan mine out to a family friend for use and one year it came back with the lock busted.  The old man’s, through years of neglect, has a fucked up flash pan.  The part where the nipple threads in to the flash pan is stripped out.  Since they are identical guns, I figured it was going to be as simple as matching his lock to my barrel to make a working rifle.  Oddly enough, as it turns out our locks are not identical.  They both use different spring mechanisms, which is totally irrelivant as they are interchangable…I just through it somewhat interesting.  In any case, I slapped the “new” rifle together, put a charge down the barrel, slapped on a cap and prepared for flying metal…

Now, if you’re a shooter and never had the pleasure of shooting a good blackpowder rifle, you are really missing out on something.  I think it just feels a little more “bush man” and for some strange reason, that appeals to me.  There is a hammer on the side of the barrel that you cock back, then there is a “set trigger” and the main trigger.  The rifle will fire if you just pull the hammer back and pull the main trigger, but it takes a harder pull.  The set trigger effecivly turns down the pressure required on the main trigger to make the rifle fire.  So, I hit the set trigger, hit the main trigger…POP! the cap goes off but no fire.  SHIT!  I put a new cap on there…same thing.  Now I get the pleasure of pulling the charge out of the barrel.

Pulling a charge from the barrel is not terribly difficult, it’s really just a pain in the ass.  There is a screw attachment that you put on the ram-rod and you push down as you turn to get the screw into the lead ball…then pull it out of the barrel.  It sounds easy enough, but if you take in to account that our patches (the part between the ball and powder, it helps the ball catch the rifling in the barrel and “spiral” like a football for accuracy) haven’t been re-lubed for years, you are suddenly pulling something out of a very tight space with maximum friction.  It took a god damn hammer to get the screw in to the ball, then I was completely unable to pull the fawkin thing out.  It was waayyy to stuck.  I had to use a pair of pliers with a hammer to get it out of the barrel.  The charge finally came out, at this point it’s clear the rifle needs to be cleaned.

Cleaning a blackpowder is different than a regular rifle.  Most rifles you would run a brush down the barrel, oil it up and your done.  With these god damn things, because of the corrosive power of the powder you need to use a method that sounds pretty counter productive.  We fill a sink with very hot soapy water, put a brush on the end of the ram-rod, wrap a cloth around it to make a good seal, submerge the flash pan and continually work the rod back and forth down the barrel.  The vaccuum sucks the water up and down the barrel cleaning out the rust and shit.  I usually quit with the blow back through the flash pan is completely clear.  After that, you run a dry rag down the barrel, then an oily rag.  I cleaned up the lock with a steel brush and oil as well.  Then the gun is reassembled and we always “dry fire” a cap through the flash pan in to the barrel.  It makes a certain sound that indicates the spark is traveling into the barrel and “should” ignite the charge.  At this point I have to make sure it’s going to fire before I’m sitting in a tree stand and guessing…so to speed up the drying process I invert it on the floor of the bathroom so the barrel is pointing down, and turn up the forced air heater.

A couple hours later, I decide it’s going to be now or never and start packing another charge in to the barrel.  I mosey my ass outside and brace myself to try to touch off another round.  I cock it back…and this time I don’t bother hitting the set trigger.  I’m just looking for an explosion, accuracy is meaningless.  I turn my head away and close my eyes…just in case…I yak the trigger…POP!…BANG! everything goes off just like it should.  Shooting a modern fire arm you would never notice that delay, even shooting an inline muzzleloader you wouldn’t notice a delay.  But with the side mount percussion, and flint locks you hear a distinctive “pre-fire”.  The flintlocks is more extreme, it has to ignite powder on the outside of the rifle in the flash pan and that needs to travel in to the rifle and set off the charge.  With the percussion, the cap sends a spark that has to travel down…make a 90 degree turn and go in to the main powder charge.  There is a noticable delay before the main charge goes off.

After all that, the rifle should be ready to go tomorrow.  I’m going to have to clean it up a bit when I get back to town.  I’ll need to use a steel brush to get the rust off, then hopefully there is some place that can reblue the barrel for me.  If I can find that, I might take the stalk to a wood shop and see if they can sand it down and restain it for me.  I would think that should be a fairly simple process for them.  We’ll see I guess!

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