I got out to the range yesterday. Jerry came up to shoot, and make sure I was doing his Yukon correctly.

We started out having to wait for an hour or more, while the farm hands finished harvesting the field we shoot in. They had quite a system; a twin axle dual wheel truck, with high sides, perfectly matched the ground travel of the self propelled flail chopper which was picking up the wind rows of hay ... chopping it, and then blowing it in a torrent of blast into the truck beside it. No sooner did one truck fill, then a twin was there to take it's spot. The field we use, was just a small wing of the network they were harvesting. They were covering a lot of ground. Eventually, they got to our little bowl of a field. A couple passes, and they were gone, and we could start to set up.

We got into some competition after sighting in.



And, my lower target shows what happens when you forget to check for damaged slugs. After the target was ruined by my third shot (which was most likely a hollow cast) ... I pulled out a good slug, and dropped in the 4th shot just to reassure myself.

We saw interesting stuff ...



Do you see anything here?



This is the view from 200 yards back to the bench.

And ... I managed to take a digital pic thru Jerry's range finder (with my little pocket Sony). Pushing two buttons in sequence ... while holding two devices in alignment! haha.

I'll let Jerry tell you the rest.

It was a real nice day.



Gary

Yes, we had another great day at the range! I'm going to have to split this into a reply here and another post in the hunting section.

We started off the day with another great breakfast, thanks Kelly! And then we got ourselves packed up, Gary made a couple folding target boards and we even got a couple chores knocked out! I got to look at the parts for the Yukon, and boy do I approve of the progress there!

The morning's activities got us to the range a little late but the weather was spectacular and we knew we'd have a great day. Then we hit a snag. The farm was collecting the hay and we knew we couldn't set-up until they finished. So, we drove around the farm a bit and had a chat and watched. On one trip up the farm road we found our path blocked by a ground hog that decided to stare down a 7000 pound truck! It was pretty funny, the thing was fearless until Gary stuck his head out the window and it decided if people were involved it better run!


This is a view from just up the access road where we were waiting. The crew has finally made it into "our" field.


The truck driver doesn't know it yet but he's about to hit a soft patch and nearly get stuck.


He left some big ruts but managed to get back into position.


I can see why they would want to do this after dry weather, that's pretty steep there. It only took another 5-10 minutes and the entire field was cleared and we were ready to set-up.


It doesn't take us very long anymore to get ready. The war wagon has made set-up so much easier than having to un-pack every last item in order from tightly packed trucks. There's still a lot to do but it goes pretty quick considering how much stuff is involved.

It wasn't long and we were shooting. I was checking various slugs at 100 to verify the Woodsman was still sighted in and Gary was shooting some different slugs out of his shop prototype.


It looks like the gun likes the Pepper Grinder slugs pretty well.

By now, we had shot up the paper pretty well and needed to refresh the targets. Just before we were about to head out onto the range I caught some movement by the right tree line about 50 yards out. It was a ground hog! I asked Gary to stay put as I jumped back into the war wagon and tried to get a shot off. I'll post the results in the hunting section shortly...

We took a couple videos while we were out. Shooting the milk jugs full of water made a decent video but we're kinda jaded with the big bore video so I'll just post this one:



It shows pretty clear how almost all the damage happens after the slug is long gone. You can see that the slug leaves the back of the jug with a lot of energy still in hand. That was a 175gr Totem Pole .32 slug and the jug was at about 55 yards.

Somewhere along the line we saw a ground hog out on the ridgeline and I took a couple shots at it. I missed but the second shot was very close and gave me a good idea of the elevation I needed to hold. That would come in handy later...

We did manage to get fresh paper on the targets and decided to shoot a couple groups at 100.


I felt pretty bad about Gary getting a bad slug. I had made those the night before and while I had cleaned and sized them, I had not graded them and looked through for flaws. I should have had Timmy make them but the master caster is off camping...

Just to be certain that Gary's prototype will shoot , I picked a spot on a shot up target and asked Gary to shoot it. I told him the paint smear at 7 o'clock on the target ay 100 yards ought to be easy enough to shoot...


Yeah, it'll shoot!

And then we got distracted by yet another ground hog! Time to go write a post for the hunting section....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/2010 09:05PM by Jerry.

Excellent post, sounds like fun, wish I lived closer, or ya'll did. Jerry looks like it is going to shoot, and a bonus groundhog too. I'm sure the farmer appreciates that, those things can really eat.

Very nice post.

I agree with Joe too, i wish we all live closer together. Getting together for a big bore and or small bore shoot would sure be fun. It would be a picture, video, shooting extravaganza.

Another great day out with the war wagon, that's for sure!
Gary, how big was that little frog you "shot"?
Regards
Neil

Oh ... what you said!!!

hahah.

Anyway ... if I had shot a frog ... I'd have shown the "tusks".

Gary

You got it Joe and Cedric!

I wish so too. It's frustrating that the few of us who shoot and post, are so scattered around.

There are a bunch of my guns out there, but all I get to concentrate on are the ones that aren't yet complete. It's very encouraging to see them being used for an enjoyable outing. I always hope the next one, will be used and shared.

Guess what we have it the forum to share.

Gary

Gary, my frog question was a serious one, believe it or not....it's the zoologist in me.....it looks tiny, but I can't work out a scale

About 2" from nose to tip of tail bone.... It would have made an awful picture if shot!

Was just a small toad. I was intrigued by the camo. It disappears in the camera lens. When processing the pics ... if I play with the saturation and contrast ... the toad's camo STILL remains. It's exactly the same colors and reflectivity of the surroundings. Neat.

Oh - BTW ... the front page showed NO new posts. I found two here, on this thread alone.

Gary

Sounds like a fun shoot. Reminds me a a trip the family farm in Nebraska when I was a kid. I remember being very impressed by how many hay bales contained exactly half a snake...yuck.

We collected little tiny toads by the dozens, maybe half an inch long. They were everywhere in the hayfield stubble, and being perhaps ten years old at the time I just HAD to find something to do with them...

Mom was not amused.