Short Weekend

Not really short, I guess, since it had the requisite number of days, but like always they seemed to fly right by and be over before they had any right to be.

It started on Thursday, as mine usually do (I work Sunday nights, my weekends run from Thursday to Saturday on my long weeks and Wednesday to Saturday on my short ones...and before you think I'm a lucky spud for having four day weekends, 1. yes I am and 2. I work 12 hour days), with a message on my dashboard saying it was oil change time soon. That came as a bit of a surprise since the sticker on my windshield clearly stated I had another hundred miles or so, but since I had a long-distance weekend planned I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and change it.

Anyway, I went to see if I could score some more .22 ammo, and failed miserably, then went home to catch about 4 hours of sleep before having to get up to go to the dentist. The crown prep went well, no root canal needed, and now I have a huge hunk of white plastic covering the tooth stump until the crown gets made and sent to the dentist, about 2 weeks from now. This one is going to be porcelain instead of white gold like the other one, but since it's so far back I really don't think it will matter much. Thursday ended with me getting everything ready for that long-distance weekend.

Friday I got the oil, went to the feed store and got my registration renewed (gotta love rural North Carolina), and picked up the other things on my shopping list for the house and such. I got home and discovered my car sits too low to be able to put it up on the ramps, so I had to jack it up to put the ramps underneath it. Fortunately Son In Law has a lo-profile jack.

Drain the oil pan, remove the three bolts over the front cover, spin off the oil filter and discover that Ford has cleverly placed the front radiator support brace perfectly to intercept the hot oil stream from the filter. Clean everything up, new filter, reinstall the cover and the drain bolt and jack the car back up to remove the ramps. Eight (yes, eight) quarts of 5W20 dyno-synthetic blend (the Coyote's oil fill spout requires the use of a funnel, for what it's worth, and I need to get one with a bigger spout) and that job is done for another 7500-10,000 miles (whenever the dashboard readout tells me it's time again). It was the first time I had ever changed the oil on that car, having bought the extended service warranty, and I think it went pretty well.

Friday evening found me in Alexandria, Occupied Territories Virginia for a get-together with like-minded morons. No pics by agreement, but it was fun to get together and put some faces to some names. Saturday morning found me on the road home, and Saturday afternoon I was back at home base.

The car's odometer reads a bit over 59,800 miles now, less than 200 miles from the 60,000 end-of-warranty period. Time to contact my crack parts dealer for that tune, by the time it gets here the warranty will be out and the tune can go right in.

Back to work Sunday night. Gotta pay for that tune somehow (not to mention the dentist).

BlogShoot 6-1-13

We came, we saw, we destroyed many rounds of .22 LR (and a few rounds of other things as well).

(updated as memory of details allow)

Why yes, those ARE black powder rifles above my Marlins and on either side of the lever action, and the Tapco catalog in the middle lost a few pieces as the day went on.

 

We had a few handguns as well, including THE Handgonne, although it did not make an appearance on the range. Still, I can say I have seen it, I have held it in my hands, it does exist, and when it is out of ammo it would still be a formidable weapon.

I can now put faces to a few more names; New Jovian Thunderbolt, A Girl (and her guy, and 3 of the 4 up-and-coming Olympian shooting team members), AJ and Clay to name a few.

The board you see in the background has dum-dums stuck in holes drilled in the top. I didn't see "Use them as targets" in their "20 Ways to Use Dum Dums Lollipops" list, but the setup was certainly fun and interesting. The white smiley face target is above and to the right, the face didn't last long but a can of white spray paint kept it visible all through the day.

Youngest Son got some instruction from the Appleseed instructors as well as from Old NFO, so he had a great time as well.

The new scope on the Marlin 60 and the new Marlin 795 with its TechSights both worked great, and were actually sighted in right off the bat much to my surprise. The magazine release on the 795 isn't the best designed mechanism in the world, and you have to pull the magazine free because it won't drop out. Irritating, but not a show stopper. The Marlin 60 consumed the bulk .22 ammo without issue (unlike last time), but the Glock hated my reloads with the moly coated bullets. I'm going to see if they will go through Range Partner's guns. If they will, I'll make a gift of them.

The Appleseed instructor also had a 795 and he brought a 25 round ProMag magazine for it which I got to try out. I was considering getting a couple but was worried about feeding issues. He said the only problem he has had with it is there is no indication to show how many rounds are loaded, and the last 5 rounds are hard to load, but no issues with feeding rounds into the chamber. Not having a visual indication means you have to count the rounds as you load them, otherwise you won't know how many are in the magazine. This is a relatively minor issue, although I'm sure it is an annoyance. I must have at least one.

Afterwards much grub was consumed, and I brought both kinds of sauce (right and wrong) for the pulled pork. No pictures of that, too busy eating!

All in all, a great day with great people and fun shooty goodness.  I'm looking forward to the next meet.

Let The Fun Begin

Boy and I landed in NoVa around noon and got checked in early, then went to get something to eat. Afterwards we took a quick look around and then settled in for a few hours before meeting the crowd for dinner.

As I pulled up to the restaurant I mentioned that, having never met any of these folks before, I really didn't know how I was going to recognize any of them. About that time I noticed the Dodge 4x4 with the Massachusetts plates and suddenly I knew how I was going to know where everyone was.

I can now say that I am not the only person on the planet that doesn't know Old NFO, so that mission at least is accomplished. I can also place faces to names for Bubblehead Les, Dr. Mike and of course the infamous and previously mentioned Massachusetts Madman himself.

We had a bit of pasta, discussed plumbing issues, had a little birthday party, and then went to the home of Our Lovely Hostess for a show-what-ye-brung. I think for sheer numbers JayG wins, which is why he said he didn't bring his convertible (as he admired mine, and dammit I really need to get my FXR running again). We also formulated a plan for setting up the range and repairing the aforementioned plumbing issues, then started the BS session. These folks have lived interesting lives.

We will be up early for a 9 AM muster to put the plans in action (remember what they say about plans and first contact), so I'm off to bed. I'll make an after action report in the morning.