Playing with my boy!

Just about the time I got comfortable, in walked my youngest grandson. We've made the dog chase a ball, we've explored the coins in my pocket and looked at the plastic fruit on the kitchen table.

He thinks plastic fruit is an awful idea and right now he's got Grandma peeling a real orange for a snack.

I'll be leaving for the game in about 15 minutes.

Monday Afternoon

I got to school this morning and learned that we've got a soccer game scheduled for this evening. The coaching staff went into fits, because it seems that our soccer guy scheduled this game on the same night as the BCS Championship game. Evidently, they want to watch Auburn beat up on Oregon, although I'm not sure I'll bother. Oregon is a northwest team and Auburn is an SEC team, and if it ain't SEC, then it really isn't college football.

If Auburn loses tonight, they should just go ahead and drop out of SEC football.

I'll be leaving her in an hour to go watch a soccer game that I don't want to watch. It'll be a joy, I'm sure.

On a more traditional note, I was cleaning off my bench yesterday and found a box of .308 caliber, 165 grain Sierra Gamekings. I had forgotten I had those. For those who might not be familiar with Gameking bullets, they're standard cup-and-core bullets, but they're made by the same folks who make Matchking bullets. In my experience, Gameking bullets are very accurate. They certainly let me shoot better than I might otherwise. They're not terribly expensive and they come in 100 bullet boxes, unlike Nosler, who'll only sell you 50 at a time.

Sometime later this week, I'll load some in .308 Winchester.

Wintry mix

The weather weenies are calling for a wintry mix of sleet and ice tonight across Central Louisiana.

Lovely, just lovely. We're not equipped for ice and if it comes, tomorrow will quickly become a disaster.

Unlike most of my readers, this part of the country is ill-equipped for winter weather that includes frozen water. We've got no salt trucks and darned little capacity to spread sand on bridges and overpasses. Although the highway guys try, we're just not equipped for this sort of thing. Luckily, when it does occur, it melts quickly. Everything comes to a grinding halt for four or five hours, then it melts and we go about our business, telling horror stories about a little ice on the bridges.

Would anyone like to take bets that schools will be closed tomorrow? You can bet that I'll be listening to the radio before I pull my boots on in the morning.

Sunday Morning Dawg

Today I'm on the hook for pulled pork at church. This is our usual Second Sunday lunch at the church, and the ladies decided that we want pulled pork. So, last night I put two boston butts in the oven, rubbed it with seasonings, and marinated in beer.

The original recipe is here, but I didn't use the slow-cooker. No, I put both butts in a 225 oven while we slept. They went in the oven at 9:00 p.m. last night and I pulled them out just a few minutes ago. I'll let them cool while I drink my coffee and pull them apart before we leave for church.

Of course, the dog has been smelling roasting pork all night. It's enough to make your mouth water.

When I start pulling the meat, he'll be near my feet demanding his share. There's plenty for a dog to have a portion before we leave for church.

Daily Dawg

My sister has been agitating for a daily posting of the dog's activities.

So, I asked the dog what he thought of the idea.

Plainly, he's as horrified at the idea as I am.

Still Updating

I added some links, and increased the font size on the post body. That's a little better, and I managed to increase the size without screwing up anything.

I'll continue to add links as I think about them. I realize I've neglected to link Castbullet.com, but I'll take care of that before long.

Poles Shifting

It seems that the pole that we consider magnetic north is shifting. As it turns out and the linked article explains, this is natural and normal, it's just moving faster than usual. If it keeps up this rate of change, the magnetic north pole will be under Siberia in fifty years.

However, that means that your compass doesn't point north, not that it ever did. If you look at a decent map, on the bottom will be something called a declination diagram that tells you how far off of true north your compass will point.

Declination diagrams were something I spent a lot of time studying as a youth, leading platoons through thick undergrowth. We had to know where we were, and if we didn't pay attention to the little variances between grid north and magnetic north, we'd soon be lost. There is a reason that they normally give young lieutenants a senior Sergeant to go along with that map and compass, and being lost is the reason.

Nowadays, with GPS technology it's increasingly harder to get lost, but we manage. Still, it's interesting that the poles are moving, and if you're doing old-style land navigation, it would help to have a current declination. In the United States, it's shifting west.

Updated - For Dianne.

As you can all see, I've updated the look at PawPaw's House. Changed the wallpaper, so to speak. I'm still trying to figure out how to make it do what I want it to do, but we're making progress.

One feature that my sisters wanted was an easy way to access my recipes and cooking. I've got that now. If you look down on the right sidebar, you'll see a rolling sphere that has my post labels. Hold your cursor over it, and it will roll. As a particular label comes up, click on it, and you'll see only those posts with that label. For example, clicking on Cooking or Food will get you those posts.

As always, PawPaw tries to make everything easier for the folks he loves.

Compromise

I was reading today that Steny Hoyer, a Democrat congressman from Maryland, thinks that Tea Partiers come from unhappy families. Yeah, really.

There are a whole lot of people in the Tea Party that I see in these polls who don’t want any compromise. My presumption is they have unhappy families. All of you have been in families: single-parent, two-parents, whatever. Multiple parent and a stepfather. The fact is life is about trying to reach accommodation with one another so we can move forward. That is certainly what democracy is about. So if we are going to move forward compromise is necessary

Well, Steny, it's hard to compromise with someone who is dead wrong.

The American people have been watching, and what you're doing is totally out of sync with Constitutional practices, wastes our tax money, is becoming almost confiscatory in nature, and doesn't reflect the wishes of most of America. Additionally, we're seeing the rise of a political elite, which in-and-of itself is contrary to American values. The House of Representatives belongs to the people, Mr. Hoyer, who write your paycheck.

I understand that compromise is necessary in a Republic, and we've been compromising. All it's brought us is inflation, an out of control government, an increase in the federal bureaucracy and horrifying regulation. Additionally we've seen the welfare class explode, our tax dollars squandered, and our core political beliefs mocked. That's not moving forward, Mr Hoyer, that's moving backwards.

Compromise, indeed, Mr. Hoyer. Maybe you should try it sometime? It certainly doesn't help when you insult us. That sounds like the dim-witted, sour-grapes, shortsighted example we've come to expect from Congress. And you wonder why we're in no mood to compromise? You're lucky we haven't started investing in tar and feathers.

Shooting with the boys

I almost forgot! My sons and I did a little shooting last week. Second son Matt is trying to decide on a handgun, so third son Joey set up a range at his country backyard and we took brought out our handguns so that Matt could try a variety and make in informed decision. Between my own collection, elder son Barrett's collection and youngest son Joey's collection we managed to amass a fairly good selection of handguns.

Left to right, top to bottom, we start with a SW Mod 28 4 inch, SW Mod 28 6 inch, Ruger Super Blackhawk, 7.5 inch, SW Mod 66 4 inch, Kimber .45 ACP, Ruger Security Six 2.75 inch, SW Mod 638 2 inch, Taurus Tracker 4 inch, Springfield GI .45 ACP, Ruger LCP, Ruger Mark II, 4 inch, and a SW M&P .45 ACP. So, a fairly good selection in .22 LR, .38 Special, .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum, and .45 ACP.

We began firing, talking, laughing and joking, when a neighbor came over to see about all the commotion. He's not a handgun kind of guy, but he wanted to try them, so we let him shoot as well. We started him on the .22, but he soon moved to the .38s then wanted to see what a .357 was about. Then he tried a .45. He manned up and shot everything we put in his hands. This is a good picture of the newby in full recoil with my Ruger .44 Magnum.

Afterwards, we all repaired to the kitchen. Joey had put some sausage on the pit and we ate sausage-dogs before we retired to our own homes.

Shooting with sons is great stuff. Bringing a new handgun shooter into the fold is just as satisfying.

Another School Shooting

As soon as I clicked the link to publish the prior post, I noticed a report on a school shooting today and of course I clicked the link.

This one in Omaha, a young man entered the school and shot the principal and assistant principal. One is in stable condition, the other in critical condition. The young man was found sometime later, about a mile from the school, dead from a self-inflicted wound.

When I say my prayers tonight, I'll say a prayer for all concerned. For the wounded principal and assistant principal, for the young man who thought that this was necessary, and for his family, who is in bereavement and asking questions that someone should never have to ask.

Sadly, this incident fits the profile.

Wednesday afternoon

It was another "one of them days" at the schoolhouse. However, I did get home at a reasonable hour and I've taken time to pay bills that haven't been paid this month.

In the meantime, I'm watching these bird deaths that are being reported. It seems that in Arkansas and in southern Louisiana, dead birds are falling from the sky. Sometimes in the hundreds. Red-wing blackbirds seem to be affected, and now I see that bird deaths are being reported in Sweden, and in Illinois.

Ain't that strange? I'm waiting for the conspiracy theorists to get cranked up. Either them, or the fundamental religious types. I'm sure that the wrath of God has descended on the avian populations.

We live in interesting times.

Back to Work Monday

First day back to work after the holidays and I managed to stay busy. As soon as I got home my younger son showed up for supper, so I was playing with the least grandkid until just a few minutes ago.

Tomorrow we've got a sporting event. A soccer match if my calendar is correct.

I'll get back to this blogging thing in another day or two . Y'all stay tuned.

In the meantime, I've found another gun forum that seems to interest me. It's probably two days older than dirt, but for me it's brand new. The Firing Line. If you don't have it bookmarked, go give it a look.

Sunday Morning Dawg

From time to time, the dog gets a bath and recently Milady decided that he should start the New Year clean and fresh smelling.

However, the dog objects and often has to be rooted out from under furniture when it's bath time. It's worse than bathing grandkids.

However, he tolerates it well enough when he's in the bath, although he looks as if he's in extreme distress.

Isn't that pathetic? He does much better once he's out of the tub and allowed to rip around the house. With that much fur, it takes him an hour or so to dry.

He's clean-smelling now and ready for a new year.

Bonus New Year's Dawg

We've got family coming over in a few hours for the traditional Black-eyed peas, cabbage, ham, and cornbread lunch. It's busy in the kitchen, and when it's busy in the kitchen, the dog likes to keep an eye on the activities while still remaining safe from trampling feet. The best spot to keep an eye on us is from under the buffet.

Just in case any food might become available. Happy New Years, everyone!

Kodachrome

Milady and I were talking about cameras yesterday and we remembered the little 110 cameras that were so ubiquitous to our adolescence and young adult-hood and how our grandchildren love their digital cameras.

A friend's child was over last week and complained that her camera wouldn't take photographs and I asked her innocently if she had film in it? She looked at me as if I were daft.

Today I learn that Kodachrome is finished. Done. Kaput. We all grew up with Kodachrome and it's over.

Kodak stopped making Kodachrome in 2009, and stopped making the chemicals needed to process it, a complex process that could never be done in home darkrooms. Kodachrome had been pushed aside by the replacement of home movie cameras by digital camcorders, and the collapse of the color-slide market. Today, in Kansas, the world's last remaining Kodachrome processing lab shuts down. The end. Forever.

Yes, you can still take your film to a one-hour photo processor and have it developed, but Kodachrome is done and that's the end of an era.

And another bit of my childhood passes into obsolescence.

A paring knife?

I've been reading about this high-school senior who was suspended during her senior year for possession of a paring knife at her high school.

A paring knife? Really? That's idiotic. The administrators at that school should be suspended. Indefinitely. Pending termination. If they are unable to distinguish between a real threat and a paring knife in a lunchbox, then they have no business teaching students.

I work in a high school and while we don't want students stabbing or slicing each other, you've got to understand that a sharpened piece of steel is not necessarily a weapon.

Matter of fact, just last month, a parent approached me all in a tizzy. "There's a knife laying on the sidewalk in front of the school."

I didn't want to look at the parent with disbelief and say, "So, who gives a shit?" but that's exactly what I was thinking. I went outside and sure enough, found a knife on the sidewalk. A cheap paring knife. A cheap, dull, paring knife.

I took it into the principal's office and dropped it in the trash can.

Propsed Amendment

I've seen this at various places on the Internet, and the latest place I've seen it is here. Did you know that there are laws that apply to citizens of the United States from which Congress is exempt? This Amendment proposes to eliminate any loophole for congressional membership. The text is simple and easily read.

Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution:
"Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States ."

I think it's a great idea and long overdue. I'm emailing my Congress-critters.

Nine Inch Plate

There is an axiom among rifle shooters that you're in good shape if you can hit a 9" paper plate at any range where you might resonably expect to shoot at a deer-sized animal. This comes from the fact that the heart-lung area on a standard whitetail deer is approximately 9" in diameter.

That deer I missed on Monday had me bugged. Fifty yards away, she was quartering away and I missed her. Was it the rifle, or me? Did something change on the rifle? Was the scope jarred off its zero?

There's only one way to answer these questions, and that's to shoot the rifle at some reasonable range and see if you can hit the heart-lung area of a standard deer. So, this morning, I went to my private range and stapled a 9" paper plate to the side of a cardboard box.

The first two shots went about four inches high, which isn't the way I sighted the rifle. It's supposed to be one inch high at 100 yards. I recalled that when I sighted the rifle in the late summer, I had used a bench rest, and I wondered if that would change the way the rifle recoils. In the hunting fields I shoot the rifle resting on the palm of my hand. I'll take a rest when I can, but I want the rifle recoiling from my palm. But, if the rifle is firing high out of my hand, I want to fix that problem, so I took out a coin and adjusted the scope.

To as closely as possible replicate the conditions in the field, I wanted the rifle recoiling out of my palm. I also wanted to increase my heartrate and respiration, so I walked briskly across the pasture, looked at the target and walked back, then leaned against my pickup, rested my elbows on the hood and fired three shots.

Those first three shots appear as the triangle in the center of the plate, about an inch high. So far, so good. I walked toward the target and every few steps I'd kneel and fire a shot as rapidly as the crosshairs appeared to be on the plate. I fired the last shot at 50 yards, as quickly as I could.

All of the shots fell into that 9" paper plate. Evidently, I'm pulling my kneeling shots to the left. After the hunting season I"ll work on that problem. The shots taken with an elbow rest fell into a triangle that measures 1.4 inches, so I feel better about the way the rifle shoots.

This particular rifle will shoot minute-of-angle with the ammo I'm using, when I have a good rest. In the hunting fields I'm likely not going to have a good rest. I'll be out of position, breathing hard, trying to steady the sight picture enough to squeeze off a good shot.

Now the question is answered. Plainly and simply, I missed that deer on Monday morning.

Bean Soup

This morning, I told Milady that I wanted to make a bean soup tonight. Then, I left for the deer lease, forgetting to soak my beans. No problem. I stopped at the grocery store and bought canned beans, and my soup is simmering on the stove for tonight's meal.

Bean Soup

1 lb dry white beans (Great Northerns, Navy Beans, White Limas, Butter Beans, it doesn't matter) Or 4 cans of white beans.

4 white potatoes, peeled and cut into small cubes.

1 cup ham, chopped.

Salt, pepper.

On the way back from the hunting lease, I stopped at the grocers and picked up some canned beans. (These were Sure-Fine Butter beans, but you can use something else.) Then, at home, I opened the cans and dumped them in a large pot. Peeled four medium white potatoes, then cut them into 1/4 inch cubes. Added those to the pot. Then, I took out the leftover Christmas ham, cubed that also, about a cup in the mix. Added a little salt and pepper, added enough water to cover it, then got it simmering. I'll stir it occasionally until supper, keeping it at a slow simmer and making sure that it doesn't boil dry. Add water as necessary.

This is an old recipe, something that a cook could put together for very little money and feed a crowd of kids. Beans are cheap, as are potatoes. If you were using dry beans, you'd want to put them on to soak early in the morning, then cook most of the afternoon. Using canned beans, I cheated. That little bit of meat is there for flavor. If a down-home cook didn't have any ham, they might have used salt pork, tasso, thin sliced sausage, or a ham hock.

What you want is for the potatoes to cook almost to pieces, and the beans to almost fall apart.

Serve with saltine crackers and iced tea. It's an old favorite for a cold winter's night. And very, very frugal. I bet that I don't have $5.00 in that pot, and I could feed eight or ten people.

Missed

I missed a deer today, during a comedy of errors.

I sat in the stand from before daylight till about 10:45, when I looked at my watch. I decided that I had been in the woods long enough and started packing my knapsack. I noticed movement to the front of the stand, and looked up to see a doe step out of the brier patch about twenty yards from the stand.

I've never seen a deer step out there, and I've been hunting that stand for three years. You could have knocked me over with a feather, but she turned her head and looked at the stand and I froze. She turned and started quartering away from me at a slow walk. The pipeline in that spot is about 40 yards wide, so I put down the thermos and reached for my rifle.

I was carrying the Savage 110, in .30-06. It's my favorite and I shoot it a lot, but I don't ever think that I've shot it at a close target, and this one was now about 40 yards from my stand. As I brought the rifle up, she looked over her shoulder at me again. I froze. She turned her head toward the opposing brier patch and I got the rifle to my shoulder. Found her in the scope. Centered the cross-hairs on a spot just behind her shoulder. Squeezed the trigger. Nothing but a little click.

The safety was still on. That rifle carries the Accutrigger and if the trigger is tripped while the safety is on, it disables the rifle. You've got to lift the bolt, reset the trigger, then slide the safety to fire. I did all that as the deer continued her mosey, quartering away. I realigned the cross-hairs on that spot behind the shoulder, fired the rifle and watched her squirt into the brier patch. I heard her busting brush, knew that I couldn't miss a deer that close, and continued closing the stand. I had a deer to process.

After a suitable period to let her lay down and die, I climbed down out of the stand and walked to where I had last seen her. No blood on the ground. I began a thorough search, crisscrossing the area. No blood, no hair. I expanded the search till I had covered the better part of four or five acres. No deer, no blood, no hair. I searched for over an hour, very carefully, criss-crossing the area and came to the simple, unmistakable conclusion that I had missed a deer in a classic nearly broadside shot, at the extreme range of about 50 yards.

Just Damn!

Sunday Gumbo

We awoke this morning to a cold, breezy day in Central Louisiana. The thermometer hasn't moved much off 40 degrees for the last two days. It's a wet cold with the rain we got yesterday. The weather-weenies say that the sun is supposed to peek out this afternoon, and I'm seeing a threat of that, but it's still heavy jacket weather outside.

So, after church, I decided to take the turkey from Christmas Eve and boil the carcass. I've finished that and made a broth from the turkey bones, peeled the meat that was leftover, and added salt and pepper. Then, I took out some of the deer sausage that Vance Keene made for me and I've got it sizzling in a large black skillet. When it's done, I'll saute some onions and bell peppers, then make a roux in the same pot.

After it's assembled, I"ll put it on a simmer and let the flavors combine, walking past it once an hour or so, give it a stir and add water as necessary.

Milady is shopping with the daughters. I've told them that when they get through with their plundering, I"ll have a big gumbo ready.

Sunday Morning Dawg

During the Christmas festivities, the dog was surprised to find that Milady had hung a stocking on the fireplace with his name on it, and Santa had gotten the dog a new jacket.

In this photo, he's standing near the table,begging scraps. Of course, he got his ration of ham and turkey. Isn't he stylish in his new jacket?

Rain, blessed rain.

I awoke to a gentle rain on my acre this morning. At 7:00 the cloud cover was so complete that daylight was just a concept. I hope it falls all day.

After the family left last night, Milady and I put the food away, she found fridge containers while I washed dishes. Then we collapsed into bed. Awoke this morning to a joyfully wrecked house, but we'll put that in order as the day goes along.

Under the tree, I found two items of particular interest. A loadbook for the .45-70 cartridge that should supply much informative reading. And a Kuhnhausen manual on the Ruger Single Action Revolver. I'm told that a Kuhnhausen on the SW revolver is forthcoming, simply on backorder.

So, on this grey Christmas morning, I'm sitting in blue jeans and slippers, sipping coffee and watching it rain. Milady has put some Christmas carols on the CD player and I'm a very lucky man.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Christmas Eve

It's Christmas Eve, a very holy day in the Church.

Milady and I started a tradition shortly after we came to be together. With blended families, grandkids, in-laws, outlaws, and the clan that we've put together, we know that the kids have other obligations on Christmas Day. So, we decreed that our celebration would be held on Christmas Eve and the parents are free on Christmas Day to celebrate with the other side of their respective families. We prepare a huge meal on Christmas Eve and celebrate the season, then after the evening meal we open presents and the rest of the family goes home to their own celebrations.

So, after I finish this cup of coffee, the remainder of the day will be spent in preparation for the evening meal and the festivities that accompany it.

When I was a child, my father would put Christmas records on the stereo. Inevitably, this old favorite would make its way to the stack. It's one of my very favorite Christmas carols and this group does an exceptional job with it.



Merry Christmas, everyone.

Skunked

This morning I found myself without adult supervision, also without grandkid supervision, so I headed for the deer woods. Got to my stand about 6:00 a.m., poured some coffee and settled in. At daylight, I took out my binoculars and scanned the wood line, just in time to see a doe break from the woods and cross the pipeline in two hops. She was loping through the woods, running away or toward something, but moving at an energetic pace.

I sat in the stand till 11:00. Saw crows and squirrels and cardinals. No more deer. That one pilgrim at 7:00 was it.

I've found lately that I use binoculars more and more. Last year I bought a Nikon Action 10X50 on sale at Academy Sports for about $100.00. Back in the day, when I was commanding tanks for Uncle Sam, I used binocs a lot. If I was in the field, I had a pair of binoculars slung around my neck. The binoculars I used in the Army were all 10X50s, either Bausch and Lomb or Swarovski, depending on who had the contract and what the supply sergeant issued. Granted, the ranges in the Louisiana woods are short, but a good pair of binocs helps see through brush and look into a tree line.

Lots of times I'll be looking down the pipeline and see something way down yonder and ask myself, "What is that?". It's easy to lift the binoculars and identify whatever it might be. If I didn't have my binocs handy I might lift the rifle and use those optics, and that's a bad idea for a lot of reasons.

That Nikon binocualar is an asset to my hunting. Photographers have learned to rely on Nikon optics and the products I've seen recently are convincing me that Nikon has great glass at popular prices. If you don't have a good set of binoculars, you might give the Nikon line a chance. They're PawPaw endorsed.

Shot for a Doe

Here in Louisiana, we've got an extremely generous deer season. When you buy the license, you get six tags, three for antlered deer and three for antlerless deer.

That buck I shot last week, when I initially saw it, I thought that it was a doe. LDWF defines a legal buck as a deer with visible antler of hardened bony material, broken naturally through the skin. So, if a deer doesn't have antler broken naturally through the skin, it's antlerless regardless of gender and must be tagged as such. When I found that deer it had antler broken naturally through the skin, not much, but antler. As such, I tagged it with an antler tag.

At the ball game last night I was talking with a friend about shooting that little buck, thinking it was a doe, and he laughed. We've got a mutual friend in the Sheriff's Office, we'll call him Johnny who recently shot a deer. I'll tell you the story in his words.

"Johnny and I went hunting last weekend, and we were making an afternoon hunt. Johnny is getting older and needs to get his eyes checked, he doesn't see as good as he used to.

"Anyway, just about dark, I heard Johnny shoot, then another shot and in just a few minutes, Johnny called me to help him track a big doe. So, I grabbed a flashlight and went to help him track. Johnny said that he hit it twice, the first shot knocked it down and when it stood up, he shot it again. Then it jumped into the brush and he couldn't track it.

"We separated at about 30 feet distance and started easing through the brush. In just a minute, I picked up the blood trail and in just a few more minutes I found the deer. I called to Johnny and asked him what he'd shot, and he said a doe. Only problem was that this deer was a pretty 6-point buck. Nice rack. It's a good thing that Johnny had an antler tag in his pocket, or I'd have had to call a game warden."

Sometimes it's easy to shoot a buck for a doe. There's probably a moral there somewhere.

At the Bench

I'm watching grandkids today while the parents work. That's one of the benefits of working in the schools, that I get to be off work while the kids are out of school for the holidays. They don't stay with me every day, but I'm certainly one of the safety valves of child care, and I am a PawPaw, so there are those days when I watch kids. However, those young'uns know what they can get into and what they can't, so I don't have to hover over them like a buzzard.

I decided that it would he a good morning to reload some .357 magnum cartridges, both in 180 and 158 grain loads, so I went out to the bench and spent a half-hour removing clutter, organizing brass, brushing the bench for a clean work surface. I loaded a loading block with 50 pieces of .357 brass and ran them through the full-length sizer. Then, I noticed that I am out of small pistol primers. Howthehell did that happen? Oh, yeah, I loaded a bunch of .38 special this summer and ran out of primers. Was going to order some and forgot. Well, damn.

So, I decided to replenish my .30-06 stock, and took down my Nosler bullet box. It rattled lightly and when I opened it, I saw four bullets. Four. I thought I had better than half a box, then I remembered those .308s I reloaded in October. Well, hell. I'll use those four, that'll be better than nothing.

Then, I got down the jug of Reloder 19 powder. It was light, too. I poured the remnants into a container and realized that I had enough to load the four bullets I had remaining. Dug out the brass, went through the process of trimming, camfering, cleaning primer pockets, ... you know the routine. When I took out the large rifle primers, I realized that I'm down to my last hundred of those too.

I'm not out of ammo, not by a long shot, but my component stocks are depleted. After Christmas, it'll be time to make a primer and powder order. **sigh**

Christmas Music

Another selection from Celtic Woman, this one O Come All Ye Faithful. The more I listen to this group of women, the better I like them.



In two more hours I've got to meet my son for a project, then hie myself over to the high school to work a basketball game. I don't know why those coaches schedule games during the holidays, but there you have it. To put a feather in their caps, they've scheduled three games for tomorrow night. What a joy.

Reflections on Caliber

I've been thinking a lot about the deer I shot this weekend with my Savage Model 10 in .243 Winchester. The load I used featured a 100 grain bullet traveling at 3100 fps. The kill shot took the deer in the ribs, just behind the shoulder, in a classic perpendicular shot. The animal went about 60 yards from the point of impact and it was piled up dead when I found it. An unprofessional autopsy showed that the bullet blew up on a rib, but cut an artery on the top of the heart. When the bullet blew up, it ruined the shoulder on that side of the animal and didn't penetrate through-and-through.

The bullet is an unknown make. It was sold as a blemished bullet and even with the blem tag, it's shown to be very accurate. It's a cannelured, 100 grain 6mm bullet with a boat tail, of standard lead/gilding metal construction. I suspect that it might be the Hornady #2453, but I can't be certain. I drive that load with Reloder 22 powder at about 3100 fps. In my Savage, it turns in remarkable groups, on the neighborhood of 1/2 inch. At that speed, it's not surprising that the bullet came apart and if the remnants of the bullet hadn't gotten into the artery at the top of the heart, it would certainly have gotten into lungs. However, the bullet didn't pass through the deer and I didn't have a blood trail to track the deer.

I certainly can't complain about the performance of the rifle or the bullet. However, I didn't have a blood trail and without the knowledge I had of how deer travel in those particular woods, I might not have found the deer without a great deal of searching. With a better bullet, perhaps a premium bullet like the Barnes Triple Shock, or the Nosler Partition, I might have had a better blood trail. Maybe not.

The first deer I shot this season, I took with my Savage 110 in .30-06. That load uses Reloder 19 powder to throw a 150 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip bullet at about 2900 fps. That deer was facing me and I shot her in the brisket, where the neck enters the body. The bullet traversed about two feet of the animal, shattering a lung and breaking her spine when it exited. She was pretty much anchored and didn't move off the pipeline. It's easy to track a deer when they're laying right where you shot them.

In both cases, bullet placement was right where I wanted to shoot the animal. Both bullets got into the vitals, but the larger, heavier bullet penetrated better.

This is no indictment of the .243 Winchester caliber for deer hunting. Another half an inch to the right or left and the bullet would have slipped between the ribs. I found the deer within 60 yards of where I shot it. The load performed admirably. That little bullet got me a lot of venison, and I'm thankful for the experience. However, for the rest of the season, I think I'm going to take the .30-06 to the woods. This summer I'll get a box of Partitions and work up a deer load with those bullets. I'll save those blemished bullets for general shooting, target work, training grandkids and other tasks than deer hunting.

Sunday reflections.

Proper reflection for a Sunday Morning before church.



This is the time of the year for rich chorale music, and the Mormons do that wonderfully.

Sunday Morning Dawg

Sometimes I get a look from the dog that is pure aggravation. I don't know what I was doing to him, but he didn't like it much.

Evidently, he'd had enough of whatever it was I was doing.

Don't piss off the dawg.

Christmas Music

We started yesterday with Luciano Pavarotti singing the old classic Ave Maria. Today we continue with another interpretation, this one by Sarah Brightman.



Lovely, just lovely.

Venison II

The Savage Model 10 (.243 Winchester) made venison this morning. At 8:30 a.m. local, a young spike buck stepped out on the pipeline, about 140 yards from the stand. He was facing me, in a down-hill attitude and the first shot went high, hitting him in the left rear ham, knocking him down. I bolted the rifle, thinking that he might get up, and he did. I put the second shot in his ribs and he entered the woods.

My brother-in-law and I had already decided to make sausage from the next deer killed. I have some boston butt roasts in my freezer to add to the venison to make a 50/50 smoked link sausage. We had agreed that we'd filet the next deer we shot and take the meat to the processor, a guy named Keene, who has a shop in Jena, LA.

I waited about 20 minutes after the shot before trying to track the deer. As I was entering the woods, my brother-in-law called on the cell phone, asking if I had shot. I told him I was tracking the deer and expected to find him dead in just a few minutes. Sure enough, down the lane the buck lay about 60 yards from where I shot him. By the time I had walked back to get the Mule, I could see my BIL coming down the pipeline to help load the deer.

He was a smallish buck, probably a yearling, in good fat. A quick examination of the deer showed that the first shot went high, hitting the ham. The second shot in the ribs did the job. The spot where he laid down was covered in arterial blood, but I didn't have an exit wound.

We took him to the camp, skinned him and filet'd him. Brother-in-law has about 30 pounds of young, tender venison on ice and I'll get the pork to him on Monday. Sometime about Christmas, he and I should split about 50 pounds of venison sausage.

I've already validated the tag with the Dept of Wildlife and Fisheries. Now, it's time for a shower.

Friday afternoon

A dry front pushed through last night, dropping temps into the mid 40s. Accuweather is calling is calling for a low of 35 tonight with a chance of rain and partly cloudy for tomorrow.

I'll be on my deer stand before daylight. For tonight, though, I think that a good chicken noodle soup is in order. With a big glass of iced tea.

Tonght begins the Christmas Season for me, so lets begin with the incomparable Luciano Pavarotti.



Perfect!

A Three-Fer

It seems that three goblins tried to rob a jewelry store in Houston, TX and got more than they bargained for.

HOUSTON — A jewelry store owner shot and killed three armed men who tried to rob his business, police said.

Two men were in an east Houston jewelry store Thursday afternoon pretending to be customers when a third man entered the store and stated, "This is a robbery," Houston police spokesman Kese Smith said.

All three men pulled out pistols, tied up the owner's wife and took her to a back room, Smith said.

As they were trying to tie up the store owner, the 52-year-old took out a handgun from his waistband and fatally shot one of the suspects, Smith said. He then grabbed a shotgun and shot and killed the two other suspects in the ensuring gunbattle, Smith said.

He used both a handgun and a shotgun to defend his life and his wife. From all accounts, it was quite a gun battle. According to the homicide detective, a guy named Waters:

"We've got bullet fragments all over the place, casings all over the place, shotgun slugs all over the place, so it's really hard to determine at this point how many rounds were actually fired — but quite a few," Waters added.

The shopkeeper was using slugs? That'll let a lot of blood out. It seems that our good shopkeeper was wounded in the shoulder but didn't realize it until he was trying to untie his wife.

Evidently, there's a fourth suspect on the loose, a reported getaway driver. Police are looking for him.

I'd like to buy that shopkeeper a beer.

Not a clue

I was driving home this afternoon and saw four (4) patrol vehicles from my agency outside a house close to the main highway. And a fire truck, along with an ambulance. I switched my police radio over to scan all available frequencies and heard nothing of interest as I continued on my merry journey home.

I'll be asked tomorrow what was happening, just a mile from my house and I will honestly say that I don't know. Not a clue. They didn't call me, I didn't get in the way. If someone had come up on frequency asking for any available unit, I would have pulled right up on to the front porch. They didn't so I went on home.

With almost 600 sworn officers in this department, it's impossible to know everything that is going on at any given time. Yet, folks will ask me, and I'll tell them, Not A Clue. You're going to have to read the newspaper.

Don't ask

I see that the House voted today to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the Clinton era ban on determining a military recruit's sexual orientation. Good, it's about time. Hopefully the Senate will soon follow and we can put an end to this nonsense.

I was a serving Army Reserve officer when President Clinton came out with this policy and even then I thought it was a side-step away from the real problem. I've served with soldiers, both male and female that I was 98% certain were gay and it didn't color my opinion of them in the least. Soldiering is a results-oriented career and as long as the soldier met qualifications and took care of his or her duty, I damn sure didn't ask. I'm sure, statistically, that I deployed gay soldiers to the Middle East during Desert Storm. I'm also sure that they served honorably.

I had more problems with heterosexual soldiers and the problems associated with spouses and deployments than I ever had with gay soldiers. There are a number of things that might make one unsuitable for military service, but being gay in-and-of itself isn't one of them. If, heaven forbid, a guy starts flaming in formation, or mincing across the company area, there are other ways to deal with that, ways that have nothing to do with sexual orientation.

Officers will be tested and NCOs will have to lead. That has always been the leadership challenge and it is what we're paid for. A professional military can handle this challenge without adversely affecting readiness. It's simply a matter of doing the right thing.

I'm glad that this is making its way through the Congress and I hope like hell our President signs it. The last thing the military needs is for it to be decided in the Courts. It's time for Congress and our President to show backbone and put an end to this foolishness.

Notes on the News

It's been a busy couple of days, and I haven't even thought about this blog. However, did you read about the guy who held up the Bellagio Casino in Vegas. He walked over to the craps table with a pistol and made off with 1.5 million in chips. What was the guy thinking? It's not like that's real money. And if he shows up at the cashier's cage with a stack of $25,000 chips, the casino is bound to ask questions.

Next we read about a shooting at a Florida School Board Meeting. It seems that the guy was upset about something, pulled a pistol and threatened the School Board. After the shooter got off several shots, the school security chief shot the guy and the shooter finished the incident by killing himself.

This guy fits the pattern for a school shooter. The pattern is normally that a shooter will provoke the helpless until confronted by an armed adversary. Once an armed adversary shows up, the shooter normally commits suicide. That's why we're trained to aggressively approach an active shooter and take him under fire as soon as possible. It's the safest way to end the conflict.

In other news, I'm going hunting this weekend even if it hair-lips every cow in Texas. I've been too long away from the lease and I'm starting to get twitchy.

Swapping a Handi

My son asked if I'd loan him a rifle for a few months, and of course, I'm happy to do so. He's back in Louisiana now and doesn't want to lug his Model 10 FLP through the woods. It happens that I've got a Handi-Rifle in .308 Winchester, his favorite caliber. He's left-handed, so with the Handi Rifle he won't have to worry about being on the wrong side of the rifle.

After church, I took out the Handi and changed the hammer spur from the right side to the left, then swapped over the Allen ammo holder to the left side of the stock. Total time to convert a Handi-Rifle from right hand to left, about 10 minutes.

I'll also include a box of ammo for the rifle, consisting of Reloder 15 powder and the 150 grain Nosler Ballistic-Tip bullet. That little rifle launches that load at about 2725 fps and should be good for anything the finds in the Central Louisiana woods.

Slackers

It seems that there are 270 million privately owned firearms in the United States, which comes to about 0.9 firearms per each American.

We've got to do our part to increase this proportion. Take a new shooter to the range, get involved in hunter safety education, teach your kids to shoot and help them to learn about the American tradition of firearms ownership and use. The shooting sports are not uniquely American, but we hold the bright candle of firearms ownership. We've to to pass it along to the younger generation so that the beacon of Liberty will burn brightly.

As Patrick Henry so famously said: The great object is that every man be armed. Do your part to make that a reality.

Sunday Morning Dawg

I am told that in the life of a canine pack, it is the pack leaders responsibility to insure that all the members of the pack are fed, and more particularly to insure that everyone gets a portion of the choice bits.

In this household, Milady is the Leader of the Pack. When Milady seeks a snack, the dog is nearby, asserting his right to a portion of the choice bits. Just yesterday, Milady professed a yearning for crackers and potted meat and the dog likewise asserted his claim.

He's the Waiting for Snacks, Sunday Morning Dawg.

Odd Price Point

Reading Say Uncle again, we come to a website that talks about entry-level bolt action rifles. The article set the price point at under $370.00, which is odd, but illustrative of how inexpensively the novice can purchase a new-in-box hunting rifle these days.

Frequent readers will know that I'm a big fan of Savage rifles, and true to form, the article lists the Savage Axis as the best entry level hunting rifle. My family has four Savage rifles in the battery. Two heavy barrel rifles and two sporter weight. They all turn in MOA accuracy with good ammunition.

My son and I were talking the other night about the quest for accuracy. We're not benchrest shooters, but we appreciate an accurate rifle, and we understand that what we consider accurate a dedicated target shooter might consider lousy accuracy. Still, the vital area of a whitetail deer will be about 9" in diameter and that is what most riflemen aspire to hit. Entry level rifles are certainly capable of this level of accuracy. Many of them are much better.

Rifles are getting better, and less expensive. I admit that I haven't handled the Marlin, Remington, or Mossberg entry rifles, but when they start showing up in the pawn shop racks, I may be sorely tempted. I've got a lot of grandsons that are going to need rifles and some of these are keepers.

Friday afternoon

Is it Friday already? I guess it is.

Gerry asks in comments:

Wasn't there a Japanese General or some such who said that invading the USA was stupid and suicidal because there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass?

Yeah, Gerry, that quote is attributed to Japanese Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto, although serious scholars believe that it is erroneously attributed. Yamamoto was the Commander in Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy and was one of the main architects of the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was also a graduate of Harvard University and the US Naval War College. Yamamoto had spent a considerable amount of time in the United States and understood our military capacity. Yamamoto was killed in 1943 near the Solomon Islands when his transport plane was ambushed by P-38 fighter planes. His death was a serious blow to Japanese morale at the time.

There's also no evidence that he made the statement that "I fear that all we've done is awakened a sleeping giant and filled it with a terrible resolve." It's a great line, but it has no citation except the movie Tora, Tora, Tora.

Yamamoto is quoted as saying "In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success."

Yamamoto was an interesting guy and the question is if he had lived, would he have counseled to let the war continue when it was apparent that Japan would lose? We'll never know.

The Largest Army

Uncle points me to a link over at the Federalist Papers and he talks about our deer hunting habits.

The state of Wisconsin has gone an entire deer hunting season without someone getting killed. That’s great. There were over 600,000 hunters. - -But that pales in comparison to the 750,000 who are in the woods of Pennsylvania this week. Michigan’s 700,000 hunters have now returned home. Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virginia, and it is literally the case that the hunters of those four states alone would comprise the largest army in the world.

And he's right, you know. America has a lot of folks who understand guns, and who understand, at least in part, their local woods.

For millenia, philosophers have pondered how one can maintain a well-armed population that can fend off all attackers, while simultaneously maintaining ordered governance. In America, we’ve fulfilled this dream, and we’ve done it so well and so effortlessly that no one seems to have noticed.

And he's right. The United States, once you get out of the cities, is an armed nation, and for the most part, the news is very benign.

Years ago, in Kentucky, we conducted a map exercise at the Armor School. The problem was that somehow, a division of Soviet Armor had been inserted near Frankfort, KY, and were advancing on the Bullion Depository. With the assets we had available at Knox and those assets we could rapidly get as replacements, we were having trouble holding off the Soviet horde. Then, someone started factoring in all the hillbillies with deer rifles and started figuring a realistic attrition rate for the invaders. Inside of 50 miles, we had attrited them to the point where they were no longer a viable fighting force.

As long as the deer hunters are out there, America will never be conquered by force of arms. It's all those other ways to conquer minds that scare me.

Outdoor Writing

If you're anything like me, you love the old outdoor writers. I grew up reading Skeeter Skelton, Jack O'Connor, Nash Buckingham and Gene Hill. I also like other writers like Peter Capstick and ... well, the list goes on and on.

I was recently pointed to one heck of a trove of old outdoor writing, hosted at a place called NitroExpress.com. They've probably got a hundred different articles and books linked as archives and the reading list is extensive. I'm currently reading The Man Eaters of Tsavo, a book written in 1907 by Lieutenant Colonel J.H. Patterson. If you don't know the story, it's about a young engineer who went to Africa in the latter part of the 19th Century to help build a railroad from Tsavo to Nairobi, and the work was halted by a pair of man-eating lions who feasted on the imported labor. The book was digitized by Microsoft for the University of California. Helluva story.

At any rate, Mostly Cajun pointed me to the link, for which I am eternally grateful. This archive will encompass my reading list for the next year or so. It's great stuff.

Moving

I've been moving all afternoon. Not for myself, PawPaw and Milady are happily ensconced in our home, but Milady's son is in the midst of a move, and PawPaw has a pickup truck, so Sunday was spent hauling furniture from one house to the other.

Youngest son, Joey, is due back in Louisiana later this week. With a U-Haul truck. I'll probably get involved in that exercise. Then, elder son, Barrett is moving from his all-too-small trailer into a house that fits his family much better. And is literally one minute from his job. The school for his kids is four blocks from the house, and they could walk, except for one 4-lane highway. Still, everything is a lot closer and more convenient. If he decides to walk to work it'll take him ten minutes.

His scheduled moving day is next Saturday and PawPaw will be present with the truck and a flat-bed utility trailer. We're going to get this done, and in a timely manner.

Sunday Morning Dawg

What is it with Shi-Tzus and dryer sheets. The dog loves them, and my sister's dogs love them too. When we're doing laundry, he's likely to filch the dryer sheet from the basket.

We pulled his sweater off to wash it, and he sure looks skinny without it. But, he managed to score a dryer sheet. Once a week or so, I'll start collecting them, else the house would be ankle deep in dryer sheets. He loves them.

Hunting with Zach

I went to the lease this morning, accompanied by a grandson, Zachary, eight years old. PawPaw had lots of geedunk in the hunting bag, to include trail mix and beef jerky. Zach brought along something he calls a Nintendo DSI, which is a neat little device that runs on batteries and lets him play video games when he's bored.

Here's a photo of Zachary in the deer stand, munching on some beef jerky.

We had been sitting in the stand for several hours and he needed to stand up. My stand is a typical type for these woods, a 6' x 4' box stand, cobbled together from 2X2s and plywood. There's easily room for two people in the stand and it's a pretty common type of stand for these woods.

Here's the view out the window, looking down the pipeline. My corn feeder is in the opposite treeline, a measured 120 yards from the stand. The top of the hill is 200 yards.

It's one of my favorite places in the whole world.

Police Work 101

In police work, it's important to know when you've entered a hazardous area. One of the most common hazard areas that we find in law enforcement these days is a home lab where nitwits cook crystal methamphetamine, so it's important that we can identity a meth lab.

There will be a pop quiz tomorrow.

NOPD

What does NOPD stand for? Not Our Problem, Dude!

That's been a law-enforcement joke for years, but now it looks like the chief of the New Orleans Police Department is faced with a quandary. What might one do with all those lying cops?

Deciding what to do with dishonest cops ought to be an easy decision, but not here. If Chief Ronal Serpas fired every liar in his department, we'd either have to cancel Mardi Gras or bring in state police to keep order.

And that's just exactly what he needs to do. If the public can't trust the police to tell the whole truth every time, then the Chief needs to run their butts up the road.

I've been a police officer for thirty years, and I've always know that a lie would get me fired. Possibly prosecuted. The New Orleans Police Department should learn the same lesson.

More Game Cam Pictures

After the search for the deer I missed on Saturday, I walked over to the game camera to change cards. I looked at it for the first time, just minutes ago, and the photos that are on the camera are instructive.

If you'll recall the post, I missed that deer at 7:45 a.m., then went looking for him at about 8:15. At about 11:00 a.m., we went back to look, to insure that I hadn't hit and wounded the deer. At the end of the search, I went to the camera and took out the card.

It seems that after I had stumbled around the side of that hill, then left to go get help tracking, more deer came out on the pipeline.

 There's two in that photograph, standing still in broad daylight.  You can click for a bigger photo, but they look like does, to me.

Then, at 11:05, here comes my gypsy caravan to search the woods.

Don't we look a sight?  There's five adults in that Mule and we had to have one fellow sitting in the bed.

Then a half-hour later I walked over to look at the feed block I had put out.  That old geezer coming behind me is the lease treasurer, Bobby.

I love game cameras.  They show what's possible.

Deer Chili

Tonite we made the first pot of chili from the deer I got several weeks ago.

Just like your regular chili, but with venison instead of ground beef. Wonderful.

That's not the reason I hunt, but it is one of the benefits.

Sunday Morning Dawg

Now that Thanksgiving is over, we found some time to relax on the back porch. With the cold front moving through, the dog needs his sweater and he sat pleasantly still while I took this snapshot.

He's been well-fed this week. After Christmas, we both should go on a diet.

Dang it!

I missed one this morning. At about 7:45 I looked up and saw a deer step out of the woods, to the east of my pipeline. I saw horns, but I couldn't tell you if he was a spike or a 10-point. His nose was down, probably tracking a doe, and he was moving at a steady walk. By the time I got the rifle up, his nose was entering the woods, so I put the crosshair on his shoulder and squeezed one off. He bolted.

I thought I heard the bullet strike, so I poured another cup of coffee, then waited a half-hour. Climbed down from the stand and crossed the creek to where I had last seen him. I expected to see him piled up in the edge of the woods, but no luck. I found the track where he had bolted, and made a thorough search for blood or hair. No luck. I made a big loop through the woods, trying to cut his trail. No luck.

SO, I went to the camp and got help. My sister-in-law had heard the shot from her stand 300 yards away, and she thought that she had heard the bullet strike. Five of us went back and conducted another thorough search, at times on hands and knees. My pocket GPS showed that from the stand to where we found the tracks was 170 yards, give or take five yards, which is still the longest shot I've ever attempted at a deer. The rifle is sighted to be 1" high at 100 yards and down 1" at 200 yards, so I'm not convinced that ballistics caused a problem. After an hour, we called it quits. I'm convinced I didn't hit that deer.

After two thorough searches, no blood, no hair, no indication that I did anything but scare the living hell out of him. He probably didn't stop running until he got to Georgetown, and I've missed a deer for the first time in 10 years.

Just damn!

Out of Coffee

It turns out, we're out of coffee, so I've got to make a trip to the store in a few minutes to rectify that oversight. Milady is a wonderful, kind, loving person until she wakes up and finds that we have no coffee in the house. Hell hath no fury like a woman who can't make coffee... I believe that's the quote.

Also, the temps are diving with the passage of the cold front, and I'm going to be back in the deer stand at daylight. The low is predicted to be 26 by-God degrees. While I'm out, I'm going to pick up another bottle of propane for the heater in the box stand.

I know, I know. I bought a heater for my box stand last month, and it's a hell of a lot easier to stay on a stand if you're warm.

Just for the record, I don't do Black Friday.

Shooting in the pasture.

Today after lunch, as is our tradition, those in the family so disposed retired to the pasture to do a little shooting. We started with rimfire rifles and targets posted at 50 yards.

Here's a rare photo of PawPaw. I'm the fat guy on the right. I'm coaching grandson Quinton, while his Dad observes.

After the rimfires, we took out pistols and let the novices explore. Here, niece Rachel engages a 10 yard target with her mother's snubnose. All told, we blew through several hundred rounds of .22LR, some .38 special, 9mm, .44 special, and .17 HMR. It was quite an afternoon.

In this pic, my nephew, Trey is trying on a lever action Henry in .22LR. Tomorrow morning he and I are going to the lease. We've got a front moving through and I'm hoping that he makes meat. No, he won't be using the .22. He'll be using his Howa 1500, in .270 Win. I"m putting him on a stand that's been producing deer for several years. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

Many Thanks

Thanksgiving is a big deal in our family, as it is in many families across the country. The whole family tries to come home for the holiday, and that makes for some huge meals.

Several years ago, Milady and I decided to host a family dinner the night before Thanksgiving. The clan gathers at my mother's house for the traditional meal and sometimes she feeds upwards of forty people. That's a lot of prep work and we thought that we could share the burden just a bit and feed everyone the night before, with non-traditional Thanksgiving food. The gathering has become quite a hit, and last night we fed over 30 people. Thankfully (again, I have much to be thankful for), Milady and I love to entertain and we've spent considerable energy learning how to set the house up for a crowd of folks.

The menu was Turkey and Sausage Gumbo, Crawfish Etouffee, Garlic Bread, Garden Salad, and various desserts. We had people eating in the kitchen, in the living room, the garage, and the back deck. Thankfully (I have much to be thankful for), the weather cooperated.

That pic above is one of my gorgeous, intelligent nieces (I have much to be thankful for) trying to dodge the camera.  You'll notice my tools in the back wall.  Yeah, we were eating in the garage last night.

I fed over 30 folks last night, and there isn't much left over.  (Again, thanks are in order).   In another hour or so, we're heading over to my Mother's to do it all again. 

Y'all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Shooting with Matt

My second son and I had planned to do some shooting this morning, so we went out to my Mother's place where we have a 100 yard berm.

Matt's rifle is a Savage 111 in 7mm Remington Magnum. They called it the varmint model when we bought it, and it's got the Accutrigger and a heavy barrel in the old pillar bedded stock. We were trying to decide how many rounds he's got through that barrel and as far as we can recall, that barrel currently has about 400 rounds shot through it. Matt had re-adjusted his scope, to compensate for the eyeglasses he currently wears and needed to make sure that the rifle is still zero'd. That rifle has always shot well with our handload of 64.2 grains of IMR 4831 and a 140 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip bullet. CCI Large Rifle Magnum Primers light it all up.






That's a composite target, created by stapling one target over another. The first three shots hit in the lower left of the group, then he adjusted the scope, stapled another target, and fired for the white diamond. Even with adjusting the scope, all six shots fell into 0.890. Each of the individual 3-shot groups are under 0.500. I'd say that rifle is adjusted for 100 yards.

I took my Savage 10, in .243. From the post yesterday I realized that I hadn't fired that rifle since March, 2009 and wanted to make sure that the scope was still looking where the bullets fall. I like my hunting rifles to be sighted an inch high at 100 yards. With the ballistics of this little bullet, according to my ballistic program, it should be within an inch of the aiming point to 200 yards and down just 8 inches at 300 yards.; The longest shot I can make from my deer stand is about 175 yards, so I should be fine with this load.

Now, it's time to clean up and run some errands. I've got a lot of cooking to do tomorrow and I'll need to get ready. If I don't talk with y'all tomorrow, have a great Thanksgiving.

Six years with the .243 Winchester

Sometime shortly after WWII, the Army started toying with a rifle cartridge shorter than the old, venerable .30-06. In 1952, Winchester standardized the new round for sporting cartridges, the .308 Winchester. (The .308 Winchester actually pre-dates the Army cartridge which was standardized as the 7.62X51 T65 cartridge in 1954, but that's a military history story).

A gun writer of the times, Warren Page, started tinkering with the cartridge and necked it down to 6mm, calling it the .240 Page Pooper. The guys at Winchester saw its potential and standardized it in 1955, calling it the .243 Winchester. Page designed the cartridge as a dual-purpose, deer and varmint cartridge. It's been a huge success, although it never took off as a varmint round. Here in the United States, we like to shoot varmints with .22 caliber ammo, either rimfire or centerfire.

In 2004 I was walking through Wal-Mart and saw a rifle in the rack, I happened to glance at the price and it was low enough that I couldn't walk past. I asked to see the rifle and it was a Savage Model 10, in .243. A package rifle, it had a scope mounted, so I took out my checkbook and brought it home. It's got the tupperware stock with a floated, sporter barrel. You can see today's version over at the Savage website. Savage calls it the Model 11 FXP3 and the rifle they sell today is just exactly like the one I have. It's been in the catalog for seven years, so it must be a fairly popular model. Today it lists at $659.00, but I paid about half that much at Wal-Mart on a late season close-out.

I brought the little rifle home and started playing with it, using various powders and bullets. I wrote it up for Castbullet and you can see my article at the link. The little rifle shot alright, but was prone to vertical stringing as the thin barrel heated up. Also, I wasn't impressed with the package scope that came with the rifle. It was a bargain-basement Simmons, and while they're good for some things, I didn't think that it matched the potential of the rifle.

About 2007 I found a scope on sale at Midway USA. It is a Simmons scope, but all the literature I could find on this scope told me that it was an exceptional value at an unbelievable price point. Simmons calls it the Whitetail Classic. It's a 6.5X20X50 scope with an adjustable objective lens, and I bought one at my son's urging. He's got one on his 7mm Magnum heavy rifle and it's stood up well to the rigors of the recoil that rifle can generate. Surprisingly, you can still order one today for about $100.00. It's not a Leupold, nor a Schmidt and Bender, but it's a great scope. The 164 reviews at Midway USA give it a 5-star rating. I think it's a great value on an inexpensive sporting scope. I'm not generally a fan of high-magnification scopes on a hunting rifle, believing that 6X is more than most folks need. Still, I bought the scope and mounted it on the rifle, telling myself that I wanted to wring the very best out of a bone stock rifle I bought on sale. Three years later, that scope is still mounted to that rifle

Even with that scope, the rifle wasn't shooting like I wanted it to. At the end of 2007 I was three years into the caliber and wasn't sure what I wanted to use it for. It's a bone-stock rifle and I upgraded the scope, but really wasn't getting the groups I wanted to get from the rifle. Along about that same time, I found a sale for blemished bullets. They were 6mm caliber, 100 grain, standard lead and gilding metal hunting bullets, but the seller wouldn't identify the manufacturer. Still, I ordered 500 of them and when they came to my door I took out all my catalogs and did an online search. After much research, I believe that the bullets were manufactured by Hornady, but I have no real proof, just an educated guess. Still, they were wonderfully uniform and if anyone can see the blemishes on them, that person has better eyes than I do.

One day in 2008 I was browsing around and found a reference to using Reloder 22 powder with 100 grain bullets in the .243. So, I loaded a batch and took the rifle the next time I went to the range. I fired several and looked through the scope to see a small, tiny group on the paper. Hmmm! The next time I went to the range, I took that rifle again, but I set up the chronograph. I fired a group and looked at the chrony screen and thought I was getting an error, so I reset the machine and shot another group. Damn! I was getting over 3100 fps from that load, with my barrel and rifle. And the groups were tiny. And the SD and ES were small.

Since then, I've shot some tantalizingly small groups with that rifle. Some three shot groups that measured well under 1/2 inch. That target above is fairly representative of what I can do with the rifle on a good day, with five shots well under an inch.

Still, I haven't taken the rifle to the game woods and it is time to see if it will take game. I believe I'll clean the .30-06 and use this rifle for the rest of the season. It should be just perfect for the smallish whitetail deer we see in this part of Louisiana.

Whadd'ya think?

Sunday Morning Dawg

Have you ever felt like this?

That's the way I felt all week. I'm glad my wife is out of the hospital.

Venison

I made meat today with my Savage 110. At 8:45 a.m., I saw movement on the hill facing my stand and put the scope on a doe. I couldn't tell if she was facing toward me or away from me, so I watched her for a minute until I figured out that she was feeding in my direction. When she looked up, I put one in at the base of her neck. Bang, flop. I waited ten minutes, then crossed the creek and climbed the hill toward the deer. She tried to get up and I put another into her neck. I should have waited another ten minutes. The frothy blood in her mouth told me that I had made a lung shot and she'd probably have bled our in another few minutes.

She's a two or three year old doe, in good fat, and wasn't in heat yet.  She field dressed about 100 lbs. On autopsy, we learned that the Nosler Ballistic Tip bullet entered the base of her neck, cut the top of the right lung and departed through the tenderloin. She's at the processor's now and I'll pick her up in a few days.

Home again

I got Milady out of the hospital late this afternoon. Her lung has expanded properly and she was told to make an appointment with her primary care physician in a week. When the nurse told us that, I snorted, and the nurse looked at me like I was crazy. We explained that Milady works for her primary care physician and she'll probably talk with him or his wife several times next week.

We're home and all is right with the world.

More TSA stupidity

I was surfing the High Road and was led to Red State, where we learn of another TSA outrage. This time against returning American soldiers. Here's the punch line:

This might be a good time to remind everyone that approximately 233 people re-boarded that plane with assault rifles, pistols, and machine guns–but nothing that could have been used as a weapon.

It seems that this was a military charter out of Bagram AFB and the GIs were returning to the US with rifles, pistols and machine guns. They landed in Indianapolis to let off some National Guard Troops and TSA decided that they couldn't have nail clippers, even with rifles hanging from their shoulders. The soldiers handled it with a lot more grace and dignity than the TSA handled it. Go to the link above and read the whole exchange.

TSA is off the rails and should be de-funded completely.