........Tuesday's match was 45-70's. Any rifle, as long as it had open sights. I used a M1884 TD Infantry rifle to do the deed. The load consisted of R-P cases, WLR primers, along with 23.0grs or surp SR4759 + Dacron. The slug was the RCBS 45-405 sized .459" weighing 415grs w/lube & Hornady GC. The rifle, in case anyone has forgotten what one looks like :-).



The match was 10 rounds at 50 yards. As per usual Glen shows up with a rifle wearing fancy sights (Chas Brockway's) and set triggers, HA! However, it's not his own but a friend's Winchester Hi-Wall with an original Ballard Pacific barrel. The hole in the muzzle looks a 'bit' small? Glen admits it's a 40-82 and is immediately chastised for his trespass. It's 45-70 day Glen!

He knew he might get found out, so goes to his truck and returns with a Pedersoli Sharps in 45-70. What a gamesman! He takes the Burrito Invitational a bit to seriously we ALL think <VBG>. He still has set triggers and a nice rear sight but he says the triggers are no where near as nice as the Hi-Walls. Tought it out, man!

I did not win. I tried but the force was not with me. Possibly cranking in a tad of 'Right' may have helped? The target:



You may rest assured that those two 7's flat did me in. Glen finished with a 90. My group was better I though, but we shoot for score, so my 88-1X didn't hack it and I got 3rd. Next up was Ken with an 88-2X (Pedersoli RB). Then Larry (86 using his Grandpa's M86 Winchester of 1889 vintage), Dave (81 NEF Buffalo) and a new shooter Roger with a 68. Roger is new to the whole concept of standing up, hee, hee! He campaigned a Pedersoli Creedmore RB.

I spent the rest of the day fireforming 50 rounds of 7.65x53 for the M1909 Cav Carb and testing some more with the Ruger BH 30M1. Again it appears that the Lee C309113F and 2.6grs of W231 is just tits :-). Like ZERO recoil and they all hang in at about an inch. Now I need to load a bunch of'em and see how bad of a train wreck standing up makes, Ha! I'm slap out of'em so it looks like I'll have to fire up the pot, but dern it's hot to be casting.

Next Tuesday is centerfire peestol. Yes it was my idea. I'm getting brave about these infernal contraptions :-). I have good ammo loaded for the 4&5/8ths Ruger BH, but the Witness 38 Super will outgroup it (off the bags) and I don't have much offhand experience with it (Lee 125 RNPB, 2.4 W231) but no ammo loaded. So, be lazy, or load ammo and be experimental during the match?

........Buckshot

Hey Buckshot ...

From the pic, at least one of those "7's" is cutting the line, and the other looks tangent. By scoring rules in use around most of the galaxy, they both should be 8's. Or is this an optical delusion???

Resp'y,
Bob S.

[ 09-04-2003, 15:37: Message edited by: Bob S. ]

Dang Buckshot, damn fine report. Always found your "Burrito Blasts" purty good, rich in details and feigned modesty. But, now you've stepped up a notch, text is downright pithy, almost need a fork to read it. Composition is improved, and now, enriched with visual aids as well. Bravo Buckwhit! ---galena---

Hey, Reeck--

Steenking peestols next week? Hijo la, senor. Truly daring and intrepid of you--I might just make it out for that little event, if all goes well.

The Ruger #1 was sorely disappointed to not attend on Tuesday, as was my own self. Just not up to it that morning. After mounting that scope on the #1, its accuracy amazed me. I've got more "sandbag research" pending with that rifle, just gotta find the time to do it between work demands and medical misadventures.

Buckshot,

How do you shoot at the targets? Off-hand or do you guys use a rest. That 50 yard target is quite impressive...BCB

P.S. If it is shoot off-hand--I quit!!!!

.......Bob S, yup, it's printed on the target that the 'touched' line gets the higher value. Via the "Rooles Kommittee" a bunch of skunks and ner' do wells, we've modified it some. The line has to be gone, dissappear, be 'bullet removed' in order to get the higher score. Why, you ask? Over the years whether it's in fact touching or not, has lead to much fractious and heated debate. So we've gone to the idea that it has to be physically cut out. We don't have any sofisticated scoring plugs to use, nor an impartial judge to do it.

........Jethrow, thanks, I think? I HAVE to be modest as I'm not consistant :-).

........Deppity Al, I tole'em you'd be there, colostomy bag, wheel chair, crutches and all :-) Can't you manage to push the recovery period out to next week? Have a relapse or something why don'cha?

........BCB, please don't quit! Yes, it's shot offhand and iron sights. Re: the comment about ole Roger. Working the sights and trigger off the bags is accuracy edjumakashunal for your loads and rifle, but not for the "Yourself" factor. I have a H&R TD Carbine which is just superbly accurate. After some load testing (off the bench) I made the very foolish and not to be repeated mistake of saying I was going to use it in the match till I won with it :-)

I grew to HATE the thing. It became a dern job! Everyone thought it great sport to rib me about it as the weeks grew into literal MONTHS. A couple suggested I just say it got stolen, or even sell it and switch to a different rifle, HA! What was the problem? It still had it's fine trigger and accuracy.

But for 50 yards, the front sight was a mere tiny bit of blade sticking up over the action. No problem off the bench. Short sight radius, no problem off the bench. Overall light weight, no problem off the bench. Front end lightness, again erased when shooting off the bench. Combine all that and stand up? You got proooooblems! I finally did win and that by 1 point, but win I did. I felt like I'd been told I no longer had to pay income tax or something <VBG>.

........Buckshot

Buckshot,

O.K., I won't quit, but my state of depression deepens hearing it was indeed shot offhand!!!

I guess my addiction for benches and sandbags has ruined me...Addictions have a habit(!) of doing such...BCB

........BCB, shooting offhand is no mean feat, yet is like handguns in that it requires practice. A person standing up is a VERY imperfect platform. Also your flich becomes a large factor. People who say they don't flich are full of BS. You just have to flich the same way each time :-)

The other thing is the brain's connection to your trigger finger and it's sometimes thinking, and doing for itself. For example, you know how fast your brain thinks and can think of, call up, sift through and discard many things in the blink of an eye?

It's like not getting home on time because you went out with the guys after work. Shame on you for not calling, but how macho is that in front of your friends? Upon coming through the front door, you're confronted by the War Dept who is aiming double death rays right between your eyes.

The first item to flit across your brain is the truth. However this item is not usually the first choice, and is not discarded but held to one side. After her broadside of, "Where have you been", and during your glib, "Ahhhh" your brain is a marvel! All on it's own with no input from you at all, it will generate a vast number of scenarios. All these will be as complete as movie trailers and will stream past in lock step to be tried against the truth, which is being held as the last resort, should none of your fantasies pass the "Believability quotient". This is a sub-routine you have which is continually refined and updated the longer you live together. Usually this does you no good, but your brain maintains it nontheless.

Before I get back to what this has to do with shooting, I have to say this in closing of the example above. To operate, your brain requires energy. And electrical energy at that. To run the various movie scenarios, with lighting, scenery, your "Out of body" visualization of the 2 of you standing there, etc this juice has to come from somewhere.

Normally, and to our detriment it's the eyes which are quickly shunted off the main bus. They have gathered the information required for the brain to colate and tally the danger. Set of the mouth, position of the eyebrows, angle of the head and other physical indicators are inputted. What happens then is the eyes glaze. At this point you are a dead man regardless. She is about to pull the lanyard of the cannon whose muzzle you are tied across.

Okay, shooting :-) offhand. Thought I forgot, eh? Your brain is operating at 2 levels with your finger a pawn. On the upper 'aware' level you know you are shooting in a match and what the sight picture needs to be. The "lower" level also knows this but you have no real control over it. The lower level is the one that tells the finger, "Okay, sqeeze". It's supposed to get this order from the upper one.

What will happen is that you're standing there finger on the trigger while moving the front sight over to the bull. The front blade is now coming up to the bull a bit too quick so you slow a tad. There ya go! The blade is set like concrete at 6 o'clock and you tighten up the finger ........ BUT WAIT! The blade begins to drift off. The upper part says, "Darn it". yet the last thought transmitted to the lower was that things were just jake and 'BLAM', you fire a shot!

What happened was you lost concentration and left the lower part of the ole brain unoccupied so it did it's own thing. Or at least that's what I think happens :-). That has happened to me a BUNCH of times. You are obviously off target yet your finger pulls the trigger anyway.

........Buckshot

Buckshot, you are a treasure!