You ever wonder what kind of weekend Yosemite Sam (Bill) and I have? Remember, we’re two gun-nuts who are married to each other. Well, read on if you’ve ever wondered.
We spend a lot of time asking each other what range to we want to go to today. We discuss what guns we want to take to the range and how many. We keep a sharp eye out on the weather so we don’t chill significant body parts. Rain is fine, heat is welcome, but cold is not fun when one is shooting outdoors. We both have used recently fired barrels to warm our hands. (Why the hell we live in New England is another story all together).
There’s more to the weekend than just shooting though. We clean gun afterwards. We use a lot of patches and CLP Breakfree because we usually take several guns each to the range. And, I like the smell of Hoppe’s #9 so I’ll often pop open a bottle of that for a little aromatic variety.
Then, there’s nothing like a visit to a gun store or show. The allure is heady. The chance to find a new gun at the right price, to buy more cleaning supplies, and to buy more ammo. It’s hard to resist even when we’re trying to hold onto our money for whatever reason.
This past weekend, I was shooting well, although I wasn’t competing in a match (naturally I would be on my game in practice) and shooting was a joy. Sunday morning, I monkeyed around with our reloader and ran up a little ammo to replace most of what we shot. Here’s one box of it.
I use a tumbler to polish the brass and then load double-ended wadcutter bullets made by Rainier Ballistics. My reloads here are target rounds. I place the bullets on top of 4.6 grains of Accurate #5 powder.
We spend a lot of time asking each other what range to we want to go to today. We discuss what guns we want to take to the range and how many. We keep a sharp eye out on the weather so we don’t chill significant body parts. Rain is fine, heat is welcome, but cold is not fun when one is shooting outdoors. We both have used recently fired barrels to warm our hands. (Why the hell we live in New England is another story all together).
There’s more to the weekend than just shooting though. We clean gun afterwards. We use a lot of patches and CLP Breakfree because we usually take several guns each to the range. And, I like the smell of Hoppe’s #9 so I’ll often pop open a bottle of that for a little aromatic variety.
Then, there’s nothing like a visit to a gun store or show. The allure is heady. The chance to find a new gun at the right price, to buy more cleaning supplies, and to buy more ammo. It’s hard to resist even when we’re trying to hold onto our money for whatever reason.
This past weekend, I was shooting well, although I wasn’t competing in a match (naturally I would be on my game in practice) and shooting was a joy. Sunday morning, I monkeyed around with our reloader and ran up a little ammo to replace most of what we shot. Here’s one box of it.
I use a tumbler to polish the brass and then load double-ended wadcutter bullets made by Rainier Ballistics. My reloads here are target rounds. I place the bullets on top of 4.6 grains of Accurate #5 powder.
I’ve had really good luck with these loads. They’re accurate, relatively mild, and fun to shoot—you can actually see the hole they make in the paper target at 25 yards. (Note: Rainier Ballistics’ bullets are soft lead coated, not jacketed, in copper. Be sure to use their recommended load tables available at the link above, because they tend to have different requirements than hard lead or jacketed bullets.)
So, that’s what we do on most weekends. Shoot, go to gun stores, clean guns, reload pistol cartridges or shotgun shells. Unfortunately gun-grabbers would end how we spend our weekends. That’s why I blog.
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