New Years Day Outing At The Range

Wifey out of town all day, so several hours of fun at my club range. A couple of weeks ago, she cleaned out the pantry and spare refrigerator of some old expired canned goods, perfect to blow apart on the range, so I scavenged it all. I also brought nine refilled 1 gallon jugs for distilled water from Dollar General. These have a plastic carry handle, perfect for hanging on the S hooks that are at the range for the steel plates. For rifles I brought a lever gun in .38 SPL/.357 Mag, and a .22LR bolt gun. For pistol work, my two winter carry guns, a Glock 21 Gen 3 and my S&W 45 Shield.

I started with paper targets for both rifles to check zero, then went to 1 gallon water jugs which were less than impressive with .357 Magnums, and a waste with .38 Spl. It is strange how water jugs react better with certain calibers, and dramatically with others. More on that later. I then moved onto some cans. 2 old 12 ounce Coke cans absolutely exploded when hit with some old Remington Thunderbolt .22's. I guess the extra pressure from carbonated soda and thin skin aluminum cans did the trick. A .22 against an expired 12 ounce V-8 juice can just punched hole, knocked it over and leaked out the juice. Hitting those with the .357 Magnum blew them apart well along with 1 can of Campbell's Tomato soup, an old can of Del Monte green beans, and a large can of diced tomatoes. Those last two were glorious to watch. A fellow club member showed up with several AR platform rifles in different calibers. As usual while shooting, we each offered up guns and ammo to each other. I had never shot 6.5 Creedmoor before, while he enjoyed a mag in the .22, the Glock, and the 45 Shield. He also blasted half of my water jugs. The Creedmoor at 200 yards was the best. It blew the jug in half from top to bottom and turned it inside out. The most interesting was .308 It punched a perfectly sized .308 holes completely through, and popped a small hole in the center of the bottom, simply letting the water drain out. Not once, but twice in the exact same way. We had to go down range to inspect the jugs to see what exactly happened. I then whacked an expired cylinder of C.O. test gas that was fun. I used the .357 Magnum rifle, punched a clean entrance/exit hole 1/3 of the way down, and it took off sideways cartwheeling at high speed across the grass, spewing all the gas instantly in a gray cloud. About this time, one of the older members showed up. He hunts deer with a black powder rifle, was done for the season and needed to unload his rifle. Of course the only way to do that is fire it. He asked if we minded because of the all the smoke. We said absolutely not and cleared the line to let him go undisturbed. He took aim at a water jug at 75 yards but missed. He stuck around a little to look at what we were shooting then left. Here's a short clip of him touching it off. I posted it because he was wearing a mask and his identity is safe.

 

I then turned my attention to my pistols starting with the Glock. I wanted to be sure my accuracy and gun handling skills were still good with it. Yup, 3 mags banged all the steel plates without a single miss at 25 yards. One target is a small silouhette with a smaller circular hinged plate at center mass. I effortlessly hit that center every time. I then switched to a full size paper silouhette target at 7 yards for the 45 Shield. For this, I held at the low ready, and then on a mental go signal, I came up to a Modified Weaver stance and did a "2 to the heart, 1 to the head" as quickly and accurately as I could. Perfect. I taped over the holes and did it 3 more times. I then tried my luck with the 25 yard plates. Last time with the 45 Shield I didn't do so well, this time not a miss. I think last time I was suffering from new gun jitters. Satisfied, I offered up my guns and ammo to the other shooter. For the .45's, I was shooting my target handloads. Speer brass, Winchester large magnum pistol primers, Bullseye powder, and Berry's 200 grain copper plated flat point bullets. The .357 Magnum and .38 Special target round are also my handloads. Both use Federal brass, Winchester small magnum primers, and Berry's 158 grain copper plated flat point bullets. The .38's use Bullseye powder, while the .357 Magnum uses Hogdgon HS-6 powder. 

When we were done shooting and all cleaned up, we hung out for a while longer discussing The 2nd Amendment and the folly of gun control and insanity of gun free death zones. Always good to chat with like-minded folks, and the club members I have spoken to all seem to have a like mindset.

I came home and stowed my gear, and then cleaned and lubed all my weapons. I still have a couple of long guns to clean from a previous outing, and may tackle those tomorrow.