Tag: recreational shooting

British expat Phil B. emails from Middle Earth about an Easter event most of us could get behind, a 24-hour bunny shoot!

Guess what the Kiwis do for Easter …

Otago is the bottom right hand bit of the south Island.

Otago bunnies grow BIG (about the size of a hare but proportionately stockier) and are considered a pest. Rules are simple – a team of three, 24 hours, shoot as many as you can in the time. No limit on calibre of rifle, shotgun, method or what state the rabbit is in when it is handed in for counting (i.e. flattened by the Ute still counts).

Doesn’t make a blind bit of difference to the numbers but it pisses off the tree huggers and bunny lovers enormously.

It is usually reported on the 6 O’clock news as the highlight of the Easter weekend news with the scores and discussions about how it was better/worse than last year, record etc. Among firearms afficianados, the subject of rifles, calibres and loads for the ammunition are discussed as avidly as the chances of who’ll win the FA cup in Newcastle.

This year was a little disappointing:

Conditions favoured the rabbits this year at the Great Easter Bunny Hunt in Central Otago, with 10,424 bunnies bagged – the lowest tally for six years.

Teams of hunters from all over New Zealand converged on Alexandra for the 24-hour event, organised by the Alexandra Lions Club.

Their haul was displayed in the town’s Pioneer Park yesterday and the top team out of 36 – the Southern Hopper Stoppers – won the contest with 1035 rabbits.

This year’s tally was less than half last year’s total of 22,904 and event convenor Dave Ramsay said the odds were in the rabbits’ favour this year.

And look at the picture!

OMG! THE CHILDREN!

Well, here’s a couple who brought their kids with them:

The Great Easter Bunny Hunt can have a happy ending – just ask Mike and Kate Evans.
Mike proposed to Kate during the event 17 years ago, and now happily married and living in Arrowtown, the couple are back in the hunt this year in a team that includes son Nicholas and daughter Mikayla.

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Mikayla (7) and Nicholas (11) would be acting as support crew, as “picker-uppers” and maybe doing some cooking or providing hot drinks for the hunters. The family was looking forward to spending some time together “away from any electronic equipment”, Mrs Evans said.

“You get to see countryside that you would never normally have access to and that’s a real privilege,” Mr Evans added.

“It’s a real good weekend, getting out in the fresh air and getting some exercise; spending time with your family. It’s not really about how many rabbits you get.”

Isn’t that nice?

It has been brought to my attention that the second Sunday in Apri, the 8^th, is Easter Sunday.  Consequently, there won’t be a Bowling Pin match that day.  Sorry for the short notice. 

(I really should check a calendar occasionally.)

Today was a beautiful day for a match.  Ten people joined me in shooting the March match, seven brought Major guns, seven brought Minor guns, four brought revolvers, and ten brought .22’s.  There were three new shooters to this match, which hopefully means that attendance will continue to improve.

Major was won by Jim Burnett with his Clark Custom pin gun.  I took Minor with my brand-new S&W M&P₉.  I also won Revolver with my S&W 327, and .22 with my Ruger Mk II.  Not a bad weekend for a guy who just turned 50!  I think I could have won the overall match if I hadn’t run out of 9mm ammo, but I did, and Jim Burnett took that match beating me two out of three for the win.

Next month I’m bringing a Major gun again.

Skip Blecker won the drawing, taking home seven dollars more than his entrance fee.  He got to shoot for free and got a little gas money out of it, too.  It had been a while since he’d attended one of these matches, but said that the last time he did, he won the drawing too.  Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good?

The next match is Sunday, April 8.  Hope to see you there.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLLAKnVej9o?rel=0]

And it was invented by the Brits, no less!

The ATS Gnat has been hugely popular in the UK for many years, and has featured in events such as high profile celebrity charity shoots held at most of Britain’s most famous shooting grounds, to private parties at country estates. The Gnat Shooting System is unique. Shotgun events normally involve the downing of conventional targets such as clay pigeons or game. We have perfected a high speed, maneuverable, radio controlled drone which takes the sport to the next level.

The aircraft flies at speeds of up to 80 mph, with extremely rapid directional changes and fighter like agility. Controlled by very experienced “pilots”, the shooters prey is probably one of the hardest targets they will ever encounter.

My brother is an RC pilot and plane builder. Hey! We can finally share a hobby!

Or:  How we do things in the Big City.

Attendance was better this month.  Seven people joined me to shoot the match.  A couple of regulars couldn’t make it, but a couple of others managed to rejoin us and a couple I hope will become regulars.  Only two of us brought “minor” pistols, and one of us had function problems, so I managed to win minor for a change, essentially by default.  All eight of us brought Major pistols, almost uniformly .45’s.  I had to be different, and brought my Witness in .40 for a change.  But I’ll come back to that.

Seven of us brought .22’s.  Jim Burnett took that class handily.  I just wasn’t fast enough this time.  Five of us brought revolvers, two of them .44 Magnums with full-house loads.  Let’s just say the pin damage this month was significant.  But I managed to win the Revolver class this time.  I have apparently learned how to hit with my S&W 327.  I even managed to clean a table with five shots, double-action once.  No one was more shocked than I was.

Jim Burnett also won Major with his Clark Custom pin gun, and beat me for overall pistol champion, but here was the highlight of the day:  The second set of the second round of Major, we had a little… “incident.”  Watch:

http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf

Thanks to Jim Bertrand and his hat-cam for catching that. 

A new reader emailed me a couple of days ago and sent along some photos.  Here’s the background information:

Just came across your blog. I haven’t had time to thoroughly go thru yet, sorry.

Hey, there’s eight years worth of stuff. No biggie.

But here’s what I’d like to say.

Attached photos disgust and upset me. But I know its not the guns fault, its the jackasses fault. I used to do a lot more target shooting myself, nothing like this though. And always took more back than I brought. I have a few firearms, and hunt. I’m not against firearms and hunting. I’m against stupidity, and jackasses. This frozen lake is home to salmon and nesting waterfowl, including trumpeter swans. Waterfowl die upon eating lead shot. Laws prohibit lead shot for hunting waterfowl, but no law prevents using lead shot to bust some clays over the lake. That’s where personal responsibility comes hand in hand with personal liberty.

Here are the photos:

My reader adds:

These photos were taken at Mud Lake in the (Jim Creek area), near Palmer Alaska, on January 31, 2005. The photos show the results from maybe one day of clay pigeon target shooting over the lake. I have seen this on different occasions over the last couple of years. This time is the first time I’ve been out here in the winter, when the lake is frozen, which makes a good example of what’s going on. The amount of leads hot, and clay pigeon fragments on this day alone should alarm those of you who care about our water quality, and especially the survival of our living aquatic resources. Swans, loons, and just about all types of other water birds utilize this lake for feeding and nesting. The high toxicity of lead shot to these birds is very well documented in the literature. A mallard duck has a 20% chance of dying from ingesting just one lead shot. It is the reason, why hunting waterfowl with lead shot has been banned throughout the USA and Canada. The number of lead shot going into Mud Lake (and Jim Lake) from target shooting is astounding, and needs to be halted.

I would think that anybody cares about waterfowl, who even likes to hunt waterfowl would be absolutely 100% behind efforts to help end this disgrace to our environment.

On another instance I was standing there taking photos of swans, and a guy and his son show up with a pidgeon throwing. The kid says “dad look, can we shoot them?” of course dad says no. Then, at least dad said oh I’ll wait until your done before I start shooting. Then I explain to him all the reasons why he should find a different place to shoot, and he just replies, “well, I am using steel shot.” What am I going to say, I just left. We have good well-managed ranges, but they cost money, I understand that. But to shoot anything into a lake with salmon and waterfowls? Doesn’t sit right.

I’m not a shotgunner. I own exactly one shotgun – a Mossberg 590 riot gun. I’ve shot some skeet and trap, and busted some clays for fun on private property, but I haven’t followed the non-toxic shot saga much. I’m not a hunter, either, but the idea of banning lead bullets in varmint or big-game hunting is one that makes me want to get my wookie on.  I’ve seen the bullshit that the VPC has published on the horrible threat of lead poisoning from recreational shooting, thank you.

From the (limited) research I’ve done, it does seem that lead shot presented a poisoning hazard to waterfowl that ingested it from wetlands, and I know that clay pigeons are a hazard to pigs, which will apparently eat just about anything laying on the ground no matter how bad it tastes. I don’t get the concern about the salmon, however.  They’re not bottom feeders. 

What I see in this picture, though, leaves me with mixed feelings. One, leaving the shotshell hulls on the ground was just littering and not excusable. The clay pigeons on the ice? Unsightly, but when the lake thaws the pieces will end up on the bottom and not bother anything. The shot? Somehow I doubt it will represent much of a hazard to waterfowl unless that lake is VERY shallow, but I could be wrong. If I were to shoot out over a lake, non-toxic shot would be the way to go.

So educate me. Is my reader overreacting, justifiably pissed off, or somewhere in between?

Well, I think everyone who showed had a good time.  I think there were about nine of us all told, unless I didn’t meet some people.  Lots of lead went downrange.  I shot the half-inch rebar support for the 100 yard steel swingers.  Twice.  My AR-15 Olofsoned on me because the hammer pin walked loose.  (It is disconcerting when your semi-automatic AR-15 rips off a three-round burst.)  I guess a loose hammer pin qualifies as a machinegun these days.  (Hey, if a shoestring can…)  I discovered that my 180 grain .40S&W loads don’t group, they pattern.  But my 155 grain handloads work pretty damned well.  That’s good, because I was prepared to sell the Witness until I managed to whack the 50 yard plate six times out of ten with the 155s.  (I could barely frighten the plate with the 180’s.)  I learned that a front-stuffer charcoal-burner actually doesn’t make that much smoke if you load it with Blackhorn 209 powder.  I learned that the action on a Swiss K-31 really is very, very smooth.

I’ve got some pictures up for you to peruse.

Got to do this again next year.

If you’re going, it’s tomorrow at the Elsy Pearson Public Shooting Range just outside Casa Grande.  Take I-10 to I-8W, exit at Trekkel Road.  Turn South on Trekkel to W. Arica Rd., left on Arica to Isom, right on Isom at the Casa Grande Trap Club, and you’ll see the range on your left in about a half mile.  The first range you come to is the police range (not open to the public), but right next to it are the five bays of the Public Range.  We’ll be on the long one, which is 300 yards.

Range opens at 0700. Bring eye & ear protection, and something to sit on – the range has benches, but no chairs. The shooting line is covered, but sunscreen is still advised. Bring target stands if you have ’em. You won’t be shoving anything into the ground out there, it’s like concrete. If you want to shoot up cans or other junk, be prepared to clean up after yourself. I’ll be bringing steel AR500 plates that anyone can shoot.

We’ll be tailgating it for lunch. Bring (non-alcoholic) beverages, and something to eat. I’ll have a small gas grill. I’m bringing six rifles: my M1 Garand, M1 Carbine, Ted Brown M14, my target AR-15, 1917 Enfield and my Remington 700 5R. I should have at least 100 rounds for each of them.  I haven’t decided which handguns I’ll be bringing.

Hope to see you there!