OK, The Date is Set – BUMPED ONE LAST TIME

The Central Arizona Blogshoot will be Sunday, January 29 at the Elsy Pearson public shooting range just off Trekell Road and I-8, just West of I-10. The range opens at 7:00AM. There are no rangenazis rangemasters. There are no chairs – bring something to sit on. The firing line is covered and there are concrete shooting benches, however.

And the city has porta-potties out there on a permanent basis now, so we don’t have to rent our own (but bring your own TP just in case.)

The rules are pretty simple:

No explosives, no .50BMG rifles, clean up after yourself, don’t be a dick.

ETA: In comments, ExurbanKevin advises:

A coupla item of note: The ground there is reinforced concrete disguised as sun-baked clay/ Fugetabout any target stand that needs to stuck into the ground, it ain’t happenin’. Steel and targets that don’t need taping are best. And the benches are funky-shaped. Regular camping chairs are marginal, stools are better.

Yup. I bring folding chairs, I have a 2″ PVC target stand, and a half-dozen steel swinger targets. End edit.

I plan on being there when the range opens. We’ll shoot until noon or 1 o’clock, then pack up and have lunch. I can’t remember the name of the place we went last year, but there’s a fairly well-ranked restaurant just up the road called the Creative Café, or we can bring grills and meat and bread and chips and tailgate it right there at the range, or others can suggest someplace else to eat in the comments. I’m open.

BUMPED: OK, looks like about 13 of us say we’re going, and the vote is 10-4 in favor of tailgating it at the range for lunch. I can live with that.  Anybody else?  The more the merrier!

Final bump.  I recommend you bring:  water or other non-alcoholic beverages (no alcohol on the range), sunscreen, ear & eye protection, (ladies, don’t wear anything low-cut or open-necked.  Yes, I’m sure it looks lovely, but you don’t want to catch hot brass down in there), something to SIT ON (folding chairs recommended, but a 5 gallon bucket upended will work in a pinch), something to eat (enough to share would be nice, but not necessary), a roll of TP just in case the porta-potties are low.  OPTIONAL:  Something to shoot with, and something to shoot AT.  I imagine most of us will be bringing multiple firearms and lots of ammo, but if you don’t, well, I’m willing to let people shoot my stuff (with my ammo), and I’m willing to let them shoot at my targets.  We gunnies are generous that way.

If you’re a reader or a non-gun blogger interested in coming to a off-the-cuff funshoot, please come on down!  Hope to see you there!

Damn, You DO Like Recoil!

The post about the .950JDJ is well on its way to becoming has become my most popular post (by linkage and traffic) ever.

SayUncle linked it.  And Weer’d. Then lgstarr. (New to me.)

But in the last few days, it hit the message boards. Hard:

Accurate Reloading

Texas Riders (a motorcycle board.)

Valkyrie Riders Cruiser Club (another motorcycle board, membership required to view.)

Aprilla Forum (ANOTHER motorcycle board that requires membership)

Forum.Saiga-12.com

MarlinOwners.com

TexasKayakFisherman.com (?!?!)

AR15.com

Kel-Tec Owner’s Group (That one I can kinda understand.)

Texas Predator Posse 

Pennock’s Fiero Forum

Sportsmansnews.com

Forums.GunsandAmmo.com

tngunowners.com

texasgunforum.com

AirgunBBS.com (members only)

UK Varminting

WoodworkingTalk.com

GlockForum

Damn Locals 4X4 Club

PAFOA Forums

Taxidermy.net Forum (members only.)

New England Hunter’s Network

Freedom Sledder Forum

NoslerReloading.com

The Stalking Directory

Delaware Open Carry

And about 200 600 hits from emails and Facebook.

I think there’s a couple more I’ve missed that came from across the pond. I’ll keep updating this as new ones show up in the referrer logs.

That one post has had (as I write this) 2,577 4,630 8,019 12,087 hits since it went up, according to Google Analytics; viewed by 2,367 4,232 7,354 11,066 unique IP addresses.

This is just amazing. Who knew?

That’s not Recoil, THIS is RECOIL

I thought the .700WTF was the biggest shoulder-fired rifle out there short of a 20mm, but no! Apparently the .950JDJ is:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xohy9gWz7kk?rel=0]

2400 gr bullet @ 2100fps! 277fp of free recoil. The average 30-06 has around 28-30fp of recoil. 
The .577 T-Rex? Pfffft. Please. (*Owwww!!!!*)

Oh, and BTW – .950″ is 24mm.

ETA: For the literally tens hundreds of thousands of you visiting from various bulletin boards and email pointers, don’t miss you’ve missed the opportunity to get yourself or your significant other a Kalashnikitty T-shirt!

Bowling Pin Match, Sunday January 8

Usual place, the Tucson Rifle Club action range.

Time: 8:00 AM sign-up, first rounds downrange about 8:20

Handguns only: .22 rimfire, centerfire revolver (.38 caliber minimum), semi-autos (9mm minimum).

You’re welcome to shoot your revolver against the semi-auto crowd, but we think it’s more fun to shoot wheelgun-vs.-wheelgun.

Cost: $10 for the first gun, $5 for any additional guns. Bring about 100 rounds for each. You probably won’t need ’em all unless you’re really good at missing fast. I fired 64 rounds to lose the revolver match last month.

Hope to see you there!

“OK, That Was Awesome!”

This is what terrifies them – the smile:

Those are screenshots from this CBS News piece about the increasing number of female shooters in the U.S. – up 47% since 2001, according to the piece.  The shooter is CBS’s Katrina Szish, and I suspect that was her first experience with a firearm.

It probably won’t be her last.

That’s the smile you get from a new shooter – Every. Single. Time.

The anti’s are terrified of that – the realization that shooting is fun. Or as the interview subjects put it, exciting, empowering, relaxing.

Also from the piece:

Katrina Szish, CBS: “A lot of people would not expect shooting to be a sport that women would be interested in. And a lot of people would say guns are masculine.”

Lesa Ellanson, NRA certified shooting instructor: “It would depend on how you define femininity. I think a capable woman is the most feminine expression of power that there is.”

Which reminded me of this post from quite a while back. Unfortunately, it’s so old the links are broken, and the comments are gone, but I agree whole-heartedly with another subject of the CBS interview, Jill Kargman:

“I always dress up. I’m very traditional feminine in certain ways. But when I’m shooting a gun, I guess I feel empowered, and empowerment is sexy.”

Damned straight.

How Do You Feel About a Central AZ Blogshoot? (Bumped)

For some time in late January?  (Poll added.)

There’s a bunch of us now, and I haven’t met half of you. Just a short list – Let me know who I’ve missed in comments and I’ll add them:

Great Satan Inc.
Exurban League
Sandcastle Scrolls
Guffaw in AZ
Dustin’s Gun Blog
Gator in the Desert
Arizona Shooter
Empty Mags
Eric Shelton
Cowboy Blob
Desert Rat
Macker’s World
Misanthropic
Moonbattery
Vox
PapaTodd
Religion Press
Bill of Grace
Nine Pound Sledgehammer
Primeval Papa
flat5.net 
Vuurwapen Blog
An Inconvenient Man
Cap’n Bob and the Damsel
Of Arms and the Law
Void Where Prohibited

That’s seventeen twenty-six.  Remember, they don’t all have to be gun bloggers, just bloggers who might be interested in going to a shoot.  Who else?

BUMPED: It looks like the last Sunday in January is the winner.

Video!

Capitalist Pig and Mz. VRWC attended last Sunday’s Bowling Pin shoot and took some video.  They sent me some of it, and most of it has me in it, shooting.  This one, for example, is Major and I’m shooting my Kimber:

http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf
That’s me in the center, if you couldn’t tell.  This was early, before it warmed up.

Here’s the Minor semi-final, with Mz. VRWC on the right and Jim Burnett on the left.  This one was tight, but in the video replay it’s obvious that Mz. VRWC won by a fraction of a second:

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

Here’s one where having those extra two rounds in the Smith 327 made the difference.  That’s me on the right:

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

Here’s one where having the extra two rounds were no help at all:

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

And, finally, the one class that I seem to do very well in – .22 rimfire:

http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf
That’s Capitalist Pig in the center. Thanks for the video!

Next match is January 8.  Hope to see you there!