Frozen Range Report

Still sore from snowmachining, I decided that Saturday was the perfect day to head back out to the shooting range.

It's funny, because while I'm plenty sore from the ride on the snowmachine, where I used muscles I wasn't used to using, I barely notice the sore shoulder from shooting. I've got a bruise from that, though, so you'd think I'd feel it.

Anyway, I went out to the landfill with my sporterized M44 and a box of ammo. Last time I was out there, the snow had blanketed the place and you had to slog through knee-deep drifts to set up targets. This time, a plow had pushed right down the middle of the range. That made it easier to set up targets in the middle, but there was no way to set a target for one of the shooting tables at the far left.

When I first got there, four guys were sighting in their rifles. I assume they're going to be hunting moose, since moose season is opening up again soon. I did some shooting at 50 yards from the far left table, shooting cross-range to the 50-yard target in the middle of the plowed section of the range. My rifle scope was still fairly accurate, which is good. I've had to sight it in a few times now, and I was afraid it was getting bumped around in the car and not keeping a good zero. But apparently it's fine now.

After the other guys left, I moved to a center table, and I snapped a few pictures of the snowy range.

It's hard to take pictures that show the shape of the snow well, but outside of the plowed portion of the range straight ahead, there are huge drifts to the right and left. Not fun to try to walk through.

I shot 10 rounds at 100 yards. By this point, I was freezing cold. Between that and my low-power scope, I imagine my accuracy suffered a little.

Nevertheless, you can see that I managed to get all ten rounds onto paper.

I'm not going to complain about that performance with a WWII surplus rifle, in the freezing cold, at 100 yards with a 2x power scope. With more patience in better weather, I could probably do a tad better. As you can see, it's shooting to the left at 100 yards.

When I was out of ammo, I had a warm car waiting to take me home.

It was a decent range trip, I suppose. It's still hard to shoot a box of ammo when it costs $25 to replace. A coworker from the courthouse is going to Seattle in late December, and is planning to buy a bunch of ammo. I'm going to try to convince her to let me tack on an order. It costs half as much to buy ammo in the lower 48, at least. That would make it a cheaper hobby.

Now I've got to run off and meet Samara for dinner. She, Ricky and Saramay are supposed to meet me at the Windmill Grille for a bite to eat.