Burning powder

In the morning, I’m taking a friend out to do some shooting.

He’s never shot at a private range before. The range that Dad and I have been shooting on for 20 years is not open to the public. It’s in a cow pasture, actually. While it’s short on benches, shade, and target backing, it’s long on privacy and safety and the opportunity to shoot when and how I want. I’m the rangemaster when I shoot, and I like it that way. Lowers the stress significantly.

I’m checking in the sight-in on some guns for a turkey shoot on Monday. I’m going to be honest with you: I’m going to cheat a bit. The turkey shoot has 4 components:
Pistol: (5 shots at 25 yards offhand),
Iron-sighted Rifle: (5 shots any position at 50 yards,
Scoped Rifle: (1 shot at one hundred yards from the bench), and
Shotgun: (1 shot at 20 yards with 00 Buck).

Entry fee is $2 per category, or 3 categories for $5, proceeds going toward stuff for the new county Sheriff’s Academy.

The shotgun category doesn’t interest me—it’s basically just a door prize, to me. Scores are found by shots closest to the X, or most shots closest to the X.

Last year I won a turkey in the iron-sighted rifle portion, by using an old Savage .22 with a bad trigger but a wonderful diopter rear peep sight set about 30” behind the front sight, and I shot from prone. I almost took the pistol portion with my old duty gun, the Kimber Stainless Classic 1911. I threw one a little.

So this year, I think I’ll take out that same cheater .22 rifle, and we’ll see how I’m shooting with the old Kimber again. Also for this range trip, I’m taking Dad’s old Canadian Inglis Browning High-Power (P35), and his Browning High Power .40. My friend wants a BHP, but has never shot one before, so I figure we’ll give him a taste of it. Who knows—maybe I’ll even shoot the Inglis in the pistol competition.