The Curve Balls of Life

     Life throws us all curve balls.  It is a constant guarantee, just like death and taxes.  My mom passed away in late April at the age of 75.  Her health had been less than desirable for the past decade and the past couple of years have been the roughest.  A burst abdominal aneurysm, thyroid problems, pancreatic issues, blood sugar issues, you name it.  She had a rough go of it, but spent the past year doing quite a bit better until she fell.  The constant pain of a hip fracture mixed with everything else really did her in.  She had a good life and went out on HER terms, which is more than a lot of people can hope for.  That's all I've got to say about that.

     A baseball pitcher will exploit a batter's weakness.  Hence, the curve ball.  Mr. Murphy has a tendency to do that to us as well.  Mom passes away, the company that I work for is in a precarious financial position and has filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, my trusty steed "SuzieQ" died and went to car heaven which leaves us being a 1 vehicle family right now, and to beat it all, my lawn tractor (a 22yr old Simplicity) is giving me a ton of grief and the engine has probably given up the ghost.  I live for a good challenge, but things have been absurd over the past few months, ergo my lack of any recent blog posts.  

     All things considered, I am still getting to try some weapons out that I've never fired before, I'm trying to stay "in practice" with my air rifle but I'll admit that I am not shooting as much as I would like.  It's not that I haven't had the opportunities, but maybe I have just been slacking off.  It's time to get back into the saddle and do some writing and certainly some more shooting.  

Let's update some things that have been happening in my literary absence...

  1.  I am up to 63 shots through my 7mag.  She's getting closer to copper equilibrium.  I'll be taking her to the range this weekend and making sure she hits paper and try for some groups at 100 yds.  The only way to tell if the barrel has truly hit the sweet spot is with a shooter's chrony, which I do NOT have access to at the moment.  Just judging by the shot count, she is probably within 20-40 shots of a consistent muzzle velocity.  I have two purchases that I need to make sometime in the next 5 months.  A shooter's chrony and reloading equipment.  We'll see if my time frame holds true with the current financial burdens we already have.

  2.  Something is up with my pistol shooting technique.  In all actuality, I can't hit SHIT unless I shoot one handed right now.  If I go into my modified Weaver's stance, the chances of me hitting the target are about as good as winning the power ball lottery.  With ammo prices the way they are, and the way that I personally feel about pistols (a weapon to get you out of a jam and buy you time to get a shotgun/rifle) I haven't had a chance to work out the issues.  Maybe I should go with a CO2 air pistol for practice?  It is certainly something to give extra thought to.

  3.  I recently purchased an old (mid 80's?) Marksman 1790 for my oldest daughter (12).  It is a break barrel, single shot, spring piston, pellet rifle.  I spent a whopping $15 for it.  I stripped it down, painted the metalwork fluorescent pink, and fabricated a new leather breech seal for it.  My best guesstimate is that it shoots around 450-500 fps and is actually VERY accurate in the 10 meter (32ft) range...which makes it AWESOME for my carport range.  It has a rear peep sight and a globe front sight.  

  4.  My oldest daughter suffers from the same eye dominance issue that I do....we are both CENTER dominant.  Center dominance creates an odd challenge for a shooter, especially when peep sights, ghost rings, and optics of any kind are introduced.  Right or Left eye dominant shooters can leave both eyes open and focus through their sights with their dominant eye without any issues.  Center dominant cannot do that.  The focus of the target in our sight picture will just **poof** disappear.  Two easy ways of fixing the issue....close the non-shooting eye or wear a patch.  My daughter cannot physically close her non shooting eyelid.  It's quite funny to watch her try.  I guess that she never trained those muscles to work independently of each other.  I purchased a black eye patch, pirate-style but no skull and crossbones.  We painted it white and then painted a red-cross on it.  Think "Kill Bill".  It's awesome and now she is shooting considerably better.

  5.  My little .22 lr, a Mossberg 702 "Plinkster" could gain A LOT more precision accuracy with the purchase of new front and rear sights.  The factory sights are not bad at all, but for real precision they are too bulky.  My backstop at home is at 32m (105 feet).  When I put a 75' small bore target up there, the front sight post completely covers the target circle. This is fine, because I am shooting entirely in that circle...but the circle is 2" in diameter.  So at 105' every shot is going into a 2" circle with open sights and I am complaining???  Damn skippy.  I think the biggest issue is the front sight post.  It has a tiny ball on it.  If it were a thin blade I could center it within the target circle and have MUCH tighter groups.  "Why not put a scope on it?".  I had one on there and took it off.  I just really like open sights on certain rifles and the little mossy is one of them.  

  6.  Since by blog absence I have gotten the opportunity to shoot a Browning SA-22, it is a "take down" model that breaks down into two pieces by unscrewing a castle type nut at the base of the barrel and receiver.  It is an internal stock "tube" magazine with 11 rd. capacity, semi-automatic, bottom ejection, .22lr.  It is an heirloom rifle owned by one of my good shooting buddies.  It was his grandfather's gun and has been kept in fantastic shape.  I really enjoyed shooting a brilliantly engineered piece of history that still performs flawlessly.  It is an absolute tack-driver, a real pleasure to shoot.  

  7.  Mosin-Nagant.  7.62x54r, bolt action defender of the "Motherland", iron curtain style.  My same buddy who owns the SA-22 got a Mosin for his wedding anniversary.  The furniture is in really nice shape, as is the rest of the rifle.  I'm not sure which model it is, but it's a fun rifle to kick around with.  We will see how it does on the 100 yd range that we're going to this coming weekend.  I'm excited to see!  

  8.  Remington R1   .45acp 1911 style full-frame pistol.  Nice gun!

  

9.  Beretta PX4-Storm  .40 cal Sub Compact.  Another nice gun although my buddy recently traded it for...

10.  Para Ordnance LDA .45acp light double action 1911 style with a 4.5" barrel and is somewhat more concealable than a full framed .45 1911 styled gun.  

11.  Sig Sauer P238  .380 single action compact "pocket" pistol.  It's not much larger than a Ruger LCP or KelTec .380.  Nice little handgun.

     I think that's about it for things I've been fortunate enough to get some trigger time with over the past few months that I have been away from the blog.  My buddy and I are going to the range this coming Saturday and should get some quality work done with the rifles.  I don't know if we'll have much of a range report when we're done, but we should have a ton of fun seeing how our rifles act at distances beyond the 32 meter stump in my back yard.