how the west was won, or how i out-shot the shit out of my father-in-law

spent a couple days and nights up north in the in-laws. very relaxing. lots of eating, lots of just doing nothing but watching the olympics. watching those crazy biathalon guys with their suits, skies and svelt little wussy rifles for killing arctic humming birds is inspiring. it made amanda's dad carl and i want to do some shooting ourselves.

we headed about half an our east of wasco out to an outdoor range with several different set ups and areas. did we want to shoot in the old west? watch our bullets drop indians out of their lovingly recreated teepees? we figured we should probably just hit the pistol range.

shot with the .22 ruger to get warmed up, couple go rounds with the .38, moved on to the colt .45 with ivory handle, then loaded up a couple sets of .357 mag & let er rip. amandas wrist and elbows are still pretty sore from the kick those loads have.

the best part of the day though was the competition carl and i had with a sweet little winchester ranger. this rifle takes a long colt (.45) load just like the pistol. lever action, 16" barrel, open sites. this is the sweet little beauty you see all the cowboys carrying in the old movies. small, shoots straight and fits really nicely in a saddle scabard since it's so short.

carl shot first. our target was round and metal, about a foot in diameter sitting about 200 yards in front of us, and maybe about 40-50 feet higher in elevation up the hill at the back of the range. the ranger holds nine rounds, and carl pinged that target once, maybe a debateable twice on his first go round. i hit four straight out of the gate, and added two more for a really nice six out of nine. jaws dropped. the blind kid can shoot. i always tell people, but they never believe me. now even the wife knows!

we each shot a couple more sets, carl hit a stride and i think ended up with about eight or ten out of 27 possible. i got 17, almost two thirds. at least i know that if i ever need to feed my family with 1' diameter metal targets, we would all feast...