Mr WK and I drove out to the lake on Saturday to check on our 23' sailboat, Spray. Still there. Kinda sad seeing all those boats, sail, power and pontoon up on the hard.
The boat was in pretty good shape. I pitched out a bunch of dry, dead leaves from the cockpit and pulled some icky guck from both cockpit drains. I also positioned a sponge I'd left there over one of the cockpit drains. Hopefully that'll keep anything else that drifts into the cockpit from blocking at least one of the drains. I don't want to come back in the spring to this ...
.
I will be paying for my sins, however. I'd used that blue painters tape to tape around the base of all the teak trim pieces. I was planning to get back out there and most likely put the first coat of teak sealer on it. But I didn't. Nor did we get back out there until this past Saturday. Oops! So I have yards and yards of easy-peel-off painters tape — which is now not so easy to peel off — to strip off. And the few bits I was able to get off have loads of dirt embedded under it. [sigh] Well at least I know a good product to get tape and tape residue off fiberglass.
Sunday Mr WK and I drove to the outdoor range and met one of our down the street neighbors and one of his buddies there. When Mr WK and I go by our lonesomes, we often have plans to hit more than one range, usually the hi-power and the pistol range but almost as often we only make to one range. When we meet friends there somehow it's easier to stay on a schedule. We do however, end up spending the majority of the time on the hi-power range.
We started off at the rim-fire range. I don't like iron sights and my Marlin 980 S was the only .22 with a scope on it. Our neighbor has a Ruger 10/22 with a red dot. I like the way that rifle shoots and feels but I'm not in love with the red dot. I was pretty accurate at 75 yards with the red dot but I just couldn't seem to hit anything at 100 yards even though everyone else seemed to have no problems. Of course, I was the only cross dominant rifle shooter so I was probably seeing the sights a bit differently than everyone else. So that rifle is now on my 'list'.
After an hour or so we moved up to the hi-power range. It was busy and crowded but as luck would have it, we knew two of the shooters and they made some room. Nothing says fun like six shooters and more than twice as many rifles. There's a rifle rack that holds probably 15 rifles on one side and by the time our group had unpacked all of our toys, the front rack was full and there were some on the back. This wasn't counting the ones on that went directly to a shooting bench.
We shared rifles, ammo and conversation for the next couple of hours. We were the only ones that currently reload .223s so so we lucked out and got everyone's .223 brass! Mr WK got to shoot a Mosin Nagant again. Both of our down the street neighbors have one and so does the friend that came along Sunday. The one the friend had, seemed to have a lot more recoil than the ones our neighbors have. I shot it. Once. OK, that was enough for me. I'll go back to my carbine and my .308 thankyouverymuch.
With just under an hour of daylight left the four of us packed up [again!] and headed to the pistol ranges. Shortly after we got unpacked and everything laid out, the small (narrow) free-form range next to the big range with the benches opened up. Our neighbor wanted to practice shooting at a closer range than 25 or 50 yards, which is all that one range had. I found an intact target stand with sticks and some cardboard still attached and lugged it over there. While I was looking for a target stand the neighbor was mining that small range for pistol brass. There was a USPSA match that morning and there was a lot of brass. Between the two of us we got quite a haul. I think we got back what Mr WK and I left at the several IDPA matches we shot there this year and didn't pick up our brass.
For some time my unofficial pistol coach has been using a one flag dueling tree he made. He has now got himself a three flag dueling tree so he gave us his one flag.
Granted, the flag had a serious crack which is not in this photo which was taken last summer. The flag didn't last very long.
This is what it looks like now. It's still usable but the target area is small and it swings very fast now. So we're going to have a friend who has access to some hardened steel fix us up a new flag. I can see many duels between Mr WK and myself in my future.
All in all a great afternoon. Everyone confirmed they can still hit the 200 yard gong at the hi-power range at will with irons and/or optics. And everyone got at least a few shots on the 50 yard gong at the pistol range. Much ammo was expended and much brass was gathered for a future time.
blogging to: Christmas music on CD's
reading: Tooth and Claw by Nigel McCrery (a DCI Mark Lapslie mystery)
Parting Shot:
The boat was in pretty good shape. I pitched out a bunch of dry, dead leaves from the cockpit and pulled some icky guck from both cockpit drains. I also positioned a sponge I'd left there over one of the cockpit drains. Hopefully that'll keep anything else that drifts into the cockpit from blocking at least one of the drains. I don't want to come back in the spring to this ...
.
I will be paying for my sins, however. I'd used that blue painters tape to tape around the base of all the teak trim pieces. I was planning to get back out there and most likely put the first coat of teak sealer on it. But I didn't. Nor did we get back out there until this past Saturday. Oops! So I have yards and yards of easy-peel-off painters tape — which is now not so easy to peel off — to strip off. And the few bits I was able to get off have loads of dirt embedded under it. [sigh] Well at least I know a good product to get tape and tape residue off fiberglass.
Sunday Mr WK and I drove to the outdoor range and met one of our down the street neighbors and one of his buddies there. When Mr WK and I go by our lonesomes, we often have plans to hit more than one range, usually the hi-power and the pistol range but almost as often we only make to one range. When we meet friends there somehow it's easier to stay on a schedule. We do however, end up spending the majority of the time on the hi-power range.
We started off at the rim-fire range. I don't like iron sights and my Marlin 980 S was the only .22 with a scope on it. Our neighbor has a Ruger 10/22 with a red dot. I like the way that rifle shoots and feels but I'm not in love with the red dot. I was pretty accurate at 75 yards with the red dot but I just couldn't seem to hit anything at 100 yards even though everyone else seemed to have no problems. Of course, I was the only cross dominant rifle shooter so I was probably seeing the sights a bit differently than everyone else. So that rifle is now on my 'list'.
After an hour or so we moved up to the hi-power range. It was busy and crowded but as luck would have it, we knew two of the shooters and they made some room. Nothing says fun like six shooters and more than twice as many rifles. There's a rifle rack that holds probably 15 rifles on one side and by the time our group had unpacked all of our toys, the front rack was full and there were some on the back. This wasn't counting the ones on that went directly to a shooting bench.
We shared rifles, ammo and conversation for the next couple of hours. We were the only ones that currently reload .223s so so we lucked out and got everyone's .223 brass! Mr WK got to shoot a Mosin Nagant again. Both of our down the street neighbors have one and so does the friend that came along Sunday. The one the friend had, seemed to have a lot more recoil than the ones our neighbors have. I shot it. Once. OK, that was enough for me. I'll go back to my carbine and my .308 thankyouverymuch.
With just under an hour of daylight left the four of us packed up [again!] and headed to the pistol ranges. Shortly after we got unpacked and everything laid out, the small (narrow) free-form range next to the big range with the benches opened up. Our neighbor wanted to practice shooting at a closer range than 25 or 50 yards, which is all that one range had. I found an intact target stand with sticks and some cardboard still attached and lugged it over there. While I was looking for a target stand the neighbor was mining that small range for pistol brass. There was a USPSA match that morning and there was a lot of brass. Between the two of us we got quite a haul. I think we got back what Mr WK and I left at the several IDPA matches we shot there this year and didn't pick up our brass.
For some time my unofficial pistol coach has been using a one flag dueling tree he made. He has now got himself a three flag dueling tree so he gave us his one flag.
Granted, the flag had a serious crack which is not in this photo which was taken last summer. The flag didn't last very long.
This is what it looks like now. It's still usable but the target area is small and it swings very fast now. So we're going to have a friend who has access to some hardened steel fix us up a new flag. I can see many duels between Mr WK and myself in my future.All in all a great afternoon. Everyone confirmed they can still hit the 200 yard gong at the hi-power range at will with irons and/or optics. And everyone got at least a few shots on the 50 yard gong at the pistol range. Much ammo was expended and much brass was gathered for a future time.
blogging to: Christmas music on CD's
reading: Tooth and Claw by Nigel McCrery (a DCI Mark Lapslie mystery)
Parting Shot:
1 remark(s):
That is some serious fun, well not the boat work, bummer on that, but awesome day of shooting!
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