I Had One Of "THOSE" Days
Last week I finally got around to setting up a fast twist .45 caliber barrel for the Swamp Dragon. Naturally, I've been badly wanting to shoot it and see how it does with Ed Mehlig's big lead bullets. But the weekend weather was mostly rain, and besides a bit of family stuff got in the way.
So I made a break this morning. Got up early, loaded the truck, and headed out seventy miles to the hunting lease rifle range. I knew no one else would be there and I would have the range to myself. Weather projection was for partly cloudy skies with a high in the mid-seventies.
Arrived at the lease in good time. Got out of the truck and was swamped with big black mosquitoes. DAMN! Sprayed down with repellent (something I hate) and proceeded to unload stuff. Carried the gun, a box of Ed's 350 grain bullets and a box of his 465 grain bullets, a range rod, and a stack of targets the 30 or so yards from the truck to the shooting bench. GNATS! Mosquitoes and gnats??? And the dang gnats don't seem to be bothered very much by the repellent.
After putting the stuff down on the shooting bench and wiping a gnat out of my left eye, I headed back to the truck for my range bag, ear muffs and powder. POWDER? Where's the POWDER??? About then an image popped into my mind - an image of a full unopened canister of GOEX FFFg sitting next to my computer keyboard when I checked my e-mails before leaving the house. It looks as though I'll be heading back to the house without firing a shot.
But wait. Didn't I leave some powder in my little hooch at the lease? Yes I did! After a quick search with my fingers crossed I found it. A canister about 1/4 full of GOEX FFg. Happy time! I wanted to shoot FFFg, but FFg is better than no powder at all.
By now the partly cloudy skies have turned into cloudless skies, and the predicted "mid-70's" has turned into an 80°+ day with high humidity. That's OK. I've shot with sweat in my eyes before. All I need is a towel to mop the sweat now and then, and at least I have a towel.
On to the range session: I'd taken the 4X ProDiamond scope off of the Dragon and mounted a new Vortex Diamondback 1.75-5x32 with a BDC feature. So the first order of business was to get the new scope sighted in with the .45 barrel. Three shots at 25 yards took care of that. Things are looking up ---- EXCEPT.
Except the BDC stadia lines on the new scope are awfully close together and give me a cluttered picture I don't care for when looking at a target. Not only that, no matter what I do with the quick focus feature, wear my glasses or leave them off, I can not get a 100 yard picture that makes me happy. Things are fine at 50 yards. But at 100 yards I have to settle for either a sharp picture of the target and somewhat blurry crosshairs, or sharp crosshairs and a somewhat blurry target picture. I wish I'd brought the ProDiamond along because I would have changed back immediately.
After shooting two targets at 50 yards, five shots with the 350 grain bullets and five shots with the 465 grain bullets, I was pretty happy. Then I moved out to 100 yards and things went downhill.
How far downhill? You'll have to wait until I get a chance to scan the targets and post a report of the range session. As for now, I'm going to take a shower then pour myself a nice Scotch.