I hate being cooped up in the house and today I decided to do something about gathered things up and headed to the Rock Pit...
I had no real set plan as to what I was going to do - I was just hoping the snow had melted back enough that I could even get there... but it really didn't matter - even the drive out into the woods was going to be good!
I was easily able to get into the Rock Pit so it was now going to be a great day!!!
Setup the things I needed to get my shoot in. The rock pit is an excellent 100 yard shooting area and I had it all to myself. I walked 8 clay pigeons down to the rock wall and set them up for shooting. Got the portable bench set up and the loading equipment set up on the tailgate of the pick up.
Since I had shot the 45 the last time I shot whenever that was I decided to take my rifle season 50 cal. Knight Ultra-Lite for this trip. In this particular rifle I shoot 120 grains of T7-2f started with a W209 primer. I also used one of my most favorite bullets, Lehigh/Knight .458x275 grain Bloodlines. IMO - they are probably the best all around bullets made. The rifle was scoped with a Redfield Revenge Hunter scope - 3x9x42 with Range Finding Accru-Ranger reticule.
I should also tell you the rifle is slightly modified from what you would get from Knight in that I have taken the super light Kevlar stock off and installed the rifle in a DISC Elite thumbhole stock. It is a few ounces heavier but I really do like shooting a thumbhole stock - even when hunting. I have also removed the Mountaineer style bolt with the primer rails on the nose of the bolt and substituted a DISC bolt with a primer adapter. This setup is much easier for me to get primers in the right spot while hunting or even shooting a range session.
After I got everything set - I started shooting the clays... everything went along swimmingly - one shot one bird... When I was nearing the end I shot one of the upper birds and the debris from that bird dropped down onto a lower bird causing it to slide on the rock shelf and lay itself down almost flat. The bird remained intact but looking at it through the scope it was going to be a difficult shot. I could not hit the bird by shooting a little bit low as the rock shelf protected it from a low shot. It would certainly be easy to shoot over it and hope maybe/possibly the splatter of the bullet or broken rock pieces might get the bird. I decided I wanted to try to get the bird by actually shooting it... I had the black edge of the bird and a bit of the orange of the partially flat bird in the scope and thought it offered enough of a target that I could get the bird. Took the shot and the bird was gone!! - literally. I felt quite good with that shot...
So good... I looked through the scope at some bird bits to the right of where I had been shooting. There were 4 chips that were easily seen through the scope. I felt really good about my chances at 'chip shooting' - the shoot continued. Loaded up for more shots and cleaned up the chips....
Then it started snowing - not just a little bit as it had been doing but snowing! Packed up and headed out... Tuesday is suppose to be a really nice day - maybe just maybe!!!!
Here are a couple of photo composites showing the trip....
