Saturday morning was a nice cool morning - also got just a bit of rain. I decided to head to the gun club to shoot a few rounds of trap - then off to the Rock Pit for some ML shooting. Still a month+ before our regular rifle season starts but I have not shot a Western style ML for quite some time so this morning was a good opportunity.


I took the Knight Ultra-lite with a Western Conversion installed. It is equipped with a NECG, slide & glide or hope prayer adjustment system, mounted on Warne - Weaver scope block. The Knight front sight has also been removed and a Williams setup with a Fire Sight Hood installed.


I was late getting to the Pit and it was a major camping weekend so I was really concerned that it would be occupied - and it was but the guy was just packing up to leave - so it worked out very well. Got the gear unloaded from the pick-up and setup. I wanted to do some extended shooting so I took 8 pigeons down to the wall and on the way to the wall down found two addition birds on the floor that were un-broken. So I ended up setting up 10 birds on the wall.


My load... I really wanted to some more experimenting with full bore shooting. I have a couple boxes of 50x325 grain Bloodline bullets and some Barnes 50x275 XPB's for the 500 Smith and Wesson. I ended up just shooting the Lehigh/Bloodline but next trip I will spend more time with the Barnes - the copper is much easier to 'knurl' to fit than the harder brass Lehigh's.


Popped a couple of caps to insure that the nipple and BP were clear - loaded up the first shot walked over the bench placed the rifle in the rests and looked down through the sites. WOW! I had forgotten how small the birds were at a 100 yards - or maybe it was how big the sights were! It is so much easier with a scope! The front Fire sight bead is larger than the bird itself. Since I use a 6 o'clock hold it is fairly easy to set the bird on top of the bead - The problem comes getting the bird in the same place on top of the bead each time. A little bit to much one way or the other and the bird wins!


It was really an enjoyable relaxing morning and I wish I could say 10 birds - 10 shots - but it didn't happen. I will say the four that missed were darn close - were it an animal it would not have survived!


Here is a pic... If you look closely at the bullet you might be able to pick up the two cut knurl lines on the bullet. These lines cut with a tubing cutter increase the diameter to get a slip fit down the bore.

Good shooting Mike. Open sights sure get tougher each year. I think I might have to come to the honest realization that my long range days with open sights are over.