Recoil Therapy and So Far, Nothings Happened…. Yet.

Greetings and Salutations!
I found a new range to “vent my frustrations on”. It’s up in Fishhawk and whoo-eee! The place is so big you can rent a golf cart to haul you around as needed with your gear.

Clays, pistol and rifle ranges…

Today was the ‘shooting for record’ for record for the Springfield and the ‘matching numbers’ Lee Enfield No. 4. I wanted to get some groupings to judge the accuracy, as well as blow out the remaining crap in the Lee Enfield as the barrel fouling still had some crap up in there that after about 50 rounds, it was cleaned out.

Some of the holes in the targets are from some of the guys at the range that I let fire off a couple of rounds for funsies, as I do like to share and also bask in the accolades… some of the old timers were exceptionally pleased to “…see a younger guy who’s into the gunsmithing and restoration stuff!”

Heh. “Younger”
Geez… I’m 55 but during the cold range phases, the discussions were allll about how gunsmithing is a dying art, as well as weapons preservation. One guy who was a Vietnam vet was allll about the whole historical; angle and how the last 20-30 years of anti-gun bullshit had made gunsmithing itself a almost dead art.

And all those places like the Sonoran Desert Institute are a HUUUUGE pile of shytte. That’s one of the big sponsors of a LOT of ‘Guntoobers’ like Brandon Herrera. The problem with that fucking place is it’s a huge scam. I researched that place out of curiosity… What I found out kind of pissed me off.

Seems that it’s an ‘all online’ remote gunsmithing “school” and I use the term loosely. The tuition is $26k without ‘assistance’ and they really go hard at Veterans to loot the G.I. Bill bennies from them. THAT I find horrible.

The reviews out there are very telling.

LOTS of people talking about the shitty curriculum. Apparently the coursework is so minimal, and that you can pretty much learn everything you ‘need to know’ off of youtoob vidyas, which is actually where a lot of the “teaching” happens!

Meh.

So back to the shooting.
The results:
Rifle: 1884 Springfield Trapdoor
Round: 3 rounds of .45-70 500 Grain Flat-Nosed Lead Boolits
Range: 100 Yards
No Optics, just old Iron Sights while using a smol sandbag rest
The Aiming Point was the red “Center Mass”

A little high.
The left/right is I think from ‘recoil anticipation’
It’s hard not to brace while firing this Gorilla Killer.

Either way, I’m exceptionally pleased
I need better sights tho…
Which is a pain in the ass as the one on there I paid $150 for. It’s good, but a wee bit worn, and also, to be perfectly honest, I’m 55 and Ye set of Olde Marke One Mod One Eyeballz ain’t what they used to be.

BUT

Those are kill shots, and with practice this thing is going to be fun to keep working with. I mean throwing a 500 Grain slug a full football field, and hitting a 3/4 size man sized target? Not bad IMO. Fuck your plates, fuck your chest and fuck the guy behind you and HIS plates too.

Now, the other rifle.
I’ll say I’m impressed.
Now this one, it’s positively peppered with shots. That’s the target I let folks tag initially as the ‘cold range’ wasn’t going to be for a bit, and I couldn’t swap the target out easily, so it got a wee bit ‘shot up’. That being said:

Rifle: Lee Enfield Mod 1 Mk 4.
Round: 170 Grain .303 Brit, 1970’s Greek Surplus
(Thank You Borepatch!)
Distance: 50 Yards (Initial Grouping)
This is the initial 5 round group with a tight 4 round hit:

That was off the sandbag. A niiiiiiice and tight group of 4, with the 5th being a flier off to the far left. I do know that when I tore it apart initially when I first got it, the front sight blade was waaaaaaay off to one side… if I remember right, it was far to the left, and I re-centered it during the rebuild. Looks like I’ll have to do the ‘tap and shoot’ and realign everything. Get it back to the left…

So now I know I have two good shooters.

It’s been a minute since I’ve been to a range for an all day affair. Left me a lil drained from the heat (it got a wee mite hot today) but overall I had a literal blast with Sapper. He did like 2 shots through the Springfield and declined any more as his shoulder was beat from two shots. Wimp. LOL!

So nothing on the fam side… things are quiet.

Hence the necessity of shooting up shit to relax.
Which was highly needed.
The aforementioned Borepatch is the one who quoted it as “recoil therapy”. Truer words were never spoken.

I’ll keep you updated a bit more as we go along.

More Later
Big Country