A Fall Sunday well spent

What a beautiful day.

After church this morning (Yep, Pop...I went.) I stopped by the range to test out some new loads I'm working on for my Winchester Model 94 .30-30.

It's an old pre-'64 that I found broken on some auction site maybe ten years ago. I fixed it but it's been a rack rifle pretty much since then. Well that changed when I was rooting around in my reloading area and found a .50 cal. ammo can chock full of primed .30-30 brass that I prepped back in the early '90s and forgot about. Almost eight hundred cases, trimmed, primed and ready for loading. (What was I thinking way back then?) So now I'm going to work up a couple of loads, one for 150gr. bullets and one for 170gr., and load them all up. Then I'll shoot them empty and repeat the process.

Here's my target with the upper left being preliminary sighting-in, and the other three representing various powder weights.

It looks like 32.5 gr. or Winchester 748 under 150gr. Remington SP bullets is going to work for me. (Lower left target). The flyer on the lower right came about because by the time I got to that target, the rifle was smoking hot and my finger touched the barrel as I was sighting. (I also shot that one standing off-hand so the group kinds sucks.)I didn't exactly flinch when I touched it, but I did rush the shot to stop the burning. Funny how you never see John Wayne or Gary Cooper having that problem with their old lever guns.

Then, after shooting the breeze with all of my range friends for a while, I went down to the river with my newest toy: a 12 foot Pelican Pulse 120 kayak that I bought yesterday, fairly-well used, from the local kayak rental place.

Once a year they sell their rental boats, and while I missed out last year, I managed to get there in time this year and got one.

Today I spent a couple of hours playing on the Shenandoah river and breaking my new boat in, just paddling up and down and enjoying the warm, sunny day. The water sure was cold, though. Still, on a day like this, who can complain?

And just so Murphy wouldn't feel all neglected, I stopped at the store and bought him a marrow bone, fresh from the meat department.

You're, like, the best human ever...I love you, man!


Then it was into the kitchen to cook up a beef stroganoff that was worthy even of a distinguished chef like Brigid.

Now I'm drinking beer and getting ready to clean the Winchester on my deck as the sun sets. Life, as they say, is good.