Pattern 14 to the range!

Today just struck me as a good day for the range, so I loaded up the Pattern 14 and some old South African .303 ammo and headed out while it was still somewhat not insanely hot. The range wasn't crowded at all, and as usual, 90% of the shooters there on the rifle line had some variant of an AR. Man I remember the day when I was the subject of scorn at a range or two for having an AR back when they weren't common. Now I'm the odd duck again for not having one. Sigh...

But me and the Pattern 14 got down to business, and business was good.

Firing off the mat--I'm still the only one here that does that--the old rifle put almost every round on the 8" steel plate at 100M. The few that missed were completely my fault. This old war horse is still solid and capable. I have to raise the sight leaf and with the aperture in the lowest setting and when I do it hits right on the steel so regularly that it's kinda boring. But it felt good to lie on that mat and pull that stock up into my shoulder, bringing that trigger back slowly until it broke, the report and the recoil being followed a second later by a sharp ringing noise as the steel target downrange rocked. It doesn't get much better than this morning.

After a time, I put the old iron away and broke out the Ruger 10/22 on the .22 steel range, just to work on my offhand shooting, which is still sub-par.

I player over here for half an hour or so then hit the road.

And in an amazing range coincidence, I was unable to find my shooter's earmuffs in my truck when I got there, so I asked to borrow a pair from the range. Well the range stopped issuing loaners this past month but the range officers know me and as a courtesy they popped open their supply cabinet and gave me a pair from their lost and found...and that pair had my initials clearly painted on both muffs! Well I guess I know where those got to. But what are the odds of them reaching into a box of earmuffs and pulling out my own pair, a set that I didn't even know was missing?

Range Day!!!

The sun was out today...and the range, after two months, was open.

Apparently there was more than just a "zoning problem". Turns out that there was a squabble between the three owners that resulted in two of them taking off, and taking the steel targets and the shop's FFL with them. I don't pretend to know the half of it but it resembles one of those bitter divorces that you hear about with recriminations on both sides that make you wonder exactly what the truth is and leave you puzzled as to where your loyalties are supposed to lie. But I'm here to shoot, and I paid for a membership, so that's where my loyalty is going to remain.

So Proud Hillbilly and I made a a morning of it.

I started out with my Glock 21, testing a new batch of ammunition that I'd made up several years ago

It worked flawlessly, and the big Glock soon tore a rather ragged hole in the middle of the target, so gun and ammo get pluses for consistency. And oh! Look, Liberals! It has evil 13-round magazines! Oh NOES!

Next came the Ruger 10-22, recently equipped with high-profile adjustable tech sights (www.tech-sights.com) that give it aperture, or "peep" sights such as you find on most fighting rifles.

A bit on the overly-large size for such a small rifle, but what it lacks in aesthetic style, it makes up for in practicality and enhanced shootability. The front is elevation adjustable with an old M16A1 sight tool. (seriously guys, an A1 tool? why not an A2 tool, which is more common, or just a freaking rock?) and the rear is adjustable for eindage and elevation once you get your "battle zero" on the front.

It took half a dozen or so three-shot groups to get the sights adjusted, but as you can see, it's spang on at 50 yards now, and the read has enough adjustment to allow me to move it for both a 25 yard and 10 yard setting should the need arise.

I could never do this with the Ruger's old factory sights. The rifle's up to it, but the sight picture is so much better now. I think it's worth the money spent and the ungainly profile that it gives the rifle.

Then it was "clobbering time", and the Mystery Mauser came out of rifle rack hibernation for the first time in years.

I bought this old 8mm Mauser at a gun show many years back on impulse. It was orignally a German K-98k, but it's markings had been removed by someone, replaced by a crude re-blue finish.

It does have a marking that give a clue as to it's travels though: Preduzece 44. That's the stamp of the arsenal at Kragujevac, Yugoslavia, a factory that rebuilt thousands of ex-German Mauser rifles after World War Two.

This one appears to have been one of those German K98ks that wound up in the hands of the Yugosla government after the war. Yugoslavia not having a functioning arms industry of it's own, they made do by refurbishing captured German guns like this one. It's original German military markings would have been removed during the rebuild at Kragujevac sometime between 1946 and 1950. (Mausers remanufactured after 1950 were marked with a "/48" after the "Model 98" stamp.) This one obviously started out as a German rifle based on several small German Army acceptance stamps which still grace the rifle's metal in out-of-the-way places. After the war, most of these rifles were "sanitized" (major origin-identifying markings removed) and re-sold throughout the third world. The original German factory and date code would have been atop the receiver once, but they're gone now.

Some of the little German Army "waffens".

As you can see, this old vet has likely been somewhere and done some thing, but whatever it's secrets are, it's not telling. However, it "told" just fine o the hundred-yard range, putting almost every round on a six-inch disc once I figured out what it's zero was and made the appropriate adjustments. Fortunately it was right on for windage, because that's not adjustable on these. Elevation was a bit off, but with the rear set right in between 100 and 200 meters, it puts them in the black if I do my part. Barleycorn sights...ugh! (Hey tech-site guys...if you read this and decide to make "big rifle" sights, these Mauser sights could use help.)
However, even with the zero a bit off, I'm pretty confident that I can hit the gun-grabber at any practical distance, long before he is able to lay his mitts on my property. And that's really all that matters, right?

All in all, it was a great day to go out and turn lead and powder into smoke. Happy I was as I went home to cook some burgers on the grill.

"While U wuz gone, I ate yur hamburger rollz"


MURPHY!!!