TSRA Service Rifle Trophy.

  Here's the top of the Trophy, donated by two generous, handsome, intellectual, Renaissance men.  It's a John Chalk statue from Sgt Grit.  Based on a famous photograph of a Marine Pfc Ison running across an area known as "Death valley" on Okinawa during WWII.

Videos from last weekend matches

  Three new ones up:  Texans shooting, which is a video of, (oddly enough) Texans shooting, the TSRA Service Rifle Championship Video and Outtakes from the Texas Juniors.

  All on the Blackfork6 Channel on Youtube.

  Still got the LEG match to do and a couple little short ones.

A year older

  Same buck on the same scrape a year apart.  I knew he would get bigger.  You can really tell from looking at the left browtine onone of the photos below, plus the overall shape of his antlers.

Daily Deercam

  Little buck sniffing the overhanging leaves at the scrape across the creek.

  Buck fawn sniffing the overhang.

  Nice big buck eating corn in front of the cam across the creek.

  Side view.  Same night as the photo on the post below at the other cam.

  Doe with two buck fawns.

  A little nursing action at the near cam.

  Got across the creek to nail the plastic chair up in the fork of an oak and pull the cam card.  Big Buck was there on the 20th as well.  The doe with two fawns over there has two BUCK fawns.  Lots of scrape action over across the creek.  Couple of little bucks I hadn't seen.  maybe the visitors who hunt up on the hill will get excited and shoot one of them as they are wandering around.  The big one will only be available to dumb luck or some skillful rattling. 

  Near camera has some nursing action.

TSRA Service Rifle Championship Trophy.

  The TSRA has a trophy for the Highpower Rifle Championship, the Ike Lee trophy.  It's got the TSRA Bull on it.  Nice.  But there isn't a trophy for the Service Rifle Championship.  The SR director, Dave Wilson decided that needs to change.  Some inspired folks just bought a statue for the top of the trophy today.  The statue is a Marine running with his Garand under Japanese fire on Okinawa.  Wilburn Spiller has been approached about building the base.  The statue will be at Panola this Saturday during the match.

  The donors plan to donate the entire trophy to the TSRA.  Since they are donating it, they get to name the trophy.  They think the Rick Crawford Trophy sounds damn nice.

  If anyone else wants to get in on the trophy deal, they need to get on the train, because it's leaving the station.

Daily Deercam

  Well, not so daily lately.  I haven't been out in a week.  Meant to make it last Thursday before leaving for Camp Swift and the TSRA Service Rifle Championship, but didn't.  Went this afternoon.  The redhead and I jumped a deer going over the bluff to camera 1 and when we came out she spotted a doe 100 yards across the pasture over the tall grass.  We were downwind so we stayed in the shadowed treeline and watched the doe and a yearling fawn fool around for a bit.  They were standing where we had passed five minutes before.  The doe was looking into the treeline and bobbing her head around.  I got the feeling there might be a buck near, but nothing showed.  Finally they came down the pasture edge toward us and then ducked into the trees.

  We didn't cross the creek to check cam 2.

  Two bucks on the card.  The little bent-horned buck was on looking very skittish, then one frame of the monster above.  I think it's Big Ten who finally is growing his left antler out nearly back to normal after having it ripped off his head at the socket in his 2 1/2 season.  He's 5 1/2 now and has a big buck body.

  Not bad.  One frame and he was gone, early in the morning of the 20th.  If he isn't the dominant local buck, I'd like to see who is.  Actually, there ought to BE one big rival from last year.  And a couple of challengers.  Maybe I can rattle one up.

  Scrapes freshly worked.  I'm going to start spraying a little buck and doe scent and see if I can get them worked up.

Distinguished Riflemen at Camp Swift

  This isn't all of them, just the ones we had on hand at the end of the LEG match Sunday.  Dave Watters, an Aussie is in the Yellow shirt on the bottom row.  He legged out at this match.  He might be the first Austrailian ever to win a Distinguished Rifleman's Badge.

  Starting with the oldest badge, upper left:

Ltc Don Tryce  (double distinguished, rifle and pistol).

Rick Crawford, TSRA Service Rifle Director.

Some guy I don't recognize.

Michelle Boyd.

Dave Wilson, TSRA Service Rifle Director and match director for this match.

Jose Niera from Laredo.

Someone I don't recognize.

Glenn Edgard from Houston.

Sgt Rick Tanner

Robert Langham from Tyler.

Keith Stephens

Blake Smith, who legged out at this match.

Lower Row:

Clint Greenwood.

Alan Wilson from Plano.

Rol Coggins

Ken Stracener, who legged out at Camp Perry this year.

Walt Haley, from Houston who also legged out at Camp Perry.

Dave Watters, Aussie, just legged out here.

Sam Miller.

  We are missing Paul Leberge, Charlie Wallis, Justin Utley, Cris Green, Bill Aten and Stan Jaroz.

  There are many Distinguished Riflemen in Texas.

Governor's 20

  The top 20 shooters at the TSRA Service Rifle Championship, October, 2008.  Each shooter gets a commemorative pin and a letter from the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry.  

  Michelle Boyd and a couple of her boys.

  I had a little scratch in my throat Thursday morning.  By the time I left I was gargling with salt water.  Friday night was worse but by Saturday morning I had driven the cold out of my throat and up into my sinuses with McDonalds salt packets and hydrogen peroxide.  A miserable couple of days of shooting.  I tried to stay away from folks, hydrate by swiping water bottles out of Dave Wison's truck (he's an old marathoner so he always has a pallet or two) and wash my hands a lot.  Energy drain.  Really took the edge off.  You can feel your energy back up and glow like old coals as you contain yourself and wait it out.

  Alan Wilson and I shot together on Sunday.  He's the most excellent company, a man of good sense and good cheer.  He won the Bronze medal in the LEG match.  I watched.

  Driving back last night the Kid passed out early with his ipod sizzling under his river-bottom haircut and I drove the four hours home alone in a sensory-enhanced trip with the stripes and reflectors shining up the asphalt.  I tweaked the cruise control and let it do most of the work while the 4-Runner did the rest.  Good technology.  I thought I was getting a little twitchy after 9:00 but quickly realized that a gusty cross-wind was kicking up.  Glad to be home and in the healing confines of my own bed.

 

TSRA Service Rifle Championship

  I didn't win it, but I got to see it won up close as Rick Crawford shot his way to the title on my firing point.  Quite a privilege.  100 shooters plus or minus a few.  Perfect weather with very little wind.  I made the Governors 20 (top 20 shooters in the Championship), and shot well in spots.  Team Blackfork won the State 4-Man Championship.  The EIC/LEG match gave seven LEGs with nearly 70 non-distinguished shooters.  Greg Foster won it overall, and got ten points.  Katie Foster his daughter got six points.  Dave Watters from Australia legged out and won his Distinguished Rifleman's Badge, along with Blake Smith and Sam Miller.

  Big junior team.  Jose Niera brought his daughter who he is always talking about but we hadn't seen before.  She had a great time.

  Nothing like being among these armed and competent people.

TSRA Service Rifle Championship

 Three days at Camp Swift near Austin.  We stay in the barracks so it's one of the cheaper and more convenient matches...once you load the ammo, round up the junior, pack, gas up, do all the errands, take a day off, get the rifles cleaned and set, refresh the deercams, et, et, et.

  Roping 10,000 demons.

  But I'm just about set.  Just finished off the Kid's ammo this second.  Waiting on lunch.

  Might be the last few years of these matches.  They would be easy to kill off by an Obama administration which is going to bring a huge number of anti-gun bureaucrats and politicians into office.  Obama personally hates firearm ownership, based on his previous actions, so I would expect to see the Second Amendment attacked directly and indirectly.

  On a job yesterday and the phone in my pocket rang.  It was the Republicans wanting money.  Usually I rake them over the coals for Bush and Rove destroying the party as the home to small-government conservatives.  I know they are just phone bank folks but they do chat up the food chain a bit.  This time I gave them 100.00.

  Interesting times, watching the end of the Republic.  Glad to be able to take Betsy and shoot these few days.  I bet it's coming to an end as we descend into darkness.  Looks like the American People are going to choose Big Brother or let Acorn and the media choose Big Brother for them, and these are the kind of folks who, once chosen, don't permit future choices.

  Hate to see Betsy, my Garand and Springfield 03-A3 crushed, plus the pistol Bill carried in WWII over France and Germany.  Especially for the children.

Update:  Three days with 100 other shooters, the wind and my rifle.  Nirvana.  Out the door.

The Daily Distractions.

  Running around pursued by 10,000 demons.  Lots to do, all nit-picky stuff interlaced like pixie stix.  Easy to make a mistake, like deleting a photo instead of selecting a photo, being late or dropping a detail on a sequence of errands.

  Last night in class one of the young guys was watching a youtube selection, i-poding and agitating a canister of film...in the classroom.  Multi-gulti tasking.  Like today.

  Trying to wrap it up so I can make ammo for The TSRA Service Rifle Championship this weekend.  Skipping a trip to the lake to check deercams.

  Above is a little assignment I shot.  A 60-year old marathon runner who is also a ranching retired guy.  Fun to shoot and talk running for a bit.  The nice thing about assignments like this is you get to concentrate on the task at hand...and no other.

Update:  Like this.  I did get to see a lot of wonderful folks at a luncheon, buy some things on ebay, move money at the bank and now get all my cases ready to load, plus drove a rifle to Kilgore for Rick to fix.  Busy, but the flow wasn't a torrent.

  I hear a car door.  The fabulous Redhead is home!

 

Rat-Killing Cat

  Little gray mouse dead on the pavement yesterday at the foot of the front door.  I suspect my cat- though she is missing front claws due to previous owners.  I gave the mouse a Christian burial at sea- right into the creek with a handful of twigs.

  I need to add here, that Miss Kitty is GAME, even a bully to the other cats in the neighborhood, whether she is armed or not.  She's spayed, but it really IS the size of the fight in the cat, not the size of the cat in the fight.  She swaggers around and kicks butt.

  Last night I walked up behind Miss Kitty on the darkened sidewalk and snatched her up for a little head scrubbing.  She usually grunts and starts purring but instead she made a wheezing sound.  I scrubbed her a little but she didn't relax.  I put her down in the light.  Turned out she had another mouse in her mouth!

  Both missing this morning.  The nightly Raccoon patrol probably vacuumed them up.

  Update:  Flying Squirrel dead today.

Daily Deercam

  This doe may look goofy but she's going to be a hot ticket in about five or six days.  Bucks will be fighting it out over her while she runs all over the Butler Creek watershed.  The twins will be on their own for a bit.

  This buck looks big, but notice his horns aren't wider than his ears- about 13 inches.  This year they ought to be.  Nice tines.  Great genetics.

  Scrapes still untouched since the rain a couple days back.  Big tracks crossing the creek back and forth and along various woodlines.  New rub, the first one, in the pasture.  Glitchy Moultrie shoots three frames of nothing, probably during the set-up/card swap.  

  Doc Sneed drove up to shoot his rifles at 300 yards.  We did, along with Wilson's 1903A3 he hasn't seen yet, plus a AR carbine and K31 with unzeroed scope.  The K31 scope, (a nice Leupold 4-12), ran out of elevation and left windage while I was bore-sighting it.  Not good.  Brownells K31 side mount doesn't point the scope anywhere close.  I shot it with open sights and it's OK.  Hoping to shoot does with all those rifles, plus a few more.

  We went to the lake a looked at tracks and deersign and talked deer hunting tactics and Whitetail biology.  The green Walmart chair got modified (arm cut off on one side and jammed into a tree fork 15 feet off the ground) plus a few saplings mysteriously disappeared opening up sight lines up an abandoned road and back toward the camera and scrape.  Nice to have help.  Hoping to rattle up a big buck in there 12 days from now.  The one in the photo is standing at the cam site last year.  He wasn't ready to be shot then, at 2 1/2 years, but this year he's probably just about right.

  Still can't figure why I'm not seeing bucks on the cams.  First time ever for that in four years of camming.  Oh well.  God's will.  I'm going to sit in a tree with a rifle anyway.

Daily Deercam

  Across the creek to screw a few metal cleats in a likely tree and check the cam.  Creek still up enough to make a dicey crossing.

  Creek cam as nutty as ever.  Crazy exposures and glow-in-the-dark deer.  I wouldn't bother posting a pure white file.  How hard can it be to make an auto exposure on a closed system?

Last night at Academy I looked at a bunch of cams.  Most of them take D batteries.  I don't want to get into buying batteries.  You spend a fortune, even if they do promise 60 days.  I doubt that.

  Scrapes untouched since the rain.  They tore them open, used them, then took a break.  One big deer print on the closer cam.  They are around.

Gassed

  Last night the Fabulous Redhead and I drove way down Broadway, nearly out of the county to wander the new Academy Store.  I wanted some screw-in tree climbing cleats and a rechargeable lantern battery to replace on that has given up the ghost.  On the way down we watched gas prices.  2.81 was the low.  My gas light was on but I was on momentary gas strike:  No gas for me until it was under 2.80.

  This morning at Brookshire's Grocery store: 2.63.  Going the right direction, and I notice this occurred without ANY help from the Government.  

  Just think if they actually HELPED.  We still haven't drilled ANWR.  We still haven't reduced the boutique gasolines they require.  Refining capacity about the same.  Nukes are expanding but they ought to be booming.

  Meanwhile, I am reducing my carbon footprint by hunting my own food and using rechargeables.

  Power to the people!

Update: 2.59 on Monday.

The Photographer's Equinox

  Image:  Half a cup of dice, 2003.

 Cake tonight in class- a big white Brookshires sheet cake celebrating the middle of the semester.  We are halfway done and they have digested the biggest portion of the material.  Now they just need tweaking and experience.  Plus I can pour it on.

  And we celebrated the Photographers Equinox.  That's the moment when tap water runs 68 degrees out of the cold side.  

  68 degrees is standard processing temperature for most photographic processes involving black and white materials and paper.  In Texas the water can run as hot as 89 degrees and as cold as 39.  As the temps rise and fall in the Autumn and Spring the water temp follows.  It's running about 72 now, but the rain and cold snap will push it down and I felt like celebrating.  This class is working very hard and very well.

  Couple of the last-rung-of-the-ladder folks were coming once and then skipping once.  They tended to have bad luck with cameras and film because of their tourist status.  I encouraged them to get focused and NOT TO QUIT!

  I think they have both now quit.  We'll miss them, but we are going on.

Daily Deercam

 Many blank shots (51 total files, more than half overexposed white rectangles), from across the creek but one shocked doe eating corn photographed over and over.  On the near side my deer were nervous- all looking at something together repeatedly.  No bucks on cam.  Scrapes open and running like mad.  New scrapes here and there.  Need to move a tree seat.

  I think they are looking at other deer.  But if it's a buck, it would be checking the area where they were after they left, I think.

  Bigfoot?

Daily Deercam

  Big deer crossing the creek going both ways.  I went over and moved a cam to the original scrape where I had a cam stolen.  Maybe the kids are in school and this one will stay on the tree.  Hot scrape going over there.

  Scrapes all over the corner of the pasture and woods edge on the bluff at the other cam.

  Only interesting photo from old reliable Moultrie was the image above.  The twin fawns are STILL nursing.  Some buck will run them off when she goes into rut.  Middle of October, still nursing.  She LOOKED like she was still nursing, but I hadn't seen it.

  This is a good mom.  Very successful deer to get two fawns this big without being run down.  She must not be nursing them much.

  Nothing like deercams.

UT Tyler Homecoming Parade

  A video I didn't even know I was going to make for a client.  Let's see how this one goes.

The Ides of April

  On the 13th of April I photographed a young woman who wanted some images while she was pregnant with her last child.  She brought her mom and her other two kids and I shot film and digital of them singly and in various poses and groupings in the studio.  It took a while to get the kids to smooth out, but we did it.  She seemed a happy, smart, connected and committed mom, just the sort any kid would want.  I was impressed.  I dragged out an old box of toys that hadn't been touched in five or six years for them to look through and let them each take one home.  I sent the proofs and heard from her once after the birth.  Then nothing.

  The Redhead and I ran late errands, banking at the grocery store and working our way through the Friday afternoon crowd with our bags.  We swung by Brady's coffee to get her car and Brady was waving me in.  I thought we were going to be lectured on leaving a car in one of his parking slots while elsewhere but it was something else.  The young woman who I had photographed had died and her parents were searching for the photographer.

  They found him.  I didn't pry into the details.  She seemed young and vital when she was in the studio.  The baby is healthy.

  What a reminder of the momentary blessings of life and the folly of taking the future for granted.  It can break your heart at any moment.  God bless these good people.

Good Government

  Government at all levels has disapointed and failed us in every way they COULD fail, with no end in sight.  Seems like we just lurch from crisis to crisis with no resolution, then the next headline takes over.

  Meanwhile gas has dropped to 2.98 here in town, with no help from state, local or the feds.

  Imagine what we could do if they just got the heck out of the way.

Desperate Housewives

  Haven't mentioned much about my one college basic photo section I'm teaching, but they've been enough fodder for a network hit TV series.  I've been having fun, just throwing everything at in the book at them- in the right order of course, and never letting them out of my sight in the lab or the classroom.  Just this week- on an assignment to photograph a chair- most of them finally ignited and started making real photographs.  

  I haven't shown them much work, so it hasn't occurred to them to copy anything- they are just working.

  So here's a typical story:  The Chair Assignment.  I've given this every semester I ever taught- probably GOT given this assignment by John Beck at Sam Houston State back nearly 40 years ago.  (I'll ask Doc. Sneed.  He'll remember.)  The assignment is: Notice and photograph a chair.   I lecture and give the assignment to them while they stand around in class....I've put all the chairs out in the hall.  I talk about the life of a chair, how civilization was built on chairs, chairs I've known, et, et.  

  Then they start looking at chairs and making photographs.

  One of the students, a delightful, sensible, grown woman, never misses a class and is sitting on the front row taking notes.  Family, job, home, kids, she's a normal person in all outward aspects.  Driving home she spots a busted plastic walmart chair in a pile of junk on the curb.  She sends her husband back for this ruined useless chair.  Like the good husband he is, he gets it.  She takes her son into the back yard and has him THROW the chair into the air, over and over, while she photographs it.  In the sky.

  A chair.  In the sky.  Yes.

  As I say, I have made a few chair photographs, loved chairs, noticed chairs, thought about chairs but it hasn't occured to me in 40 years of exhibitions to ever THROW a chair up against the sky and photograph it.  Nor have I ever seen any other student do it.

  This makes the whole semester- and it's been a very fun and invigorating semester, worth the time and effort.  I've been wedging, photo-fuing and mental-judoing these folks like mad to get them to open up just a LITTLE bit visually.  When I saw that chair on the contact sheet...soaring against the sky, I knew I was doing the job I was hired to do and that these were real students.

   

Deercam News Flash!

Well, for Butler Creek and Smith County, at least- deer scrapes just showed up on the bluff over one of the deer cams. They had been dug up in the last 48 hours and hit sometime this morning. Walking in I saw running tracks from a large deer- I'm assuming the bucks are spreading out and claiming territory.
Might move a cam to watch the scrapes.
Weather is sharply cooler. Just does and fawns on the deercam.

Panola County Gun Club Championship, 2008

 The 2008 Championship video from the Oct 4 match.  Notice how polite and happy these heavily armed and competent people are.  Shocking.  I thought assault rifles were supposed to drive folks mad with hostility and anger.

  Zero Viewers so far.  Be the first!

  Update I:  Sorry, wrong video linked, or another added later.  The Krag shooting is for Griff Murphey so his kids can watch him shoot his old rifle.  The Panola Club Championship is the next one.

  Cranking out these videos.  I have two more Camp Perry famous Distinguished Riflemen that I haven't even put in the editor yet.

Update II:  I'm Uncle-anched!  Really, it's not as painful as it sounds!  I've been determined to get some educational and informative realistic shooting videos out on Youtube.  It's working.

Update III: If you come over on a Uncle or Snowflake-alanche, gird up your loins, drive your ox and haul your ass over to Youtube to check out the rest of the videos on the Blackfork6 Channel.  Description?  Gunsgunsgunsgunsgunsgunsgunsguns.  Shootshootshootshootshootshootshootshoot.

Billy C. Atkins: Distinguished Rifleman

  Video up.  Proud to get Billy Atkins in the series.  I caught him at Camp Perry in August, along with his wife Valerie and his son Daniel.  Great folks.

  Billy has a National Trophy named after him due to his achievements as a shooter.  He talks about that.   He's retired but coaches the Georgia Junior Teams.

Demons from the past...at the Gunshow!

  I've got a 03-A3 that I am trying to sort out.  First match, it spit up the ejector, then the rear sight fell apart.  At Perry 2007 it shot well in spots but with the worst second stage trigger I have ever pulled.  You could feel every tool mark on the cocking sear.  Third place in the 2007 Texas Championships.  2008 Perry in just about the same shape.  I fixed the front sight with a wide blade when the CMP said they were legal, then Gaby and Crawford did the trigger before the Texas Garand/Spingfield/Carbine/Vintage Championship.  Second place by a point to Tryce.  I ordered a "C" stock from the CMP and started waiting.

  So, Alan Wilson decides he's missing out on big fun and wants an 03-A3 to shoot in these matches.  The CMP is long out of rifles.  He's looking at one at Collectors firearms in Houston for 700.00.  Plus tax.  Plus shipping. Plus the FFL fee.

   At the Tyler gunshow and a Smith Corona Rock Island rebuilt-and-never-shot is laid out on a table.  Muzzle still blued.  Rear sight has positive clicks and sloid detents.  It gauges 1 1/2 at the muzzle and 1 in the throat.  700.00.  That's a good deal, though it's a shocker to anyone who bought these for 175.00 a few years ago.

  I get Alan on the phone and get a tentative go-ahead.  The dealer cuts the price to 650.00 and I'm standing in the crowd aiming at an overhead lighting fixture when I realize I am holding on to a C stock.  An original C stock.  (A "C" stock has a pistol grip.)  Holy gun smoke.  I write a check as fast as I can without melting the pen or setting the paper on fire.

  This is a hell of a rifle, needs only a wide front post.  It's such a good rifle that I had to calm myself down and make sure I called Allan to tell him what a worthless fool he was, but with wonderful gun-buying friends.  My rifle will never be as good as this one! 

  1943 barrel.  It been parked in storage since WWII.  Now it's going to live among Texans, friends and shoot competition.  Until Obama outlaws it, then we will turn it in to be crushed.

Daily Deercam: Two bucks.

  The little bent-horn buck across the creek.

  A year and a half buck on the lake side.  Notice how small his antlers are in relation to his ears.  An adult whitetail is about 13 inches across at the ears.  His horns look nine or ten inches wide.  Eight points.  Good genetics.

  Neither of these bucks are shootable.  Or they shouldn't be shot. Much better horns next year and REALLY good antlers in two years.

Donuts at 600 yards.

  This is how it ought to look.  A 196 with a lot of Xs and just a little wind drift to 9:00.

   The bottom photo is yesterdays 600 yard target plot.  22 shots in 22 minutes, the first two being fired and scored as sighters.  AR-15 shooting 80 grain Sierra Matchkings over 24.2 grains of Varget powder.

  I shoot a prone single-loaded shot at 600, hold the trigger back and follow through until the target is pulled into the pits and I see the dust swirling behind it.  Then I plot the PREVIOUS shot, drop a bullet in the open bolt and look in the spotting scope to see (if the target is up) the current shot and mirage, close the bolt, get sight alignment, break the shot, follow through until the target goes down and the dust swirls, plot the shot I just looked at, et, et.

  I'm only plotting a shot when the target is IN the pits being marked and I am always remembering and plotting the previous shot.

  This plot shows hits jumping from side to side all the way across the target even though the wind was close to zero.  Look at hits 5 and 6.   There is a donut of tens all the way around the X ring.  I think this is an ammunition problem.  It is shooting anywhere but in the middle.  Its either the bullets themselves or the bullet seating depth in the brass case.

  The S1 and S2 are the two sighting shots.  S1 was a 10 at 2:00 and S2 was a 9 way out at 4:00.  Shot 1 for score was a 9 at 3:00.  Shot 2 was an 8 on the other side of the target at 9:00.  My hold isn't that bad.

  Every shot has a "call" as to where you think it ought to be on the target, depending on how the sights looked when the rifle went off.  For example, I would fire and think : "That's a little 12:00".  Few of these hits were on call.

  The TOP photo is the same rifle and load the way it ought to look.

  

Popped!

  We went to the movies to see Apaloosa and came home to that ginger-lemoney smell.

Night Bloomer ready to pop.

  This afternoon when I came in from Panola range.  You can see them loosen up when they are getting ready to go.  Like this.

Every Day a Novel

  The Kid couldn't be pried out of his house this morning at 6:00am to go the the Panola County Gun Club Championship so I went alone....well, me and his stuff, already loaded.  

  It's 72 miles from my driveway to the 200 yardline at the range.  Takes about 1:15 drive time, two cinnamon rolls and a cup of coffee from the Filipinos at Shipleys Donuts.  The girls were reading periodicals this morning.  

  I made a nice video that is sitting in the imovie editor and had a satisfying time with the folks on the range and my rifle.  About 40 folks signed up.  I shot a 193X3 offhand, which included a 95 on the first string and a 98 on the second.  Betsy the AR-15 was really shooting.  Light was overcast and perfect and I appreciated the comfortable weather for human beings outside in Texas.  Most of the year here, the weather is perfect.

  199X7 sitting rapid, 195X5 prone rapid at 300 and then spoiled a nice score with a 190X1 at 600.  I shot a perfect donut around the X ring, mostly tens but with a few nines and a couple of strange eights hanging out.  The bullets would go anywhere but in the center.  I'm going to try them seated OUT a little further but I am starting to think about changing to a different batch of 80 grain Sierras.  The 80s come in 500 count boxes and the troubles started about when I started this box, come to think of it.

  Finished at 777X16.  Mike Carter won the club championship for the third or fourth time with a 788X32 shooting his match rifle.

  Katye Foster shot a 775, her personal best, and cleaned one string at 200 sitting rapid.  The first time she has ever cleaned a 200 rapid.  She's getting better, quickly.  So much better so quickly that I made sure she was on my team for the State Service Rifle Championship later this month.

Breda's Family Photos

  I thought I had something like this around.  Here's dad, me and my older brother.  I've got binoculars and a sidearm in one, cowboy shirts on in another, (though I remember calling it my Davy Crockett shirt) and a full cowboy getup, including horse, in the last.  I've got a gun and knife on along with the hat, chaps and horse.

  My older brother was killed with the 173rd Abn in Vietnam and dad has been gone since 1976.

  This feels like ten lifetimes ago, though in many ways they are with me still.

Update:  Sure had a good time running these images through the photo editor and retouching them.  Printed a couple for my daughter, who looks a lot like her uncle.

  Real men.  We certainly are living in a different country now.

Now I'm Embarrassed.

  I took the Standard Products M1 Carbine out of the correct, historical (and like new) stock that it is in and put it into a Boyd's stock that I bought at Camp Perry and refinished.  It's really tight in there, including tight where the barrel leaves the stock.  Not so with the original, in fact, it flops around.  

  I bet it shoots better this way, huh?

  Anyone ever heard of a trigger job for an M1 Carbine?  Dang thing must be 14 lbs the way it is.  Gotta be a way to improve it.

  I keep reading about these carbines that shoot a 3 inch group at 100 yards.  Like to borrow one for a match.  Of course, this is the only Carbine match I shoot all year.

Panola County Club Championship

 The Panola County Gun Club Championship is this weekend.  It's an 80 shot regional Match course of fire.  Lunch afterwards.  We usually have a big crowd because of the reputation of the club and the shooters there.  Weather forecast calls for clear skies and temp in the 80s.

  I'm going to shoot my AR and seat the Long Range 80 grain Sierras a little deeper.  That ought to clean up the 600 yard scores.

1903-A3 Front Sight

  It helped.  High enough so that I could get the rear peep sight up the ladder.  Wide enough to make a sight picture.  I think it's .o72.  The standard sights, especially worn ones, look like a toothpick at the end of the barrel.   I ordered it off the internet but Louis Lamarouex is making them.  I think you can find him through the Temple Club.  Easy install.  15 bucks.

  Did I mention that I won the Vintage Rifle Championship for the third time?  Well, I won the Vintage Rifle Championship for the third time.  With a 284X4.  The Swiss K31 strikes again with Swiss GP11 ammo.

  I also noticed that my carbine score from 2006 was the same score Don Tryce won with this year.  360X4.  And I got beat by a point in 2006.

Daily Deercam

  Hadn't looked at the cams since last week.  The 24th I think.  Two photos on the memory card from across the creek.  Both of me.  Today.  Couple hundred on old reliable who is still performing at Mars Lander level.  No bucks, though I saw the beginnings of a scrape at one point.

  Lotta mosquitos in the bottom.

  Same doe and fawns.  The fawns are getting big.  Two coons.  Two dogs.  Squirrels.  Crows.

TSRA M1 Carbine Championship

   Video up at the Blackfork6 Channel.  Andrew Trampus did the video work so it's a different oeuvre.  The TSRA M1 Carbine Championship was five sighting shots from any position and then 10 shots prone slow fire, 10 shots prone rapid fire, 10 shots sitting rapid fire and 10 shots standing slow fire at 100 yards.  400 points possible score.  Don Tryce won with a 360X4.  He always brags about his carbine being a National Match and it shows.  He repeated as champ.  I shot a 350 and was lucky to get those points.  My Standard Products shoots all over the target.  Katie Foster and her dad Gregg shot the same carbine which shot the next two high scores after Don's.  I think they shot 353 and 357.  That's a good-shooting carbine.  They just bought it this year from the CMP.  

  I've got four or five carbines but they had been re-arsenaled  and stored since 1953 when I bought them so this was the only one I shot.  Maybe I ought to try another one and retire this rifle.  

  I did kill a deer with it last year.  And a raccoon last month.  I shot Remington UMC.