Packing it up

The yard is mowed within an inch of it's life and the mower and gas can put away. I walked around the yard and clipped back some ivy and wisteria that I make constant war on...that no one ever notices. I paid some bills at the studio.

Rifles are cleaned, oiled, sights set. Boxes and boxes of ammo. I'm sorting through undermawears looking for holy sets to leave behind. Leaving tomorrow at the crack of dawn for Camp Perry.

The ARs are in Eagle Industries cases ready to go. The Springfield, Garand and K31 are in gun socks zipped up in a big soft case. Taking five rifles for various matches. Going to use an M1A belonging to someone else for the Springfield Armory M1A match. That makes six. Will share my K31 around and probably the Garand.

I'm rifle rich, but they are all just passing through my hands. Its quite an honor to have them lubed and cleaned and stacked by the door ready to travel. Got a couple rifles loaned out to Breda and Mike that are already in Ohio. Probably shouldn't loan rifles to Yankees without making them sign some kind of non-aggression agreement against their fellow states but...missed my chance. They are going to come over and Mike is going to shoot Garands with us.

Ready to go. Just picking. There's always the slight surprise to live another year and be able to go to Camp Perry with heavily armed Texans, but here we are. This is my eighth trip. Be gone a couple weeks. Blogging from commercial row.

Tyler to host Texas Bigfoot Conference

In the background......is that....Bigfoot?

The Twins get a whiff of Bigfoot.

The Twins sense Bigfoot and haul butt.

Bigfoot stampedes the Twins.

The Twins get surprised by Bigfoot.

When the Democrats take our firearms away, we will have to amuse ourselves with things like this. Unless the civil right to assemble and petition about sasquatch is also outlawed.

I need to do a compilation of my bigfoot photos from the Daily Deercam. I get Bigfoot about once every couple of months. Usually just delete them since nobody would believe it. I could make a million!

Night-Blooming Cereus

We forgot to check the first bloom of the summer and it went ahead without us.

TSRA 2010 Calendar Photoshoot Video up.

I ought to do more of this kind of stuff. Scenes from shooting the calendar firearms at the Texas A & M Sanders Corps of Cadets Center using guns from the Metzger Historic Firearms Collection.

I managed to sequence the photos this year and control the photo process. Probably won't get that chance again, but very happy to do it this once.

My beloved LeMats didn't make the cut.

Lisa Kalmus was a superb host. The Good Doctor Sneed assisted. It's at the printer. Hope I gave proper representation to the firearms and TSRA for 2010. Sneed and I had a blast handling the weapons.

Update: Calendar at the printer.

Gun Nuts Radio in a couple hours.

Gun nuts tonight. I'm going to be on during one of the segments to talk about Camp Perry.

Just in from shooting 50 rounds standing. 20 with the AR and ten each with the K31, Springfield 1903 and the Garand.

Lovely rifles to shoot standing. Shot first with the AR, then the other three rifles, then one more ten string with the AR. Shooting match loads with the rifle I will use. 99X3 and 98X4 with the AR offhand at 200. Somehow I was relaxing my front arm in a different way. Very steady. Easy to shoot 'em in there.

Hope to shoot well at Perry.

Daily Deercam

Town younger doe and fawn.

Lake doe and fawn.

Corn supplement.

Younger doe with a little grab mark.

Jumping for joy across the creek. Or Bigfoot?

Town deer and lake deer.

Update: Suffering from lackabux on all cams. They are somewhere all herded up growing horns. The twins have joined them I think.

Breda putting out rounds with a Standard Products M1 Carbine.

One shot with Remington softpoint hunting ammo. 60 yards.

It's cute, but kind of snappy to shoot. Used it to shoot a doe a couple years ago. Never won the TSRA Carbine Championship though I have been close. I restocked it from the original cartouched stock to a CMP new replacement. It's a little tighter. Hope it's shooting better.

I think I have five of the dang things, all CMP guns that were re-arsenaled and then stored from 1953 to 2003. The CMP couldn't sell them to clubs and finally offered them to individuals for about 325.00 I think. Bought a few. Original stocks and lots of early features. I'm sure they are worth more now.

Cat Attacks

See the white mark behind the shoulder? New.

Here's another angle.

Could be the big Bobcat I guess.

The Circle of Life.

This.....must be related to this.

End of the Tour de France

Many Texas flags seen all week along the route. Beautiful helicopter shots today of the Arc de Triumph area as the tour made to finish the race. Paris is a gorgeous city.

Lance Armstrong didn't look very happy but others did. The King of the Mountain jersey winner had his daughter and baby up on the podium dressed in red polka dots the same as his jersey. Nice.

Versus did an outstanding job in coverage.

Going to miss watching the race every morning.

Update: More Lance.

Camp Perry on the Horizon

K31 and 1903A3. I put an original C stock on the A3 for this year.

The last week I have been watching the Tour de France on Versus and then driving to the range to practice for the National Matches. I dry fire with the K31, Springfield 1903A3 and Garand and shoot 20 live rounds with my AR at 200. All offhand. Takes a couple of hours round trip. I usually haven't given the vintage arms this much attention. I think I am helping myself.

A week from today we will be in Ohio, God willing.

Update: Rainy overcast Sunday so I made my 600 yard ammo instead of standing practice.

The Luckiest Gate in America.

What is this? Gate's gate? Whatever it is one thing is for certain: Dr. Henry Louis Gates is a lucky, lucky guy. 58 years as a black man in American and NEVER arrested? That's a burden to bear for a talented and connected guy. How many nights did he lay in bed dreading some student in the back of his History of Diversity Selection and Intergenerational Transitioning from Slavery in the Economics of the Old South Class at Harvard was going to accuse him of "acting white?" His doctorate isn't Aerospace Engineering...its something intellectual and frivolous enough to get a chair at Harvard. So you GOTTA have a rep. His life was slipping away and the only barrier left to throw yourself on in the name of race relations was the lack of white running backs in the NFL.

So what's a brother got to do in the new millennium to get some street cred? Shoot endless rounds of hoops like Barack? It's not like a Harvard PhD. is going to get asked to rap with Snoop Dogg. Oprah? Like that's going to help.

He's probably been shortchanging bus drivers, stiffing waitresses, tearing up parking garage tickets and making mean faces at mall cops for years TRYING to get busted. Finally, it HAPPENED. Thank you, Jesus.

Too bad they didn't taze or truncheon him so he could make a poster of his mug shot to plaster all over the Cambridge yards: Bloody, but Unbowed! He will have to make do with what he got. Shackled by the po-lice. In chains. Like a slave. No. Like an ANIMAL in Bush's Amerikka! If they had held him a little longer he could have organized the brothers in the holding tank with some liberation theology. If only!

The next time he walks into his lecture auditorium he won't have to worry about some affirmative action scholarship snickering about "uncle tom." No, he'll get a screaming stomping standing ovation! He's been ground under the heel of jackbooted thugs sent by The Man! His fifteen minutes is ON and he's a righteous victim of official repression! The president said so! Let the light shine!

Free at LAST, free at last!

I'm thinking Denzel for the movie, with Beyonce and Chris Rock as Obama and Michelle. Hellen Mirren can play the racist neighbor. The policeman...maybe shave Dogg the Bounty Hunter. Shaq can play the black cop in a breakout role.

Just one mild suggestion doc: next time you are down for the struggle it's best to wear something besides a polo shirt and tasseled loafers.

Update: The vicious racist Mark Steyn signs on.

AR15 Happiness

The Rick Rest. Notice the cutouts for magazine and pistol grip. The top part with the bolts clamps down on an AR float tube. (The handguards have to come off.) The interior piece with the rifle clamped on it rolls forward and back on linear bearings.

Bolt in the rifle, shim it around until it lines up on your target (with the correct elevation on the rear sight), then clamp the whole thing to the table. You can see a stack of wood shims under the front where I had to raise it to get the rifle pointed at the target 500 yards away.

Detail. I lined it up and the recoil never moved it. Groups were strung vertically by powder charge. You work the trigger with finger on the trigger and thumb behind the pistol grip. Use a couple fingers off the other hand behind the buttplate to keep the rifle part from bouncing off the back of the chassis.

Ready to fire at 500 yards. The part that the rifle is clamped into rolls front and back...precisely, while the chassis stays clamped to the top of the shooting bench.

Out to practice after watching the Tour on the web. Guy down the line had a chronograph set up so I quickly asked if I could shoot some rounds through it. He had the really nice type that produces a tape. The five loads I tested were all shooting faster than I thought. Good data to luck into.

Shot 20 rounds standing at 200. Luckily, a guy brought his spotting scope down the line to talk to me while I shot. That's all anyone shooting standing really wants- to have someone talk while you do it. I just put it down as stress training. Shot a 193X4. Nothing outside the nine ring.

The gate across the lagoon was unlocked so I took the AR Rick Rest over to the 500 yard shooting bench. On the berm on the other end I stapled up a piece of white photo background paper with a 200 yard center in the middle. I had to shoot five rounds, then drive around and down to the 500 yard berm to look at each group as I shot it. I had radios but no flunky. No wind.

The best load was an 80 grain Sierra on 23.2 grains of Varget. Chronographs at 2665 fps. Five inch group at 500. That's the load I am taking to Camp Perry. It's about a grain and a half lighter that I thought. Caution: That's MY load for MY barrel. Anyone else using it risks fire, explosion, birth defects, cancer, blunt-force trama, flesh-eating bacteria, life issues, homophobia, drug abuse and flatulence. Plus people will try to give you kittens in parking lots.

An aside: 23.4 grains didn't go any faster over the chronograph and the group opened up.

Dr. Mike McVie designed and built the Rick Rest out of cast-off parts. He also help design and build the International Space Station system that has astronauts drinking their own urine. Make of that what you will.

Got the load sorted finally. It's Hammertime!

Update: Hearing horror stories about lack of primers and powder on Commercial Row at Camp Perry. I just need a leather sling and a Chick-O-stick.

Update: Linked the the Muncle. I wondered what the heck was happening with the hit counter. Thanks!

Local Muslim leader and police chaplain...smoking dope.

Muslim spokesman at all Tyler interdemoninational events, (because the local iman can't sit at a table with Christian ministers), award-winning homebuilder, leader of the movement against alcohol sales, police chaplain. Great guy...it seems. Busted for smoking pot in the parking lot of an Embassy Suites hotel in Frisco, Texas.

Wonder who he was meeting in that hotel? Builders? Bombers? A girl?

We have a big and important mosque and Islamic school here in Tyler. This man is a major part of that mosque. The Saudis have financed places like this all over the country, though when asked directly, Anwar Khalifa sidestepped the question about whether Saudi money built the Tyler mosque.

Just for the record: I think drug use ought to be legal. If human beings want to get unconscious it ought to be their call, don't you think?

We live in interesting times.

Update: OK, OK. It IS the religion of peace. Light up the doobie and be....peaceful.

Daily Deercam

Lake cam doe.

Fawn stuff. Getting two in a frame now and then.

They get big and fast quick. Another month and they will be a lot more predator proof.

Classic ear wiggle.

Doe with grab and slash marks down the side.

Younger Doe. Quite a difference in coloration.

Two photos of two does in the same spot. See the healing grab and slash marks on the top doe? And how much longer her face looks? I think she's a little taller as well. Older.

Workmen are nearly finished with the observation deck. Doesn't seem to bother the deer. Big rain last night and I didn't get out to feed them until this evening in town. I'm sure they are chowing down now that it's dark. I can smell the wood of the new construction. I'm sure they can smell corn as soon as I pour it out.

Mistakenly cleared a card at the lake and lost the files from across the creek. Twins and coons probably. Reset everything. Had to cross the full creek at the upstream crossing. Moccasin coiled under the long grass at the last step where you plant your boot to jump across. Nice dark one. I stamped the ground to get him to move but he didn't want to go into the fast water. Took some convincing before he tried upstream, then downstream finally. I didn't want to lose track of him. I had to come back over at the same spot. He didn't seem to get very excited so I didn't either.

Vintage Moon Talk

Transcripts, panoramas, videos from the moon landings. Pretty neat.

International Space Station scheduled to be de-orbited in 2016. Probably the next moon walkers will be Chinese..or private Americans.

Sam Colt's birthday today.

Colt Sporting Revolving Shotgun. 5-shot 10 gauge. 1860-63.

Samuel Colt. Made men....and women...equal.

I think I have only three or four or five or six Colts. One rifle that is going to Camp Perry is a Colt. Python, Diamondback, Police Positive, 1903 Pocketmodel .32, 1903 Pocketmodel .380.....maybe that's it.

1814-1862.

Daily Bobcat

Somebody is watching from the background.

Nice big healthy kitty.

They are in the area. Still got the rabbit and the fawns.

Twins and town fawns

Twins in a butt-hauling panic.

Face off.

Two fawns on cam for the first time.

Your basic fawn cuteness moment.

Maybe I should put a mirror on the tree and see how that goes.

Deer everywhere. Need to turn on the Coon War at the lake but there just isn't time.

Le Tour

Keeping up with the Tour in real time off this site. If you like the tour or bike racing it's pretty good. They have a little elevation map that shows the progress and the riders by name, plus blog entries as the race goes down.

13th stage today. Rain, wind and a mountainous course. Five rated climbs, two of over 1000 meters elevation gain. An Austrian who was 55 minutes behind the leaders won the race by four minutes and change over second place. Since it's a cumulative time race, the overall leader kept the yellow jersey.

Congrats to Heinrich Haussler on his first stage win. Gutsy riding on wet pavement. Some of his descents hit 79 mph. In a pouring rain. On a bike.

Fawn business

Kids around.

Corn recipe rates three stars.

Coyotes do a walk-through like a realtor. Just checking in to make sure someone hasn't spray-painted the great room. Rabbit still hanging in. Crossing fingers for the fawns.

Lake Deer

Big doe just as the camera battery went dead.

This is about all the antler growth a one year old should expect. Lotta dang coons.

Mostly reports of club lake folks killing copperheads in the yards. Neighbor says they seem to all move around in July.

Daily Deer Damage

Younger Doe with fawn. She just wasn't bringing it in. Looks very healthy.

Fawn is eating a little corn. Probably will come in from now on.

This doe has a fawn shown in an earlier post. I mentioned the white mark on her neck. Look at that mark and her side through several images.

I think she has escaped another attack. The cut down her side shows more today than yesterday. That tracks earlier does I have watched.

I don't think this is the Cat-Cut doe from earlier. That doe ALSO has a fawn. Looks like three does with three fawns. Alan says the breeding rate is 98% or so.

If it was just on top, I would think fence. If it involved bone I would think car. This looks like running out of the grasp of a cat of some kind. Lotta big Bobcats around. Don't know if they would tackle a doe or not. Probably so if they were big and experienced.

Update: The Good Doctor Sneed has enticed a doe into coming to his yard for a little corn. Nothing like having your own deer herd. Very satisfying! Coons, crows, jays, squirrels, rabbits....not so much, but deer: Graze my lovelies, graze!

UpdateII: Yesterday I poured out more than usual by half. It was nearly all gone at midday today when I went by again early. And the observation deck guys had been there most of the working hours of the morning.

Today we lost the Iraq war.

You won't see this in the mainstream media anywhere but its a huge story. The Iranian Quds force is going home as heros with lots of combat experience and American scalps. They'll be back.

They were the whole war the last couple of years.

Obama just threw away six years of war, all those lost American lives and treasure and the blood of many Iraqis. The Iranians won't quit. They'll be back. The big killers in Iraq the last couple of years have been these few hundred folks with their made-in-Iran shape-charge IEDs and sniper teams.

Obama didn't want them in Gitmo. These folks should have been hung, not sent home as heroes to the enemy.

Tough ID.

At 6:36 the doe with the white mark is on the corn. No fawn along. I haven't seen this white mark before.

At 6:48 the Younger doe is there. No fawn.

That's how tough it gets. Did the younger run the other doe off? Did the early doe keep the later doe away? I'm beginning to think that the younger has lost her fawn.

Poured on the corn today. The workers will be there in the morning working on the observation deck.