Monday, August 3, 2009

Northeast Blogger Shoot

Well with all the others writing about the Northeast Blogger Shoot I am not sure I have much to add but I will give my report anyway and a few pictures. . .


UPdate - can't get video to load so here is the rest. . .


OK, now that you see what was there (not counting what folks had on their belt. . .)

First let me say it was a BLAST! (Pun intended) It was great to see you all again and a special THANKS to Doubletrouble and his wife for being nice enough to have us all over again for the shoot.

I also have to thank Bruce for the stickers. . . a few more pro-gun bumper stickers are always good for the car. . . . goes over well in the Peoples Republic of MA. . . .

There was plenty of folks this year, (more than last year I think) and plenty to shoot. Personally I got to test out a few guns I don’t own (and never will with the cost of a permit. . .) such as a full auto M-16 and a full auto MP-5. I also gave a try with a Mass legal .45 LDA 1911. I must admit though that I spent most of the day either talking or shooting my own black power as it makes a nice smoke cloud and the water jugs just EXPLODE when hit by it = ) Much fun!!! I also got some trigger time in on my .22, Enfield, WASA and AR . . . Also note that a watermelon will explode in about a 20’ radius when shot with an Enfield .303. No not mine, but wow, no more melon. . .









I had not done much with a black powder before the shoot. . . well. . . to be fair I put 5 shots through it the day before to practice loading it and that is it. All I can say is it is great to shoot water jugs with. They had a number of 2 ltr. bottles and milk jugs full of water. . . . one hit from the .50 black powder and they would just explode. . . as in when the smoke cleared the bottle was gone. . . . that was fun. I can see what they say about large slow moving lead doing lots of damage. . . I also can tell you they take a while to load and I can’t imagine trying to do that with someone shooting at me like they did in the old days. . .





As for the full auto stuff. . . the MP-5 was great and easy to control. The M-16 not so much. I can see why folks want either a 3 rd burst or semi-auto on that one. It was quick to empty a mag, but hard to keep on target. Big thanks for letting me try them folks!!






The Para LDA was different to shoot. The trigger was great, nice and smooth but I kept getting stove pipes with it. I am glad I had a try on it as I had been looking at one a few months back before I went with the S&W M&P in 9mm. I am now glad I did. The LDA was nice to shoot but not for me.

I think we need to add a warning for flying brass at these things when you are up by the firing line . . . down by the firing line the folks with the semi autos and pistols were tossing brass all over. Every now and again it would start landing on my hat. Good for a laugh. Where else can you go that it rains nice shiny brass like that?

They tried to post some Zombie targets on the back stop a few times. They lasted a bit but once the water bottles started to blow up the paper targets just ripped off the backstop with the wave of water. . . very impressive. Jay has a few photos of the before and after at the backstop. You would think someone had roto-tilled the dirt in front of it. . . .

After the attacking water bottles and jugs were taken care of we moved on to what was left of Pikachu. There were two bayonet charges, one by the boy who donated the poor thing and one by JayG. I will leave it to Boarpatch to post the vids of his son’s charge, here is the angle I had of JayG’s. . . . and yes, that is a bayonet on a pistol. . . . . . When the remains were taken down there were still bits of stuffing stuck to the backstop. I don’t think you can tell from the photos but for most of the day nothing was holding Pikachu up but the holes and stuffing in the backstop. The chain didn’t last long. . . .





The other toy offered up at the shoot was a robo dinosaur. I could not bring myself to shoot that one as I always thought those were real cool. . . if I was a kid . . . anyway there is film of that one you need to see over at Lissa’s blog. It was moving when the shooting started (.22 only) and once it was down folks started to hit it with bigger stuff. It was weird the way it twitched with each hit. . . I don’t hunt so I am not too use to that. . .

Now I have to update my "bloggers I have met list! Cool"


2 comments:

Borepatch said...

Your muzzle stuffer was wicked cool to shoot. The HUGE cloud that resulted was even cooler.

But yeah, reloading that baby under fire would be a bear.

MeatAxe said...

I've read that the measure of an experienced infantry man during the Napoleonic era was the ability to fire 4 aimed shots per minute from a muzzle loading musket.

(If the battles went on for a long time, they used to pee down the muzzle to remove powder fouling etc.)