The Wandering Minstrel

We went to the range today for our weekly target practice. We took three handguns with us: “Jerry Lee,” my .357 magnum revolver, “Little Boy,” my Glock 26 9mm pistol and The Better Half’s unnamed S&W 908S 9mm pistol. We shot 50 rounds of .38 special and 100 rounds of Luger 9mm parabellum ammo.

Video - The Better Half shooting “Jerry Lee.”

Now that we’re getting back to shooting on a regular basis, we can see ourselves improving after the long period of not shooting while we were building and getting moved in to our new house. The Better Half put a nice group of rounds on the small target at the top of the stand and I got three or four rounds out of 10 within two inches of the center of the big target. The other rounds were all in the black. We were shooting at a distance of about seven yards.

We went to the range yesterday and afterwards cleaned our guns, as usual. Before we started, I posed “Rosie,” my Smith & Wesson .38 special 442 J-frame revolver on the felt workbench cloth and snapped this nice photo (if I do say so myself). Clickable image.

These signs are posted at the WSC shooting range. “PLEASE HELP KEEP OUR RANGE SAFE AND CLEAN” and “BEND AT THE ASS PICK UP YOUR BRASS - OK.” When we watched the action pistol shoot the other day, folks were indeed bending to get the brass. There is a repository for spent brass at the rear of each range station. We have seen a range or two where brass literally is the ground cover. We’ll do our part to keep this place safe and clean. Clickable image courtesy TBH.

While we were waiting for our decadent meal at Screamer’s yesterday, we saw some flyers on the counter. One was for the CCW class we took last month and another advertized upcoming gun shows. I was going to write the information down, but taking a picture was so much easier. Clickable image.

Genitron.com has an interesting feature on their site. It is a utility to access their database which allows you to search the database for the top 100 guns ranked by the following criteria:

• Power Factor
• Recoil Factor
• Total Capacity
• Concealability
• Defense Factor

When the results show up, there is a “pop up” button next to each gun. When you click on it, a window pops up with details about that weapon.

I created the (clickable) image above using a screen capture for each of our carry guns and a utility to merge the four into one. The five criteria are ranked in the bar graphs at the bottom of each panel.

The guns from left to right are Fat Man, Little Boy, Miss Piggy and Rosie the Riveter. Click the image to read the fine print.

I saw this interesting-looking Walther .22LR rifle today on the Cheaper Than Dirt website. This apparently is Walther’s first bullpup in .22 semi-auto.

Note the three rails for mounting your favorite accessories; over the receiver, under the barrel and under the handguard.

From CTD:

Walther G22 Semi Automatic Rifle

WALTHER continues its long-standing tradition of manufacturing small-bore rifles that have won numerous gold medals in the Olympic Games and at World Championship matches with the introduction of the new WALTHER G22.

The WALTHER G22 employs an innovative “Bullpup” design for the first time on any WALTHER .22 rifle. The G22, with its full line of accessories, is a utilitarian rifle for hunting, competitive shooting, or just plinking.

I surfed around the internet to various manufacturers and on-line gun sales sites looking at .223/5.56 AR-15 rifles. I came across this very nice looking DPMS “Prairie Panther” coyote and varmint gun. It is a semi-automatic rifle in .223 Remington with a 20″ barrel. The magazine capacity is 20 Rounds. Shown here is a skeletonized A2 black Zytel stock with a water transferred mossy oak brush camo finish.

I’m really not in the market for a varmint gun with a camo finish but I thought this was a ‘purdy’ firearm. However, we’ll keep looking for the ‘right’ AR-15.

It has been several months since The Better Half and I brought our cache of ammunition from California. It has been ‘temporarily’ stored in her closet since then. So, this afternoon I transferred the ammunition from the large box to the recently-emptied shelves in the safe. The open shelf space became available after I installed the gun rack on the safe door and loaded it with guns and holsters.

Clickable image - Ammunition stored in the safe at long last

Shelves from top to bottom:

• Important papers & documents
• Handgun ammo
• Shotgun shells
• Magazines, loaders & loose ammo
• Miscellaneous gun stuff

Now that I see how much ammo we have in stock, I guess we will have to head over to the range and start reducing our inventory. The summer heat is starting to diminish and we should be able to resume regular practice sessions.