This time it really has been a while...

Well it has been two years off from blogging. I do apologize for the disappointment caused by my sudden departure.
•The .38 super special is still going to happen. I'm totally geared up to load it, the only remaining item is to have the cylinder cut for moonclips.
• I never took a break from shooting. I switched into heavy archery for a while and I am still active there. I also took up cowboy action shooting.
•Cowboy action shooting was a lot of fun. I learned how to use a lever action rifle in a fast and efficient manner. Another added benefit came from shooting in the Gunfighter category: learning the art of effectively shooting two pistols at once and bringing my left hand up to speed with the right. I am currently working on overcoming my dominant eye for right gun/right eye and left gun/left eye sight pictures. This is somewhat challenging, but I hope to master it sometime soon.

Thirty one shots in an hour.

Well it may not sound like much, but yesterday evening I resolved to shoot my heavy bow for one hour with the goal of taking thirty shots with it. By the end I was sweating fairly regularly and was well exercised.

These were the second and last groups of six arrows. The lighted arrow was just a celebratory thing. A decent night of shooting with my 100 pound longbow. More updates a little later on.

A new bow brings new challenges to shooting

So a few weeks back I ordered a bow from a guy named Nate Steele of Bama Bows out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. I went big with the thought of someday going to Africa to hunt big game. I selected the most basic model because I like minimalist bows and the price was right. I asked him to make a 100 pound draw longbow and it arrived some six weeks later. I recieved the new bow two days ago and have been actively shooting it as much as I am physically able.  Yesterday I took four shots with the bow and today I took about a dozen. The physical toll this takes on the muscles is amazing. The process is like a workout with shooting, two of my favorite things. Today I have taken about 30 shots in a series of two sessions. The accuracy is nothing to brag about but I can hit a four inch circle 4 out of 6 shots at ten yards. The penetration that this setup is achieving is incredible. From 15 to 20 inches into target backers is common with the two types of arrows I am using.

Something for the Revolver guys..

On the 16th of October Virginia and I were invited to attend the founders of Zombie Shooters Association's wedding match. I was working on a ship at the time so I had to request time off to go. We made it down to the ceremony and shared time with our good friends John and Melinda Zaczek. These two people rock! I've never seen two folks so excited to see us. I tried to take a video of the ceremony, but I messed it up with a double tap to the record button. So I offer my fast recovery video instead. I only missed the first few seconds.

The match that occurred afterward was something special also but pales in comparison. We took no video because we were both so rusty at the revolver game. The highlight of the match was that my HearthCo moonclips were proven bomb-proof or stomp-proof whichever you prefer. I was on a squad that was not revolver saavy and thus not revolver reloading device friendly. I had to straighten one of my Ranch Products clips after the match and that took some doing. Good news John! I hope you saved the bent .41 Mag clips.

Been a while...Part 2

Practice for me started out at 10yds and lasted two and a half hours. I shot to closing time at the local BPS and hardly realized it. The reason I had for shooting indoors were that it was temperature controlled and I would not have to deal with heat fatigue and that it was easier to recover my arrows, a big key to expediting progress. Having to search the ground for lost arrows flat out sucks. It takes time away from practicing and the grass/ground/leaves are hard on your fletchings. Over time I was able to keep more and more of my shots on the five spot target. Imagine a piece of paper with five 6 inch bullseyes on it say 12"x14". Now imagine a foam block 4'x4'. Now imagine missing both of those from ten yards at times. Indoors is the way to go if it's available. If it is cost prohibitive I recommend a large field where the grass is kept cut for a close second. So I guess a whole month or so rolled by before I even tried the twenty yard targets. As I came to shoot at the BPS more often a second advantage came to be realized: someone was always watching. Sometimes it was just employees, other times it was customers looking through the windows, and the best of all was other people coming to shoot their bows.  This was the first great thing to happen to my shooting ability, the ability to compete against other shooters. At first it was a given that everybody under the sun was better than I was, but then I started to get better and better. There is nothing like the feeling of shooting with another person and testing yourself against them and sharing the excitement and letdowns of the results downrange.

So it's been a while....Part 1

I appologize for taking so much time off from the blog. I have decided to lay down the semi-autos and revolvers for a while and get back to the basics . I have been devoting my time to the bow and practicing for the up coming archery deer season. After watching the two seasons of Top Shot and realizing that I was really lacking in this particular area of marksmanship it really bothered me. I have decided to forego the modern technological race with supercams and mechanical broadheads. I am using semi-traditional archery equipment this year opting for a modern minimalist longbow and carbon arrows. The arrows are at least feather fletched although I am pursuing a high Forward Of Center (FOC) setup where much of the weight is in the front of the arrow for increased penetration. The broadhead I have chosen weighs in at 250 grains. This is due to a mis-step on my part where I had my arrows cut to fit my draw length before considering how stiff that would make them. I ended lucking out in that this particular setup shoots very nicely off several of my bows and has tremendous hunting potential both on and off this continent.

Starting out, the road was not an easy one as I made many mistakes and had no guidance. I had owned the bow for 2 or 3 years but had not done anything serious with it and it rode the corner of the closet most times. I had taken it hunting once and missed by the slimmest of twigs a nice buck causing me to lean away from this platform altogether. I recently checked on the equipment and saw that almost all of my arrows needed to be refletched and that the shelf of the bow needed attention. I made a note of what I needed ventured into the local Bass Pro Shop(BPS) and ran into a guy named Dean. After a few questions, he told me what my options were and that refletching arrows was not difficult at all. I told him that I wasn't set up for it and that I spent most of my time reloading ammuntion. As luck would have it, he was in need of ammuntion for his handgun and I had just run into my new best friend. Having acquired a source to get my arrows refletched, I had conquered the biggest hurdle I had in archery so far. The next step was going to be the longest of the whole process...practicing.

My First Zombie All Gun Match at SVDFI

This past weekend I was priviledged to attend another exciting ZSA Zombie All Gun Match. This time the match was held at the Southern Virginia Defensive Firearms Institute in Nelson, Virginia. The match consisted of nine stages of pistol, rifle, and shotgun both combined and separate. The facilities were amazing and well constructed to endure high round count rifle stages. Mike Oberman, the owner and lead intstructor, did most of the course design and it was an amazing match. With a round count of around 200 pistol, 100 rifle and 75 shotgun, the ammo bag started out extremely heavy and finished light and all for the price of a local three gun match. I was highly impressed with the caliber of and effort that went into this match. I will be very excited to attend the next match at SVDFI and highly recommend it to any three gunner or pistol shooter. Yes, there is enough pistol in most of the stages for you to enjoy yourselves too.

Stage one was a nightmare for me with a horrible double feed occuring right in the middle of the stage and some trouble remembering where the targets all were. All in all it was a good stage I just came up to the line unprepared to take on this challenge. I really need to focus on small target shooting with my glock. This stage didn't do too much for my match standings for the get go.

Stage Two was your basic long standard for ZSA consisting of 3 infected targets at 25 yards and a possible 3 bonus zombies. The second string of this stage was at 10 yards strong hand only and consisted of three infected targets and four zombies. The third and final string was weakhand only from seven yards with the same array as the ten yard string. This was a limited round count stage of 38 rounds.

Stage Three was all set to be a breeze if I had just decided not to use the unproven 33rd magazine. I was going for no reload on the stage, but as you can see it did not happen that way. I ended up just blazing away to get out of the hole the big stick left me in.

Stage Four was a good recovery stage for me. I was off to a decent start finally. This was rifle and pistol and although not as fast as I had hoped, it was a solid stage for me. I also identified a mechanical issue with my pistol on this stage that would stay with me for the whole match: a rounded edge on the sear was causing a dead trigger on the first shot on an unloaded start. This has since been resolved.

Stage 5 was a 25 meter appleseed target shot standing, sitting and prone. It was a limited exercise of 33 rounds. Guess who shot 35?

Stage Six was a rifle only hose fest that I thoroughly enjoyed and had a strong performance on running it clean in fifty some odd seconds. 45 Rounds minimum.

Stage seven was where I gained my new nickname "Sexy Time," from the great Yousef Sansour and finally got to use my beast of a Benelli that holds 12 total rounds. No Yousef, I don't care if it's legal anywhere else.  It was a lot of fun with flying clays and a Cooper tunnel. Twenty rounds of shotgun and 9 rounds of pistol. Now if I could just learn to count the rounds in the shotgun.....

Stage Eight was by all rights the attack of the guarded Texas star. I changed to a tighter choke just so I wouldn't hit those darned clays. I liked this stage until I had to go to the pistol and try and hit all the little targets, which by this point in the match I was too tired to hit efficiently. Solution: Shell the whole thing.

Stage Nine was a welcome sight for us all because we were finishing the match up and all we had to use was the shotgun. I have always been comfortable with a shotgun and the ammo is easy to hold on to. A borrowed shell holder came off in my hand during a reload here and being tired I did not realize that I had more than enough to finish the stage. Lesson learned: Tekloks are a beautiful thing. So I fiddled with that thing for a minute...or so it seemed. I walked by one clay in this stage, but still came out pretty fast.

I would like to thank SVDFI, Mike Oberman, and ZSA for putting on such an incredible match this weekend. It will be hard to top this one next weekend at The Range!

Special Thanks to the Combine Camera Task Force of Virginia, Russ at Wooddude.net , and Ken Kiesler for helping video this match!