On any Sunday...

[bdixon]

I wish I had a group like that to go out with, at this point I have only one faithful partner that is looney enough to nearly freeze to death and occasionally see a deer.  So we spend a lot of time eating.  Just not Venison.

[Daryl]

Bdixon - looks like fun and a great bush for a shooting trail!  Your pictures remind me of our 'hiking' trips when kids - just to be out in the bush, fire, cooking anything we shot, from frog's legs, to starlings. HA! - what memories.  TKS for posting.

The weather 's supposed to be sunny (or not) and mild again this Sunday. I expect there'll be 8 to 10 guys out again for the trail walk.  Me thinks it's going to be another .32 day.

[bdixon]

I will be thinking about you, I have the whole weekend alone "no children or wife" and will be working on my Joseph Long and my JP Beck.

[Daryl]

Another Sunday, another trail walk. This time, there were 9 of use. Sorry, no picture of the same people over again. Here's Jody shooting her Mom's heavy .58 full stocked Hawken at the 100 yard bunny rabbit. It's a tough target for a rifle, but then, even the smoothbore shooters hit it now and then, sometimes, like last Sunday, all 3 hit it, one after the other.  You never know just when the stars will align for some miracles to happen.



Here's the bunny - hanging just to the right of the tree on the left side of the pic. and above the large dark coloured log-end.  In recoil, her muzzle just covers the target.

[Daryl]

Taylor - pictures?

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I had my camera with me, but only took two pictures of my rifle!  Sorry.  Maybe next weekend.

[Daryl]

Last Target on our trail walk, 7 FEB 2010.
 Small facing-on crow target hanging on the sloping log from the right at about 45 yards, along with a 12" steel cylinder at 109 yards between the big laying down trees at the back of the picture.  Today, that big 109 yard target escaped my big .32 - rarely does.  Roy captured another playing card with his Mike Brooks Tenn. Mtn. .40.   The 2 orange spots on the tree on the right are not targets but are overspray from painting other targets on previous stations.

We had 11 show up for the shoot today - temperature climbed up almost to 0C (about 30F) today - a beautiful day for shooting with friends.  Had 2 new shooters show up, both did well and we expect them to repeat.

[Leatherbelly]

 Daryls,
    Correction, That's Packdog's aka Ken Guy's rifle. Made some decent shots today. The cardshot is always rewarding with the forty. Taylor's got some pix;s too.
  Hey, I wouldn't mind having a Mike Brooks gun tho!

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

We added two newbies to the Donner ( und Blitzen) party today.  Kelly and Shawn on the far right have never shot black powder until today.  They both did well and had a very good time.  ...and the rest of the usual suspects!
That's a picture of Leatherbelly with his severed card and his Key Guy .40 cal.  The other single is the kid with his Chambers' Penn. fowler...love it!!

[Daryl]

I made a correction - 11 of us on the trail. Beautiful weather for early February. Other years, we'd have been hip deep in snow with -30 to -40 - too chilly for shooting - gotta love the warm weather, but moist - fouling's black.  In 2 hours leaning against the bench waiting to be cleaned, the fouling turned snow white - nice to have it dry inside.  Won't have to clean it until tomorrow- if I get around to it- heh, heh. 

OK, Packdog rifle, LB. Nice!

[Roger Fisher]

Same subject (trail walks) different place (by abt 2500 miles!

Day after we had up to 18 inches of new snow a scheduled w walk had 8 guys show up 14 degrees calm sunny got up to 28 degrees most shots in the timber the usual mix of silohuettes incl 4 shots across a frozen lake, pond, puddle!

30 shots total...Blanket shoot.  One young guy shooting a rifled musket cleaned the course...He said it made it tougher 'cause' we failed to harass him....

Beautiful day and the fresh air made it nice to snooze thru that super bowl..

BTW If you miscount your r ball supply and you run out a good distance  from the base camp and you are the only one shooting a .45 and the closest you can get from your buddies is a .490 it'll work no sweat and she'll hit the target.  It takes a bit of pounding to start that bare ball however....

[Daryl]

Good stuff, Roger.

I ran into a similar situation, years ago.  Had a guy, some 35 years ago complaining at the club down South about the .495" ball and .022" denim patch I told him to use in his TC .50.  It was the combination I found shot well in the one I had for a short period of time, therefore the recommendation to him.  At the time, I was shooting a Bauska .45 barrel (.448 bore) on the TC's modified stock.  The barrel had .028" deep rifling (.504" groove diameter).  The guy's .50 had a .508" groove diameter, so you can guess what I said - "give me a ball and patch". I set the bare ball on top of the muzzle to show him it sitting proud. Then put the patch on the muzzle, short starter stud on the ball and one whack and in it went 1/4" perfectly patched, which turned it into an elongated .45" x .50" slug.  Another whack with my palm on the starter knob and down it went 6", then  the 3/8" hickory rod pushed it onto the powder. I capped the nipple and shot it into the 10 ring of his 25 yard target - yes, oversized balls shoot! 'Course, we all know that.

[Daryl]

8 guys & 1 gal showed up yesterday for the trail walk. The patch was mostly ice, about 6" thick, but with care, no one fell. Had a great day that started out with rain, then cleared cloudy, then sunshine. Nice day, some really good shooting was performed - Jody split her card again, her Dad didn't - again.  heh, heh . 2 split cards for Jody in 3 weekends- good shooting. LB was there with his minnie-weiner dog Sam - Sam was up to his usual - ignoring LB and took off chasing after squirrels and hares not to be seen again for 1/2 hour of more. Clarence was shooting a new-to him TVM .54 rifle - long barrel, 1/2 round, 1/2 oct.  I took the .69 out, been a while since she's spoken - didn't let me down.  That is a gun that moves steel. We just barely packed up and left & the sun disappeared, the rain started then with a thick down-pour of hail. Typical for mid March, maybe April - it was only February 14th-  Temp +5 - great day shooting.
Oh yeah further note - Jody has been shooting her mom's .58 full stocked Hawken wich is a good 10 1/2 pounds.  Her Dad, Brad is gathering parts for her new Jaeger- also a .58.

[Daryl]

7 guys, one gal. today for the early trail walk - 2 more showed up when we were about to leave. Nasty-slightly biting cold on the fingers, although the the temp was mild enough - only 4 degrees below freezing. The weather channel said 93% humidity, even though the vent fouling was white.  Of course, no one had fouling problems, as usual, which is the norm, even with 10% humidity.

We had a good time, 2 of us, LB and I shooting 20bore smoothies, with everyone else shooting rifles. Some of us got our cards , some didn't. Jody split her card - again - much to our delight, but less so for her Dad, who again missed his card.(dig, dig)- maybe he needs more powder? 90gr. 2F isn't doing it in his .54 Hawken.  Maybe it's the bore size - Jody shoots a .58 Full stocked Hawken, 1" straight, 38" long. She says its a bit too heavy, but rarely misses. 

The 2 other smoothie shooters, Hatchet Jack and Crispy are at a weekend rendezvous in the lower central interior at Kelowna. (big forest fires last summer).  They have an interesting shoot, maybe more of us will go next year.  We merely have to let them know who's coming, bring our own beverage, bedding, guns and powder - that's it. Food and lodging (tent with stove) provided & set up before your arrival. Quite a bunch of guys!

[Harnic]

I went out today on my first black powder shoot in 9 months!  Our local club threw an informal pistol shoot.  5 shots on paper @ 25 meters & a 15 shot trail walk at steel targets up the side of the mountain at from 10 to 75 meters.  We had 8 shooters & everyone had a GREAT time!  The weather was spectacular!  10°C (50°F) & sunny.  I forgot my camera... sorry.  We have a rifle trail shoot in 2 weeks so I'll try to include the camera on that one!

[California Kid]

Is the Donner and Blitzen party at the Olympics or taking a week off? Missed the pics this week.

[Daryl]

We did get out- nice day, few degrees above freezing by early afternoon. We had 8 show up, not very many considering the nice weather, but Taylor was out of town, Len was at an archery shoot and the couple new guys who've been coming out with Taylor didn't show.  We had a good day, good then bad light at times, about normal - some got cards, some didn't . Some hit the 100 yard bunnie.
Decided to shoot the beast today - only wrecked one target - had to promise not to use her except on other clubs targets. Guess it's a little .58, .40 or .32 next time.HA! Masybe a double rifle, just because.
Neil came out today, made some terrific shots with his wife's rifle. I guess his .45 kickes too much.
No group photo
Oh yeah - Hatchet Jack found out that shooting his ramrod out his 20 bore increased recoil a bit - nothing hurt - except the rod. (trying to cheat on splitting a card and ended up knocking them all off the notched board. Didn't stop the beast from splitting 2 for 2.

The beast;


Turkey target- 100 yards - orange 'blob' just left beside the dark stump & below the snow covered log above.  There are actually lots of 'misses' (mostly smoothbore) in the snow around it.


Fairly new shooter, Daryl C. shooting da widdow bunny.(Lb talking


Leatherbelly Belly shooting, with Neil H. to the left.


Jody shooting the widdow bunny with her Mom's .58 Full Stocked Hawken made by her Dad, Brad. - LB talking ( as usual )

 

[Candle Snuffer]

Always enjoy reading about, and looking at the pictures from you folks woods walk shoots.  Going to have to see if where we hold our annual Fur Trade Days Rendezvous in July, if the folks there would allow us to set up a woods walk course in the winter.  My guess is that they will.

In the mean time our local White River Brigade has our first match of 2010 coming up on March 21st.  Hope we get a decent weekend and decent turn out.  Seems like we keep dwindling down on participation by the membership who want to be part of the Brigade, but don't want to put forth an effort to attend but a few matches a year out of the scheduled eight matches. 

Oh well, at least the handful of loyal members who attend all the shoots (or at least 80 to 90% of them) are fun to shoot with.  

[Roger Fisher]

Always enjoy reading about, and looking at the pictures from you folks woods walk shoots.  Going to have to see if where we hold our annual Fur Trade Days Rendezvous in July, if the folks there would allow us to set up a woods walk course in the winter.  My guess is that they will.

In the mean time our local White River Brigade has our first match of 2010 coming up on March 21st.  Hope we get a decent weekend and decent turn out.  Seems like we keep dwindling down on participation by the membership who want to be part of the Brigade, but don't want to put forth an effort to attend but a few matches a year out of the scheduled eight matches. 

Oh well, at least the handful of loyal members who attend all the shoots (or at least 80 to 90% of them) are fun to shoot with.  

Hey Snuff::  Go with what ya got!!~         When the word gets around about how much fun you have they may get more active and off the couch!

[Candle Snuffer]

You bet Roger, that's what we're going to do!

In a way, shooting with folks that want to come out and participate because of the enjoyment of the sport is a whole lot more fun then shooting with those who show up complaining about what a chore it is to make the shoot dates and get their stuff around. 

You might say our first couple of shoots weed out the latter, which is fine with me.

I expect we'll start the year off with 12 to 15 members and finish off the last 5 or 6 matches of the year with 5 to 6 members.  So be it. 

[Daryl]

Amazing weather we're having this week. Last night was the only night since Sunday that it froze - getting up to about 45F during the day, snow's going fast - supposed to be about 20 degrees again tonight through Sat. night, but we expect maybe 40F on Sunday, with sunny weather.  Someone said we're supposed to get Spring about 1 1/2 months early this year.  Maybe THIS is it.
Hopefully, we'll have another good turnout.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

What a gorgeous day!  There was a little snow flying now and again, sun broke through now and again, and everyone shot the entire trail, some of us with quite a few Roger Fishers (re-entries)  Ten shooters including Brad's daughter Jody shooting her mom's full stocked percussion .58 cal Hawken, and Daryl's daughter Carol, shooting her mom's .45 percussion rifle.  Hatchet Jack Bradford, far right, sighted in his new J & S Hawken flull stocked flinter, displayed here shamelessly a few weeks ago.  We sighted it in offhand at about 18 yds. 'cause that's where our tie-breaker board sits, until we could take out the ten X every time and went on from there.  Left/right was perfect, just had to take off about 1/8" of the front sight.  By the end of the trail, he rang the 109 yd. gong 2 for 3...a happy shooter.  We all made some great shots, and some poor ones to remind us of our mortality.  All fun though.

[California Kid]

Ah the weekly Donner report. Sure looks like you guys and gals have a good time!

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Our climate is perfect for shooting muzzleloaders, I think.  The temp is right at the freezing/melting point, there's water running everywhere underfoot, snow filtered down occasionally, and yet notice the white fouling around the locks.  They are dry!  And no one needed to clean between shots - not once!  We all fired a minimum of fifty rounds.  When I cleaned my rifle barrel in room temperature water, all I got was the palest grey solution - no black sludge.

Interesting!

[Candle Snuffer]

Yes, it sure looks like a lot of fun with good friends.  I got out to the Range myself this morning.  The wind was terrible so I only fired five shots from my flintlock and called it a day.  I'll hit it again mid-week I hope?  Use to be a time out here in NW Nebraska I could shoot year round with pretty good weather conditions.  Now all it ever wants to do is snow & blow,,, since October 8, 2009...  It's got to get Spring some day...

Thanks for the picture.  Always a pleasure seeing what's going on out in the world.