And after we did our chores, we could go out and play.

Busy day yesterday - sorry about the no post thing. M and I spent most of the day schlepping blocks, mortar and concrete for his endless, and yet oddly short, curved wall. I'm told it nears completion, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Still, when we were done we could go play with our toys.

The tank rack we dragged out to the range a couple of weeks ago will gradually become a respectable long-range target stand. Right now we've got one 10-inch gong and an old piece of plywood. Hey, it's a start. I just added this picture to show that we do have a backstop not even I could miss.

Of course the gong was the part we were most interested in testing. M went out and bought pieces of armor plate, or what was represented as armor plate. Only one way to find out.

M just got a new stock for his Savage. He was planning to shoot ball ammo, and I protested that if his barrel twist was like mine he wouldn't get good accuracy from anything but match-weight bullets. As happens so often when discussing shooty things, I should have kept my mouth shut: we shot groups with two lots of ammo and there wasn't much to choose between them. Unlike my Browning, his Savage will shoot ball just fine. Then he put two into the gong, to see what the effect would be...

And the effect was splashes of lead and no deformation at all. This stuff is great!

...a little hard to see at 300 yards though, even through a 9-power scope. The 300-yard mark is right above the shoreline in the big loop of the wash that comprises the range proper. For 400 yards you go out into the meadow. My front yard is right at 550 yards. The longest shot you can take is 1200 yards, but for that you have to climb the big ridge.

And of course make sure the brush is out of the way of the barrel - because there's always that one piece of brush in just the wrong place. "'Is the action open?' he asked belatedly."

We were finding the gong pretty good at 300 yards, but then the wind came up and we...lost the target. Before I die I really want to learn how to dope the wind and be a proper long-range rifleman. I never was very good at it.