Camp Perry here she comes!

The ammo is all loaded (550 rounds).  The shooting chair/cart is built.  All the gear is purchased or borrowed (except a mount for the spotting scope - I still can't find what is needed.  Perhaps one can be found at Perry).  Range lunch items have been purchased.  Money for gas and food has been set aside. Clothes have been washed and packing will commence tomorrow. Sometime in the afternoon/early evening she will be dropped off for the trip to Camp Perry.

I wish I could be there for it all!  Dad and I are going down for a day to watch her this week, but other commitments are keeping me here at home.

Shoot Straight, Lauren!!!

It was a 600 yard day

Much scurrying around trying to get preparations complete to send Lauren to the National Matches this month.  I learned from my friend Aaron over at The Shekel that the Washtenaw Sportsmans Club in Ypsilanti was having a 300/600yd. practice session today which was open to the public, so we made the drive.

First, let me give a big THANK YOU to the Club and the members I met there today for taking us in, waiving the 600-yard qualifier (Lauren has shot several shorter matches, and knows the ropes) and letting her shoot for free.  This kind of support for Junior shooters is very much appreciated, and really helps to keep the shooting sports from fading away in the late, great U.S.A.  One of the guys even let Lauren borrow his cart so she didn't have to carry all her gear back to the firing line.  Everyone there was just as nice as could be, and glad to see a Junior there and doing well.

Second, if you are in the area and looking for a club for shooting sports, give them some consideration.  The facility looks to be first rate for many different shooting disciplines as well as archery.

Third, Lauren was kicking some serious backside today.  We got there too late to shoot at 300, so all we could do was 600, which was just fine with me, as there are so few 600 yard ranges available. Winds were fairly light with some gusts, moving left to right, the temperatures were comfortable in the mid 70's, and the sky was mostly cloudy so there wasn't a lot of glare to deal with either.  The range has military-style pits, so the targets were being spotted and scored there so we could see them back at the line (this wasn't a match so scores weren't being kept, but your hits were scored on the target for you to record if you liked).  She got lots of help from an experienced shooter, and he seemed pretty impressed with her shooting.  Her windage was really good, and once she got her come-ups figured out (the main reason for going today) she was knocking out 9's and 10's and a couple of X's with great regularity.

A shift in the pits capped our time there, and once again everyone was as nice as could be.  So thanks and a big thumbs up for Washtenaw Sportsmans Club!  We enjoyed our time there today!

Camp Perry Prep

My daughter is going to shoot at the National Matches at Camp Perry this year, on the Michigan Junior Team.  So we are loading ammo for her to take.  She has been away at camps the last two weeks, so I have been working on the cases she had begun prepping before she left.  I've primed 500 or so cases over the last few days, and now I've started loading them.  Here's what I did today:

That's 100 rounds.  Here's what I loaded them with:

I'm used to loading pistol rounds on my turret press and cranking out a couple hundred in an hour, but these we do single-stage and very exactingly.  It takes me a minute or so per round to throw the powder charge, carefully trickling the last tenth of a grain or so.  Seating the bullet is much faster than throwing the charge!  Those 100 rounds represent about 3 hours of work for me today, and that doesn't include clearning, sorting, depriming, resizing, trimming, and priming the cases.  And swaging the crimp out of the primer pockets of the military brass (that is a pain in the posterior!)  I'm glad Lauren helped with the prep work!

I can also say that Varget powder is Un-Obtainium right now.  None of the local shops has any, nor do any of the on-line retailers.  I even checked Jay's up in Clare (a couple of hours drive from here) and they didn't have any either.  I had a pound to start with and I'm down to about a third of a pound, and I'm shaking the trees for more to finish out her ammo loadout for Perry.  I'm hoping there will be some available at the vendor booths at the matches so we can get ready for next year!