Shooting Bench Pilot in New Mexico Prairie Doggin'

So we took both benches on a trailer with us to New Mexico over Memorial Day (late May, first week of June) and used them as our "rest" for shooting prairie dogs.

First off I must say, riding around the New Mexico desert on a trailer was much smoother than I ever imagined.  We had zero difficulties riding on the trailer while the truck moved from shooting location to shooting location.  And the benches?  They are the Bomb!  They will be going back with us next year - with a few modifications.

Loading up the truck to head for the field.
Cooler of beer?  Check.
Enough Ammo?  Check.
Guns?  Check.
No Man's Land beef jerky?  Check.
We're good to go! 

The benches on the trailer behind the truck in the New Mexico desert


A close-up of the benches in use.
They are strapped to the trailer for stability.
Nick is using bipods, I am on a sand bag.

Modifications are going to include screwing the tops down.  The 3,000 mile ride put the hurts to the glue I used to hold them down.  They are going to need screws or we will lose the tops.  Next - places for our boxes of ammo / magazines and spent rounds.  And Nick would appreciate it if I remember to take along the bags to collect the expelled brass.  Seems they are hot enough to leave blisters!

While at the cabin, the drain was clogged, again.  Tree roots had grown in and we could not get the snake to make the 90 degree turn.  Tanner (rancher & owner) put a trash bag on his arm so he would not get his hands in the literal crap that was in the pipe.  Oh but he did.  Got it blown up on his shirt and face too.  We have not laughed that hard in a long time.  Eventually the plumber came out, dug up the line and replaced it.  Fixed it for good this time.  But, that meant 4 days of 'bucket showers' and not toilets.  We used 5 gallon buckets for both.  The women-folk all said, "Hell to the No" when asked if they would like to participate.  Ahh, roughin' it!

Tanner with a trash bag over his arm, attempting to keep away from the poo!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cleaning Winchester SX3 / SX4 Shotguns

Image
The Winchester SX4 is my Go To shotgun for everything - clays, doves, ducks, geese, pheasants, whatever.  It is an awesome firearm.  The drawback?  There are multiple moving parts and a few of them like to collect carbon.  And this carbon sticks as if it were put on those parts with super glue! Specifically, the magazine tube and the gas piston are the main carbon collectors.  Those parts come out more black than silver & gold. The inner components of an SX3 / SX4 with highlights where carbon will form So what is my trick for cleaning those bits?  I drop the gas piston into my Hornady sonic cleaner.  Inside the cleaner I put in about a cup of Hornady's One Shot Sonic Clean Solution for gun parts, add some DI water, a couple squirts of Dawn liquid dish soap, and then top it off with a dash or two of the citrus version of Dr. Bronner's pure castile liquid soap.  I have found that the citrus Dr. Bronner's is awesome at removing grease and oil.  All of that bakes in the son
Read more

Winchester SX4 Trigger Assembly Update

Image
First, you need to read the post immediately before this one to understand why I had to take my Winchester SX4 shotgun apart - all the way apart - specifically the trigger assembly. Second, my bad.  I had neglected to clean the gun after returning from last October's pheasant trip.  I had about one bale of grass seed inside that gun, which in the end, may have kept the #8 pellet from getting out on its own.  Shame. Finally, I did not give up.  I watched four different YouTube videos on how to disassemble and reassemble the trigger group.  Sadly, no one did the SX4, only the previous version, the SX3.  Close enough.  Why did it take 4 videos?  Because no one explained HOW the damn sear goes back in.  Everyone either ASSUMED we all know how OR in two cases, the reassembly process was out of the camera frame.  Aggravating! The key, and this is more for me to remember, was on the fourth video, the author said, "The sear kinda slides down into a channel in the housing."  Bam. 
Read more

Determine Sex of Deer from Tracks

Image
It IS possible to determine from a set of tracks whether the deer you are tracking is a doe (female) or a buck (male).  And, it's actually pretty simple if you know a few facts about deer. First, you have to know what a deer track looks like.  Deer leave a track that looks like the outline of a heart. Next, you have to know the direction of travel.  Deer are moving toward the "pointy" end of the heart.  So in the above example, the deer is traveling toward the top of this post, or up. Here is an actual photo of deer tracks in the wild so you can get a better idea.  Again, this deer is traveling up, or towards the top of this page.  (It is also clear that this deer was STANDING, not walking - well clear enough to me.  Read on to find out why I know that). Sometimes if the ground is soft or if the deer is traveling really fast (jumping), the track left will show the deer's dew claws at the rear of the direction traveling, like so: The two little "
Read more