The Hunting Times

So the farmer that is renting our property W of us hired a helicopter to spray the field.  The helicopter landed at the curve in our driveway as it is flat and void of any power lines. While he was waiting on the tanker truck to arrive, Alex and I took Will to see it up close.  This was a certified big deal to a 4.5 year old. The pilot was very kind.  He came over and talked with us until the taker got there.  Then he lifted off and promptly landed on the truck to fill up.  Of course proper social distancing did occur. The tanks on the chopper are small, and he was only able to make two passes before he had to land and refill again. Will and Alex watched him spray from a safe distance so as not to get any chemicals on them. It was a good day! The pilot walking back to his bird after a quick chat. The helicopter on TOP of the pump truck, loading up on spray. We were close until it came time to spray.  Then we watched from the porch.

Yes, you read that correctly - Raspberry Deer Loin. In the July-August 2020 edition of Bugle magazine published by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, there is a recipe for "Elk Loin with Blackberry Sauce."  Originally published by Kristy Crabtree. I am out of elk loin, so I did the next best thing and substituted deer loin.  No fresh blackberries?  No worries - we have plenty of fresh raspberries on the farm.  Another good substitute.  Besides, grandkids Will and Hadley helped Grandma and me pick them (although I think more ended up on the ground than in our bucket from their "help."  Not that it matters one bit.  Making memories!). So tonight I prepared the dish, as modified, and shared it with Dad, Kathy, Alex, Nick & Shelby. Was it good?  You bet.  However, I do not think the work it takes outweighs just having grilled deer loin.  Of course I make a killer grilled deer loin - so that's part of it. Ok, here goes:  the modified...

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....

Note the spelling.  This is the pie you eat, not the computer. The black raspberries are coming on strong.  Sandy and I picked some Sunday and gave those to Pa Jerry & Boppum.  Sandy picked some Tuesday and gave those to Grandma Dammit.  Then yesterday, we picked again to get enough to make a raspberry pie for Pa Jerry. Pretty sure we have about half of what we need.  Not to worry, as we have gathered about a fifth of what we saw coming on.  There will be plenty, but there is also a price to pay... Your hands are going to get stained from the over-ripe berries that squish; your legs are going to get scratched; and for sure you are going to donate blood to the mosquitoes.  'Tis a small price to pay for some sweet berries. Aunt Meg - if you hurry and get up here, you may get to have 1/2 a piece of pie! Our stained hands and about half the makings of a raspberry pie

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 int...

So we finally got good enough weather and the slope of new CV-19 cases to drop far enough that we held the Mulberry Militia Trap Club this month (June).  Usually, we shoot the 4th Thursday of every month from April thru October (weather permitting). There are ten shooters in the club.  Those that show up get to shoot.  Those who are too busy or gone, well they don't get to shoot.  We have an automated clay bird thrower that works up to 300'.  We put the trap out somewhere and then move ourselves to different places to get different looks / angles for the clays. This month we had six of the ten show up to shoot.  We went through 2.5 boxes of birds (90 to a box) and only the Good Lord knows how many rounds of 12 ga ammo we blew up.  Suffice to say, it was more than the number of birds we tossed - maybe more like 2 or even 3X that!  This was, after all, our first month out.  Hey, it's for fun and practice anyway. So we're shooting along just fin...

I utilized the Lab Radar (earlier post) to log the velocities of my .308 and .243 rifles today.  I did this so that I could put that information into an app and calculate hold-overs at greater distances.  This also allowed me the opportunity to sight all my rifles in at 100 yards and set the zero stops. So what did I learn?  Well I shot Federal Match ammo out of the .308.  It was 168 grain boat-tail hollow point bullets.  The stated velocity from the Lab Radar was 2,758 feet / second (840 m/s).  What was impressive was that for 9 shots, the Standard Deviation (SD) was 8 fps and the Extreme Spread was 24 fps - from a Factory Load!  That is some pretty nice work there Federal! The hand loads for my .243 were not quite as impressive.  The SD was 25 fps and the ES was 76 fps.  However, I logged a 0.80" group with this load.  The .308 4-shot group landed at 1.46" - both groups at 100 yards.  3 shots from the .308 landed within 0.75" - ...