six

“If you always caught fish then they would call it catching.” Very true Lindsey, very true. In the spirit of calling a spade a spade then salon fishing should be called “Remote hypothermic wading for a chance at a snagging a fish.” It’s not even fishing. There is no skill, no technique. It is so highly regulated that your only choices that matter are other rod, reel and line.
Moving forward, I had a great find the other day, Winchester 22 Long Rifle Dynapoint ammo. This ammo I have been looking for since before I owned my gun. At fifty yards they shoot twice as accurate as most ammo and they are renowned as having the least amount of jams. And I found them at K-mart. K-mart is known for many things, gun ammo is not one of them.
Hope was dead and now it is reborn. Last week I had given up on ever finding a target competition and had thrown in the towel at trying to find one. I had exhausted all of my efforts from fellow members at the Gun Club to the NRA website. I had even stopped shooting. But, while reading my NRA magazine I stumbled across the back section that announced local shoots. This led me to include that the NRA website doesn’t have an adequate search engine or list them on its website. It is awesome that I finally found a source for competitions. The next competition is Nov. 6… in NJ. It is quite unfortunate that the competition is in NJ as NJ legislators have outlawed my style of gun.

Gun insight: Gun Law
The right to bear arms. Federally granted right restricted on the state level. Before you get a gun or think about getting one must learn about the laws of your state and those around it. Gun owners, gun enthusiasts, constitutional enthusiast and even some people that become aware of the laws in effect are frustrated by state gun laws. To illustrate this point the laws that keep my gun out of NJ will be used. N J state legislation has a gun law that makes it unlawful for individuals within the state of New Jersey to have possession of a gun, as a firearm that does not have a butt stock, which is magazine fed by a magazine that loads outside of the pistol grip. So one is not forced to continually reread the entire phrasing used to address the law which keeps me as a Competitor Restricted Against Participation it will now be referred to as crap law. Understand that the magazine, also known as a clip, is the item that holds the extra rounds, also known as bullets, which feed into the gun as it fires. As for clarity, guns that crap law allows are what is most commonly thought of as hand guns, such as the Smith & Wesson 5946 of the NYPD, pictured in the top image above. Guns that crap law effect include, but are not limited to, both Olympic style hand guns and my Ruger Charger, as pictured in the bottom image above. Now one may ask what is the difference? and/or what does it really matter? The answer to both those questions is little.
The best way to examine the little difference crap law makes as well as how little it matters is through the justification that supporters of crap law and laws like it use. The main justification is that guns restricted by crap law have a higher potential for collateral damage that could occur if such a gun was used in a shooting incident. This supposed higher potential is thought to come from that these guns have larger high capacity magazines, a shorter change time for the magazine and larger caliper round. Magazine capacity is how many rounds, also thought of as bullets, a magazine can carry. But this justification doesn’t hold up as NJ law prohibits large capacity magazines under N.J. Rev. Stat § 2C:39­9h. A faster reload time is a reasonably sounding argument for justification, but non-crap law gun can be loaded in a heart beat as illustrated in this video. So being able to reload in half a heart beat would add a little more potential to a shooting spree. The last argument is that crap law guns could have a larger caliber then non-crap law guns. But there is no restriction to the size of the pistol grip on a magazine feed handgun in NJ so you could make a pistol grip large enough to any size round. So ultimately crap law does not effectively restrict the size of hand gun ammunition. So crap law is crap. It is an unjustified law. It shouldn’t be there. Hence the frustration gun owners, gun enthusiasts, constitutional enthusiast and even some people that become aware of the laws in effect experience.

fiver

“It will give me a chance to clear my head or a bit.” Was the last line of my last blog. Somehow I had this misconception that cramming myself with my grumpy dear old Dad and Hyperactive brother. Yea it was far from relaxing and at quite far from head clearing.
But, the fish were awesomely massive. Prehistoric looking, at least that is what I saw from the fish that other people caught, ‘cause I didn’t catch a single fish. They were everywhere, they ran into me and I literally tripped over one. I was tripping on the darn things but I could not one. BAH!!! Ok Ok OK it was good times. I mean I got to chase after a couple other people had on a hook and wow that was an adrenaline rush. My Dad and I came home early…
And took our new gear into the Nashamy creek that runs threw our back yard and tried to catch carp. That was a good and relaxing time. I know what your thinking, Why did you try to upstate New York to go Salmon fishing when you have big old carp in the creek that runs through your back yard? That is a good question, and the mistake will Not happen again. I can not catch fish in my backyard all on my own and then go to my room which is bigger then the entire cabin. Yea like it was smaller then a quad.
Now this blog is supposed to be about shooting and schooling, not fishing. So, back to topic; I got a B+ on my Non-West Society mid term, BOOSH!!! (That is an explanation meaning of great magnitude, at least in my book.) That test was studied very hard for. It is increasing hard to not use first person in writing now. Now that this blog is being up kept. It is a lazy way of writing that, of recent, this writer has been falling into and is working to get out of. That is the update from my strides for success in so far as scholastic endeavors. As far as efforts in regards to competitive target shooting, not much to report there. I have not been to the range in a few weeks, still. I will sending out a few emails to track down a competition to go to.
I intend to change things up. Future Blogings will be two parted. The first portion will be much like the entire normal blogings you have already been reading here. The second portion will be a breakdown of some aspect of shooting. How the gun works, some of the science behind the bullet and its trajectory, or how different sights work. Hope you enjoy the change. And here is a little taste.
Sighting in: the process of aligning the trajectory of the bullet as it is fired from the gun and the point at which the gun sight is pointing at for a relative distance. Understand that the bullet leaves and flies forward from the end of the barrel. The gun sight sits above the barrel and points to a given position down range. The sight has to angled downward so that the sight line and the path of the bullet cross. The sight is adjusted so that these lines cross at the target as the distance from the target changes. Now this is an oversimplification of the process but mind you more detail will offered later.

Scatter brained

My head is a hundred different places right now; my job, my hobbies, my friends, my family, up coming fishing trip and my school groups. It has been an eventful week, so eventful I didn’t make it to the range. I did make it to all my classes fully prepared with all my homework and readings done. I also got to see my nephews this Wednesday. That was very upsetting as my nephews hardy knew who I was. Also I had to work on Thursday evening which means I had to miss my IVCF meeting. That stinks. Not a single round all this week so as practice makes perfect, so now my skill has backslid I am sure. Also I helped baby sit my nephews while although the older, Buddy, welcomed me the younger, Ben, couldn’t seem to figure what to make of me. Sad really I need fix quite a few things about the way I spend my time. I am restructuring my schedule to makes things right.
It was really upsetting for my nephews to offer me such a cold reception. It is not their fault it is mine. I don’t spend enough time with them. But thanks to the restructuring that has seem to gone on this week, in part the hours at work and in part I will be helping babysitting on Wednesday nights, that will change. I am excited to help out for my brother and get to know my nephews. I really look forward to this. Buddy and Ben. Buddy is constantly moving two years old and Ben is a discovering one year old.
That was good. I cannot keep up with my school and work load while still having a life; had to bring that to an end. I spoke with my boss and my hours will be reduced from thirty-two hours to twenty-four hours. That is a huge relief for me. What is better is that it will be an ongoing arrangement. That Matt, my boss will keep staff so that the excess of hours will be covered year round. At this point it is important to be aware that I work part time and go school part time. There is about two years left in my college endeavor and twenty-four hours is how it will stay. Slow and study wins the race. That was a mistake at first but it gets the point across. Two classes a semester and winter/summer sessions when they work. But also I will not be working Wednesday nights or Thursday nights. Freeing me up for Babysitting and IVCF.
It was really upsetting for my nephews to offer me such a cold reception. It is not their fault it is mine. I don’t spend enough time with them. But thanks to the restructuring that has seem to gone on this week, in part the hours at work and in part I will be helping babysitting on Wednesday nights, that will change. I am excited to help out for my brother and get to know my nephews. I really look forward to this. Buddy and Ben. Buddy is constantly moving two year old and Ben is a discovering one year old.
Fishing trip coming up! This Monday My Father, My Brother, Myself and a friend of My Bother, will be heading upstate New York to chance SALMON. It will be awesome. A great chance to freeze out while bonding with the guys and catch some of the largest fish of my life, sounds like a great time. It will give me a chance to clear my head or a bit.

Week three

Well I am in the writing mood so I might as well stick with it. See that paper that was due on Tuesday I just finished it. I know nice and late right. That wasn’t my intention. My intention was to aim for success. And I was on Monday when I wrote the first seven eights of my essay. Given the nature of my job all employees eat lunch alone and I was working a double so I had written most of my essay there at work and then saved it to my folder on the hard drive at work. Which wasn’t realized till 11:00 am when I went to type up the conclusion and print it out before my 10 min. drive to school. Work is over an hour trip there and back. Leaving me no time to finish the conclusion and print it out. MAJOR SUCK. So I had no essay for essay workshop day; therefore didn’t go. But I used the extra time to further revise the essay and add some sources to it. So yea, my late essay is nice and solid though so maybe that’s something, IDK.

Speaking of writing essays and aiming for success I would like to offer a great resource for everyone in the class. http://www.easybib.com/ It is a fantastic website for all courses that you have to site sources for. It helps you put together Bibliography in MLA style, MLA style is the style of bibliographies that all courses at DVC are supposed to use, but it offers other styles if you need them as well. If you were able to set up your blog and you are capable of looking up things in a book then you are plenty qualified to use this website. You put in your source type and it asks you different things about it, like author, publication date, ect. Filling these out is as easy as filling out fields on a website like name, DOB, email, ect. Then you put in other sources. It takes the fields and creates a properly formatted Bibliography entry with the right order and punctuation. It takes all your sources and puts them in order. Then you can download it as a Microsoft word file or view it as a web page and copy and paste it. Again it is a great resource.

I am getting better at shooting as well. I went to the Wednesday night 50 ft indoor shoot again and it went well. Improvement from last time was definitely notable. Last time out of a 100 points possible a relay, like a round, I shot an average of 69.8. This week I shot a average of 81.9. 12.1 points of improvement. By NRA standards this weeks shooting was done at a Bar 1 level. That is one level below the sharpshooter level. If the score is raised by 9.6 points it will be at the sharpshooter level and I will qualify for NRA competition, if I can find one. I stumbled across a free file filled with targets of all shapes and sizes, this includes the targets needed to practice shooting for the 50ft indoor range. Now I can practice when ever I find the time. No longer will I be confined to Wednesday night shoots. Bonus! I should be up to match level in no time.

Progress was made on finding an NRA competition as well. The guy who runs the shoot was out this week because he was at a shooting competition. He is a nice guy so I am sure that if I shoot him an email he will be happy to point me the right direction. No pun intended.

more progress

Not only was last week went well in aiming for success in shooting but it went really well in aiming for success with academics as well. The class presentation in English class went well. My group had a little trouble all getting on the same page earlier on but ultimately we where successful in our presentation, full credit successful. Prof. Ryan said we set the bar rather high, which is a little ironic as our group, at least in part, chose to go first as to gain the little leeway that the first group to go gets. My motivation in going first was simply to get it done and out of the way so that I could focus more on my essays during the rest of the semester. It will be nice to not have that looming over my head for the rest of the semester.

It was a rather interesting topic, Spider-man India. It is interesting how this foreign country has adopted the Spider-man character. And it’s probably just a personal quark but I love when something a seemingly insignificant can be used so well to illustrate such a significant point as the global social and economic theater.

As for my other class, Non-western Societies has begun to move forward again. Understand, last week both classes were canceled. Class was up and running as usual this week, as it turns out he had some unforeseen medical issues arise.

I am excited about my shooting as I put in an order to Cabella’s last week. I purchased based on my experience from last week. I got a match spring, hammer and sear kit that will take my trigger pull down to two and a half pounds. I also got the two ten round clips I wanted. Now the mail will be checked every day for the next three to six business days, that it when the shipment should arrive. One might find it odd that the spring, hammer and sear kit is what is replace changes the trigger pull but I can explain that. The way a gun fires, in a simple manor, is that the gunpowder charge is ignited by a primmer flash. The primmer flash is set off by off as the firing pin smashes into it, which is propelled by the hammer. The hammer gets its force from the hammer spring. Before this process is set in motion the hammer spring sits compressed against the back of the hammer. The hammer rests against the sear which is the only thing that stops it from flying forward. This is much like a mouse trap set to go. The trigger knocks the sear out from holding the hammer back. By altering the way the sear and hammer meet less effort would be needed to knock it out. The springs that are replaced return the sear and trigger into proper position after a shot is fired so they are ready to go for the next shot. Most of these are weighted for the safety of inexperienced shooters; however as an experienced shooter I am confident with a lighter weighted trigger. Last Wednesday was bust at the range as I couldn’t focus. There were two kids shooting next to me and I shot horribly. I did however manage to grab a NRA pistol shooting pamphlet. After the method of scoring is deciphered I can see how my shooting stacks up. Somehow the lower your score the better; perhaps the score is the points you missed out on, I don’t know still working on that.

Wednesday night shoot

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Went shooting on Wednesday, much to my dismay it was not a competition, but all is not lost as practice makes perfect and I learned few things. The above photos are my targets from the shoot. The top photo is my best shoot free hand and the bottom is my best target shoot from a bi-pod. The bottom target is 4 points out of a hundred short of a perfect score.

It was ten volleys of ten rounds. I was not planning on going but decided to go just before it started. The fist five volleys I shot from a bi-pod to make get used to shooting at closer range as my gun was not sighted in for it. I made due, aiming a little low and to the left. I would have preferred to adjust my sight but it was a very fast pace.

An awareness of the pace of the event is something I will definitely take away from the experience. Keeping pace with the other shooters was a challenge as I often found myself struggling to load my gun in time. One of the volleys I even failed to get all ten of shots off. This was due mostly to my gun jamming. But constantly striving to load up in time was no help. Over all I was fairly tensed about trying to keep up.

Accuracy in shooting comes from a number of different factors. One of these factors is a steady hand. The less relaxed I am the worse my hand shakes. So to better myself as a shooter I need to work on relieving tension during shoots. There isn’t much I can I do about my gun my gun jamming as it was fully cleaned before the shoot; however I will able to better deal with the overall pace of the matches by purchasing a couple of additional 10 round clips. That would set my total count up to five allowing me to load up all before hand and then load up again during the halftime break.

Recently I have been debating on purchasing an upgrade to gun, something to improve my accuracy. Already having a sight that cost twice my gun it would have to help me steady my shot. In my experience, steadying the gun is the main issue that holds cost most shooters steadying the gun. For a while I was debating a front pistol grip. When a camera is mounted on a helicopter it is mounted with a soft mount as apposed to a solid mount as there will inevitability be shaking in the helicopter and the soft mount won’t transfer the shaking to the camera shot. This got me thinking if I did spend the money on the front grip it would only transfer more of my shake to the gun and ultimately through my shots. Furthermore when shooting I realized that I shot better with a light grip then a solid grip. My trigger is stiff in that it takes eight pounds of pressure to pull the trigger. While applying this to pull the trigger my aim is thrown off the most. So rather then spend my money on a front grip I will be spending my money on a lighter pull trigger. Normally a match trigger is only a two and a half pound lighter.

So from the trial run of the shooting match I learned that getting used to a match pace is something I will need to practice on and that I will be buying a couple of clips and a match trigger set. I am happy with how well I am shooting as I out shot the guy that ran the competition. That’s a feather in my hat.

Setting the stage

This blog was going to be about all areas I am aiming for success, school, work and competitive shooting, however anything interesting that happens at work is held in confidence. So, this blog will be about my efforts for success in school and competitive shooting. Don't let the idea of a gun scare you, my gun amounts to little more then a remote whole puncher. Yes it does have the potential to do more it lives its life putting wholes in peaces of paper. Its a Ruger 10-22 Charger. I am incredibly good shot and am moving forward, as much as I can, with heading into the competitive ream of shooting. I have been shooting since I was about twelve on and off but since I purchased my gun about a year ago I have been shooting rather consistently. I average 300 rounds a month which will go up as I recently joined the gun club across the street from my house. As for my academic background I graduated from Central Bucks School District South High School and then started at Delaware Valley College full time as a Criminal Justice Major. I switched over to being a Secondary Education Major for a little bit. Then after a couple semesters switched back to Criminal Justice. Needless to say that set me back academically along with some trouble passing En II. Since then I have switched to a part time student in order to work on my resume and so I could have a little more time to focus on the few classes I take at a time. Currently that entail En II and Non-western Society. More background information on this blogger can be found on Facebook [note: I have been told my picture resembles a grapefruit with a smily face drawn on it]. In short this blog this will be insight to my life with the school and the range as presented with an an interesting presentation.