TacticalGearReview

Wow! Buckshot’s Place.

Something I am going to have to live up to and keep some relatively fresh output on to keep people attracted (if I can manage that at all?) and keep it fresh.

I guess I will start with a little background.

Life long Ohio resident.

First gun, a .22 rifle from Wards, in 1971.

First centerfire rifle was a Schmidt-Rubin M1911 7.5 X 55 Swiss rifle for the magnificent sum of $19.95 plus sales tax for a rifle in VG – Exc. condition with an issue cleaning kit and 10 rounds of reloadable ammo. Got me into surplus military rifles, got me into reloading, got me into collecting infantry rifles all in one easy, cheap and simple purchase. BTW, I got it from the F. W. Woolworth store in the Lima Mall!

Got into shooting both of those, and shooting Dad’s S&W M-10 light barrel 5” nickel .38 Spec. Shot that revolver so much I actually “shot the nickel off of it”. More correctly, I shot and cleaned it till the nickel started to come off, especially on the ejector rod, from the Hoppe’s penetrating through cracks in the nickel and dissolving out the copper base coat that the nickel sticks to!

Got into High Power in 1973 via the immersion method. Having shot at 100 yards and occasionally 200 yards, I was invited to go to a National Match Course Match at Camp Perry, OH (about 1 1/4 hours drive time) and entered the Sunday Match of the old ORPA/DCM Clinic and match. Shot a 7.62 X 51 NATO M1 Garand that I had never seen till that day. I WAS familiar with Garands, just not that one.

Worked the pits for the first third of the day, then fired 200 yd. Offhand, 200 yd. Sitting from Standing Rapid Fire, 300 yd. Prone from Standing Rapid Fire and then 600 yd. Prone slow fire, then back to the pits for the rest of the other groups shots. They shot 200 and 300 yd. then went to the pits and we shot straight through, then we had to return to the pits for their 600 yd. stage.

First introduction to Camp Perry. One linear mile of firing points on 4 ranges, all named after WW II 37th Infantry Div. Medal of Honor recipients. A big red Baker Rag (Large red swallowtail pennant) on each end of each of the 4 ranges, and every one of those flags pointing a different direction! That place is WINDY! Also had a range alibi during one of my rapid fire strings, had to stop the rapid fire string for a BOAT IN THE IMPACT AREA! Bullets land in Lake Erie at Camp Perry. In previous years machine gun, AA artillery and regular artillery also landed in the lake. Almost every US gun above .50 Cal. was proof fired at Erie Proving Grounds (right next to Camp Perry) with all of their shot falling into the lake also. ALL of the lake charts are marked as to the restricted impact area, but fishermen don’t pay that much attention and sail right into the impact area, thinking the bullet strikes are fish feeding rather than the dangerous bullet strikes they really are.

Spent two full weeks living in an ex-POW hut at Camp Perry during the Smallbore phase of the National Matches in 1976. Attended the National Rifle Instructor’s School and the National Rifle Coach’s School there to learn to help with our club’s Jr. Smallbore Program. Still working that program, with some off time in down years, as of this year, 2009.

Along with the rifle shooting, I was also into pistol shooting. Shot some Cooper Style Combat back in the bad old days, WAY before IPSC, UPSPA or IDPA. Get together with some guys, set up some stages out of Cooper’s first book (now out of print as far as I know) and have at it. Almost every match had El Presidente as one of the stages. This was back in the days when Cooper, Thel Reed and Jack Weaver (of Weaver stance fame) were still shooting their “LeatherSlap” matches out in California, with some occasional mention in Coopers column in Guns and Ammo.

Desperately wanted a Colt 1917 revolver, and bought one at the gun show. This started a long love/hate relationship. The New Service (M1917) fit me great. 5 of the 6 chambers worked just fine. But the sixth one would not “carry up” on double action firing. Not something you want to happen in a combat match or in combat.

I bought parts, I tried to find competent gunsmiths and I learned to do a lot of work myself, but I never did get that revolver past about 97%, just could not make it right. There were some people, Python smiths, who could have worked on it, but they would not touch it since there were NO NEW PARTS, everything had to be done with USED PARTS, and they could not make any money or guarantee work using used parts.

Finally traded it off to a friend, who was fully informed of it’s problems and still wanted it. Long, expensive and sometimes painful lesson that “you can’t always get what you want”!

Having moved in the middle of my sophomore year of high school, I was not all that involved with high school. Good grades, but few friends, no romances and no after school activities.

So I took up reloading. Used to go through batches of 1,000 148 gr. cast lead wadcutters at a time. Load them up, go shoot them, get some more and start over again. Got me so grooved on the S&W K-frame that I can lay off of one for a year and have the muscle memory back and working within three cylinders full.

End Intro part 1.

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