Blogshoot After Action Report

Well it's Sunday now, and another Blogshoot is in the memory book. The weather was iffy to start, with predictions of rain and temps in the 40's, but it appears that all this did was keep the other shooters away from the range, with the result being that we had the place virtually to ourselves all day.

And the turnout was good, with 22 shooters: Old NFO, JayG, Nancy and her adorably precocious daughter, Keads, Aaron, Maureen, David, Larry, T-bolt, The Miller, Glen and his son Brendan from New York, Hayden and his wife Cara, Bubblehead Les, Stretch, John, Bruce, Joby, and Cindy.

The day got off to a bit of an annoying start as Aaron and I were loading my Jeep to it's max. gross weight with guns and ammo, Murphy and Belle together engineered an escape and ran out of the house while both the door to and the door from the basement were open at the same time. (And the darn Crazy Cat Neighbors are HOME on Saturday mornings! Noooo!) So they needed to be recovered before we could depart, and as a result, we wound up being one of the last to arrive. Thanks, jerk dogs. but we got there, and after a brief round of socializing and a safety briefing to make sure that everyone was on the same page, we spent the next five hours sending much lead downrange through everything from a Brown Bess musket (Nancy) to automatic weapons and state-of-the-art rifles, like Jay's here.

Suppressed weapons were also heard, but only if you listened really hard.

I wish that I had gotten photos of every shooter and every weapon, but alas, I did not. Still, of the ones that I did get paint a pretty good picture of the kind of day that we had.

Most of the shooters were experienced but the few novices who came out were welcomed and plied with more gun and better instruction than that could have managed anywhere else. Guns were passed around and shared and people got to fire everything from .22lr to .50BMG (courtesy of Larry and his Barrett). Keads ran a great pin shoot and everyone had fun trying to knock five pins off of the table for time. (I finally managed on my third try after my S&W Model 1917 revolver went down in the first two attempts with squib loads to the amusement of all.)

Afterwards, we adjourned to our usual restaurant for dinner and socializing, and prizes were passed out to the fastest pin shooters along with a prize to the shooter with the most interesting firearm (Nancy and her Brown Bess) and the shooter who came the farthest (Glenn and Brendan from New York). Collections were taken up for this year's designated charity, Cancer Care, and the total came out to $800. Not bad at all, and many thanks to all who came and gave.

Afterwards, most people headed home, but a few of the most energetic headed for the local Irish pub to a small after-party set up by Cindy. We had some nice conversations there until the "entertainment" showed up in the form of a guy with a guitar, a huge amplifier, and an astounding ability to ruin many classic songs at high volume.

Special thanks to everyone who came out and doubly so to those who pitched in and helped run things (Aaron and Keads) or who brought big coffee pots (Nancy).