Keep and Bear...

Meet the newest addition to my "close at hand" home defense...  7 shell capacity of 12 Gauge Double Ought Buck Shot.

Bedroom Arsenal: .308 Win. (Proven to 1000 yards), 12 Gauge Pump (close range), AR-15 (Mid-Range), .40 S&W (short range), 2 High Intensity Flash lights.

“Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples’ liberty’s teeth.” – George Washington

“You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.” – Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” – Ben Franklin, 1759

“I like gun control. If there’s a gun around I want to be in control of it.” -Clint Eastwood

" … the right to defend one’s home and one’s person when attacked has been guaranteed through the ages by common law.” – Martin Luther King

”One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.”
~Thomas Jefferson

”The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.”
~Alexander Hamilton

”The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will win and the decent people will lose.”
~James Earl Jones

”Gun control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars.”
- Unknown

”Make good scouts of yourselves, become good rifle shots so that if it becomes necessary that you defend your families and your country that you can do it.”
~Lord Baden-Powell

”To be prepared for war, is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.”
~George Washington

”An armed society is a polite society.”
~Robert Heinlein

”When seconds count between living or dying, the police are only minutes away.”
~Phillip Van Cleave

“There’s no question that weapons in the hands of the public have prevented acts of terror or stopped them.”
~Israeli Police Inspector General Shlomo Aharonisky

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."
-- Alexander Hamilton

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin

Men trained in arms from their infancy, and animated by the love of liberty, will afford neither a cheap or easy conquest.
-- From the Declaration of the Continental Congress, July 1775

The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."
-- Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story of the John Marshall Court

"To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
-- George Mason, speech of June 14, 1788

The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.
-- Hitler, April 11 1942

"Americans have the will to resist because you have weapons. If you don't have a gun, freedom of speech has no power."
-- Yoshimi Ishikawa

Reloading on the Bench I built in March

Back in March of this year, I build a heavy duty bench that I can use for reloading bullets and working on stuff in the basement.  Last night I finally got around to reloading my first batch here at my house.  For this round, I reloaded 308 bullets with 178 grain Hornady A-Max tips, CCI 200 Primers, and 45 grains of Hogden Varget powder. Here are some pics of the set up.

7/21/12 - Mill Canyon Trail Ride (AF Canyon)

 Lower Mill Canyon trail Head parking lot.

 

After the ride at Tibble Fork Reservoir

Lower Mill Canyon Trail Head

Tonight I decided to load the family up in the truck, along with the bike, and head out for a ride.  Konnor and I went camping (just the two of us) last week up above Silver Lake, and we discovered that there are trail heads for riding dirt bikes up near Tibble Fork Reservoir, so I decided to start my exploration of the AF Canyon trails from there. 

This picture shows the view from the Mill Canyon Spring.  It's about 5.5 miles up from the trail head. The ride up trail 040 was amazing.  It was awesome single track through thick pines and aspens.  Tons of tight switch-backs, roots, rocks, creeks, and steep hills.  It's definitely not a beginner trail.  A lot of it is intermediate, but there are a number of spots that are advanced riding while you weave your way up steeps slopes dodging tall rocks and roots, all the while making sure that you don't clip a handle bar on a tree!  It was tons of fun.  Once I got here, I pulled up the pdf map of the trails and noticed that I could catch up with trial 157, and then connect with 041 which would talk me back down to Tibble Fork Reservoir when Karen and the kids would be waiting. 

 Every so often you get signs like this letting you know where are

 Trails 157 and 041 proved to be just a beautiful, and just as fun.  I'd say they are both intermediate trials with elements of advanced sections mixed in.  Ironically, the only pictures I took were when the trial widened out, so you can't see how tight the single track is... you'll have to take my word for it.  All told, the ride ended up being a little over 11 miles and took me about an hour since I stopped to check the map a couple of times.  It was a really fun introduction into this massive trail system.  I know that there are trails that can take you all over the mountain and also up into the Alta/Snowbird area.  I can't wait to check more of this mountain out.

7/13/12 - Konnor and I Camping on Friday the 13th

Even though I knew it was going to rain, I really wanted to get out camping.  Karen had a "cul-de-sac reunion" that she went to with Kaylee and Kase, but Konnor and I went in search of a camp spot up American Fork Canyon.  We didn't have a ton of time to check out different spots, but we ended up about a mile or so above Silver Lake Reservoir.  It rained on us while we were driving up, and the rain continued till a little while after we had the tent set up.  It's a decent camping area that we found.  It's unimproved but it must be a favorite spot for many people because it's quite well used with lots of pull out spots along a creek leading into Silver Lake below.  In the tent, we watched a movie on the iPad after getting back from the "Bear Hunt" that Konnor wanted to go on.  We had donuts for breakfast and had some more fun in the creek hunting for cool rocks.  On the way down the mountain, I found one of the trail heads for riding dirt bikes in the area.  It will be a blast to get back up here for more camping and dirt biking.

6/13/2012 - Because I Can

 Need I say more?  The target was set up for 60 yard shots from the backyard, but then I figured this shot might be fun from about 65... and 3 stories up... from the master bedroom.

5/12/2012 - 1000 Yards with Dad

Dad stayed over night and we hit the range at about 5:45 a.m.  We took the Savage .308 with my special hand-loads that I've been using lately.   It was a clear morning with a very light breeze from right to left. Dad and I walked up the hill at 1K and set up the target.  He then stayed right there so that he could call out my shots.  I drove back to the shooting position and set up for the shot. about 3 minutes after the sunrise it was 46 degrees, and the station pressure was 24.86.  I used 90 clicks in the scope (due to the heavier air), and shot 2 shots.  Both of them appeared to be high to me, so I had Dad walk over and check it out.  We used our phones and he showed me (I watched him through the scope with the bolt open) where I had missed high and left.  I then dropped the Vortex Viper PST 4-16x50 scope 1 click, and held about 18 inches right for wind correction. I fired a shot and had him check it out.  It landed in the cardboard, so now I knew what had to happen. I then took 3 more shots in quick succession.  Those are the 4 shots along the top in the picture.  I took 1 more click out of the scope (now at 88 clicks like the previous outing), and shot the bottom 2 shots you see under the bulls eye.

Now that we had things dialed in pretty well, Dad set up a clay pigeon for me to hit.  I've never tried trap shooting at 1000 yards before, but it was fun.  Overall, I took 6 shots at the clay pigeon and hit all around it.  I wasn't able to break it this time, but I'll try again!

It was fun shooting at that range with Dad there.  He got pretty brave after a few shots and was only standing about 25 feet away from the target!  It was pretty crazy, because even at about 12x (the scope setting I used for most of the shots) I could see him standing there just inside my field of view in the scope!  He said it was much louder than he though it would be.  Dad said that the impact noise of the bullets were somewhere between a .22 LR and a 9mm pistol.  Then 1.5 seconds later, he would rear the report of the rifle.  As expected, since the .308 is still super-sonic (especially my reloads) at 1000 yards, he couldn't hear anything before the bullets impacted. 

4/21/2012 - Bang on Target at 1K

Success again at 1000 yards.  Today I used my .308 Savage, 175 gr Sierra BTHP, 45 grs of Hogden Varget Power, with CCI 200 Primers.  It was 55 degrees and 25.45 on the station pressure.  I used the Vortex Viper PST 4-16 power scope.  I was a beautiful morning with very little wind.  I dialed 88 clicks of elevation into the scope (1/10th Mil clicks on this scope), and it was bang on.  I took 6 shot, and all of them found the cardboard.

3/24/2012 - It's Been Too Long

After shooting last August, I ran out of hand-loads so I was out of commission for a little while.  I got so busy with work and life (finishing my basement took a lot of my time), that it took at long time to get back out to the rang.  I'm back after a 7.5 month hiatus.  A couple of weeks ago, I built a bench that I can use for reloading.  I'll have to post some pictures of it later.   Last night, I estimated what I thought the temperature and the station pressure would be for this morning.  The ballistics calculator suggested 92 clicks on Dad's Vortex PST scope with 1/10th mil clicks to get to 1000 yards.  This time, I took my little weather station so I could get an accurate reading on the station pressure and temperature. at about 7:30 a.m. it was 52 degrees and 24.75 station pressure.  This meant that the air was significantly less dense that what I had foretasted, so I shouldn't need as much elevation in the scope. I decided to use 90 clicks.  All told, I shot 8 shots.  It did appear that one of the shots was high, but on the other shots, I couldn't see anything.  I wondered if that was just because I was making direct hits directly behind the target.  That made sense in my mind since the ground isn't really dusty yet, so you wouldn't expect to see too much of a spray of dirt.  As you can see from the pictures, only 1 of the 8 shots made it to the cardboard.  The other shots all seemed to pulverize a rock that was just above the target.  You could see 4-5 distinct spots on that rock where I had hit it.  That meant that it was a good grouping, but for 52 degrees and 24.75 pressure, I should have used 88 clicks on the Vortex Viper PST Scope.  Gun: Savage 10FP, 308 cal.  Hand-loads of Sierra 175 gr BTHP, Lapua brass, 45 grains of Hogden Varget powder, CCI 200 primers.