theboondork's RV blog

A comment from Larry

3/21/2023

Clicking the pics kills time until you have something better to do.

Yet another, totally socked in rainy day. I couldn't tell if it was the rain running off my solar panels, or they were silently weeping. Whichever it was doesn't matter because either way all I was able to do today was step outside and take a few snapshots in the yard.

This is my response to Larry's comment last night.

As is often the case I got carried away and wrote too much to be a comment response, so I did what I usually do and turned it into a blog post for the day, which actually helped me out because I got to kill two birds with one stone on a rainy, drizzly, day that had killed my motivation to do anything of interest.

Yeah, Larry the clay sports are hidden because you mostly shoot clays at a specialized shooting range, but shooting rifles and handguns can be done anywhere, such as, hunting, self-defense, or just plinking, and more people are doing those things than going to a specialized shooting venue for clays.

Many folks in the trap shooting sport see trap shooting as slowly dying off because it doesn't attract very many young kids because it's not very exciting. Trap is a sport of perfection and concentration, and there are not many young people with those attributes anymore, and Skeet has the same basic problem.

So most of the young blood in Clay shooting gravitates towards Sporting Clays because it's more of a physical challenge than a mental one. You're shooting in a pretty area and moving around; so it's far more challenging, similar to actually hunting birds. And, maybe most importantly, it's not a game of perfection.

In a trap shooting competition, you're shooting at 100 clays, and if you miss one or two out of those hundred, you're pretty much out of the running. So to maintain that much concentration for a match that lasts a couple of hours is extremely difficult. And I've met long-term Trap shooters who have shot many 99s but never broke 100... it's a mental thing.

Sporting Clays, which my son competed in but never broke into the top three, is not about perfection; it's mostly about solving shooting problems when the target is going in different directions, much like hunting Pheasants or Doves. And out of a 100-round contest, you can easily win with a score in the mid-90s, so missing a Clay in Sporting Clays isn't the end of your day.

But either one of those disciplines is great for a kid to learn. At the very least, they learn safe gun handling, because the range officer will not abide by the slightest mistake in gun safety, and you will be removed from the field for the smallest infraction. They learn concentration, attention to detail, and how to control their emotions, and like most any sport, they learn how to lose and, more importantly, how to win gracefully.

Theboondork

There's an Arizona law that says if you own a camera you have to take at least one picture of a Saguaro Cactus.... So now I don't have to fear a SWAT team breaking down my door in the middle of the night.

The Palo Verde tree tends to look old and decrepit even when it's not. The desert is a tough environment for everything that attempts to survive here. And it's especially tough on things that can't pack up and move like the Palo Verde tree.

We humans, especially full-timing humans, can load up the camper and leave. The desert horned toad can walk to some shade, and the wily black scorpion can crawl up your pant leg. But the poor Palo Verde tree has no option except to stand there and take everything Mother Nature dishes out. And Mother Nature is a cruel mistress in the Sonoran Desert; no quarter is given.

The desert Sunflowers brighten up and seem to smile on this overcast, rainy day.

I took this picture from my boondocking spot where I could see some of the lights on the trap range at the Clay Center.

Yes Trap shooters compete under the lights. They also shoot in the rain, and the snow, the only time I've ever seen them delay a Trap competition is for lightning.

And speaking of lights. While practicing for a competition at the Ben Avery Clay Center, I've seen my 15-year-old son fire the first shot when the Clay Center opened up the trap ranges in the morning, and fire the last shot at night when they turned off the lights; that's the kind of dedication, commitment, and passion, it took to be a champion trap shooter.

6 Comments

Larry Steve Worsham

3/22/2023 11:14:14 am

Thanks for the primer on this type of sport. Way back in my career as a LEO we did shot gun training shooting clays. They would have red clays mixed in with tan ones. We couldn't shoot at the red ones. We used a Remington 870 with a 18" bbl. A lot of fun and did teach handling of the gun. In those days the 12 guage was our heavy weapon. We carried revolvers and no one had any idea that we would carry AR 15's, HK's along with semi-auto's in those days.

Tom

3/22/2023 12:14:05 pm

Even though I owned a bunch of guns I was never a fan of shotguns so I only had a few. So the first shotgun my oldest son ever fired was a 12gauge Mossberg 500 pump, and that's what he shot when he first started shooting Trap. And the older guys at the trap range were amazed that he was outshooting them with their expensive over and unders.

But when he started competing it was easy to see that the Mossberg wasn't holding up so I bought him a 12gauge Beretta over and under and was shocked at the price.

That sounds like this a good way to do some shoot, don't shoot training, yeah when the bad guys started wearing things like bulletproof vests, shotguns just didn't make it anymore.

I remember the second handgun I ever bought was right after I got out of the Air Force and a retired Florida highway patrolman sold me his carry gun which was a 6 inch barrel, nickel plated, Colt Python in 357 Magnum. Which at one time, before the Smith & Wesson 44 Magnum model 29 came out was the most powerful handgun made. I paid him $150 for that Python, and sold it just before I went full-time for an obscene amount of money.

HKs are very expensive guns, I'm surprised Police Departments have the money to pay for them. I sold an HKP7, known as the squeeze cocker, and sometimes called the "halt or I'll shoot myself gun" before I went full-time, I had it mostly as a collector gun, I never fired it but it was an interesting design.

The AR makes a lot of sense for the police, their inexpensive, easy to repair, easy to customize, and very familiar to ex-military guys. There also lightweight and very compact in the collapsible stock version. But it does have an over penetration problem using hardball that the 12gauge shotgun didn't have with 00 buckshot.

Tom

3/23/2023 10:39:36 am

I supervised a tactical team for a few years and carried MP-5's They were 9mm which dealt with the over penetration problem and a low recoil platform for better accuracy. After I retired they went to AR's. They were carried in patrol veh. and the MP-5 were limited to tactical personnel. Our preferred tactical shotgun was the Beretta buy the Remington 870 was still the mainstay.

Revolvers have gone through the roof in price..........wish I would have invested in some.

3/23/2023 02:25:18 pm

When I was in Air Force basic training in 1965, even though the M-16 was in use by the military, they were in short supply because of Vietnam, so for marksmanship training we used World War II surplus .30 M1 carbines... I think they were afraid we would hurt ourselves with a real gun, after all there had be a reason we joined the Air Force instead of the Marines.

I don't know if that's the reason, but to this day I love the little M1 carbine. I've had a bunch of them go through my hands back when I had an FFL and I still have one, and it's a beautiful surplus rifle dated 1940 something, with all matching serial numbers made by Winchester.

I know that one day I'm going to have to get down to just one rifle, and right now its between an AR, and that little M1 carbine. The M1 carbine is even more compact than the AR I currently have, and is also lighter. Ammunitions more expensive for the M1 carbine, but I don't shoot that much anymore anyway. But I think the biggest point for me would be the AR has a bad reputation among non-gunners, but the little M1 carbine seems old-fashioned and harmless by comparison, and that might be just the look I need carrying it in a camper.

Yes revolvers are expensive now days, but so is just about everything else. Used to Smith & Wesson revolvers were assembled by hand and most internal parts were fitted just to that gun. But CNC machining fixed all that and now parts are interchangeable so they could sell the guns cheaper... But they don't.

I've still got a few Smith & Wesson revolvers, and pistols, but I've sold every Colt I've had except one single-action revolver. The revolver is a 5 1/2 inch barrel single-action, nickel plated .45
that I bought about 25 years ago as a "Safe Queen." it's still in its original box and has never been fired or even cocked... cocking them can put a ring around the cylinder

I probably should've made this my blog post for the day Larry, but I figure this much gun talk would probably have most of my readers running for the door, or calling homeland security. So my blog post today will be something a little less controversial... Car keys.

Tom

Linda

3/22/2023 01:20:14 pm

I like the idea of red clays mixed in with the tans ones to teach not to just shoot at anything that moves.

3/22/2023 03:10:32 pm

Friendly fire casualties has always been a problem not just for the military, but for the police. The police are often shooting when there's a lot of other people around so it's very beneficial to be able to mentally separate the good guys from the bad guys when the bullets start flying.

Tom

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.

A comment from Larry

Leave a Reply.

Archives

CONTACT THEBOONDORK