Snowflakes in Hell

States that I have deposited hot lead in:

I think maybe I should make it my goal to shoot in all 50 states.

From commenter Gregory Morris:

I always felt O/Us were better for accuracy sports, whereas SxS shotguns were better for scaring the boyfriends of teenage daughters.

How true.  I don’t have any teenage daughters yet, so maybe I should go for the over-under eh?

Bitter and I went to Myrtle Grove WMA shooting range in Maryland.  It’s a nice facility, except we learned a few things.   For one, you need to bring string.  Targets are placed on pieces of string strung between posts.  Lots of string was cut, or not placed in the right places.

One guy had a neat contraption made of PVC pipe that hung off the baffling, and looked like it provided a much more stable target platform than string.  My preferred platform would have been a thick twine, with the target held up with black clips.

On Pennsylvania PGC ranges, the state provides target backing, but it’s at fixed 25, 50, and 100 yard intervals.  The nice thing about the string system is you can place targets at 10 yard increments all the way out to 100 yards.  It makes shooting pistol easier.  Maryland also allows up to ten rounds in a magazine, as opposed to Pennsylvania’s three, which means you spend more time shooting rather than reloading.

The other thing is to take bug spray.  It was a hot sticky day, and the flies wouldn’t live me alone.  Sunscreen probably would have been a good idea as well, though we managed a bench in the shade, not all of them were.  One guy brought a big patio umbrella.  I think he planned on staying a while.

The range was a little messy, and needed some cleaning, and maintenance.  To be fair to Maryland, Pennsylvania ranges can get pretty ugly if they are at the end of their maintenance cycles, but shooters tend to keep them from getting too ugly.  There was also brass everywhere that looked like it had been there a while.  I’ve been to ranges at home where guys are there picking up brass quite literally as soon as they cooled down enough after being ejected from my rifle.  Our grounds do tend to get littered with steel casings, but reloaders gobble up the brass.  Are there no reloaders in Maryland?

All in all I liked the facility.  It was run safely, and I was happy to see it busier on a holiday weekend than I see a lot of Pennsylvania ranges.  Worth the yearly $20 dollar shooting permit.  I will have to return sometime when the weather isn’t so hot and sticky.

After doing some clay shooting with Countertop this weekend, it got me thinking two things:

1. I suck at skeet.
2. I think it’s high time I got myself a decent shotgun.

I would have been lucky to hit a fourth of the clays on the skeet range. I did 21 out of 25 on the wobble trap range. Skeet is a lot more difficult than other clay sports.As for the shotgun, I currently have a Mossberg 835 pump action, which I’ve generally found adequate for the few times I would go shoot clay birds. I never got out much to shoot at clays, but not because I don’t enjoy it, rather because there are few places in my area where you can shoot clay birds that aren’t private clubs. Well, now I’m in a private club that has a really good skeet and trap range.

So what should I get? I’m looking to move away from pump. I’m not sure semi-auto is the way I want to go either. So that leaves side-by-side and over-under shotguns. The only problem is, that class of shotgun will generally push you over the $2000 dollar mark if you want anything halfway decent, and I’m not sure I would use it enough to justify the cost.

I’ve always been partial to the look of side-by-sides myself, though, I suspect for clay shooting the over-under configuration is probably better. Any thoughts on that? I’ve also noticed that CZ makes shotguns at what seem to be bargain prices, but I don’t know much about the quality. I know CZ pistols are low cost and high quality, so I’m hoping their shotguns are similar. I have my eye on these:

1. CZ SXS Ringneck
2. CZ O/U Canvasback

I’ve also been considering these models from Charles Daly:

1. Model 306 Side-by-Side
2. Model 106 O/U
   

If anyone has any experience with these or can offer advice it would be appreciated. Also consider that I’m not about to spend $4000 bucks on a shotgun. I don’t envision myself getting serious enough about the shotgun sports to justify a ton of money being spent, but I would like to have something that’s a bit nicer than your bargain basement pump shotgun when I do want to shoot some clay birds, which should be more often now that I have the opportunity.

I’m not really feeling inspired to write something, well, inspiring.  Won’t be blogging too much today, since I’m still in Virginia.

Waiting periods are one of the more ridiculous “reasonable restrictions” the gun control movement has come up with.   Kevin shows us why, along with some really awful media coverage, which, sadly, is to be expected.