Sustainable shooting ideas

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The 22 cal Benjamin Trail by Crosman. A 500 round tin of 22 cal. Crosman Premier pellets
I searched the web last week for a Benjamin Trail sb2 on sale...none to be had. For the same money I ordered the hatsun 95 vortex from airgun depot. We will have to compare notes to see who got the better deal!

Yep.
Fletching, nocking and tipping Port Orford cedar shafts is replacing reloading for the time being... .
I have carbon shafts, but the look like cedar.
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I bought about 800 #10 caps after the election. That will keep me entertained for the time being. Maybe more will surface soon.
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As life has it I have more time to shoot now so am trying to get to my range more often. I shoot slower, doing a lot of load work up now which takes time till I have it right. So, I am shooting more now than in the past few years just by having more time to do so.

I'm not blowing through ammo but am not restricting myself much now either.

Have several air options also which I really enjoy. Plus, don't have to drive to plink with them which is a real plus! Along with lots of pellets on hand.
 
I've been utilizing my laser trainers in both my .380 and 9mm's to stay sharp. I also have two air guns that I can play with on a milder days..and I have a bullet trap somewhere..just not where I can find it. I'm going to keep looking and set up a air gun range in the basement.
 
I haven’t changed but I also have lots of components and factory ammunition for things I don’t load myself.

If my situation were different and I didn’t have either, I would be using my PCP air rifles a lot more and likely invest in some more. Seems like folks can put lead pretty far down range with them. Pull this one back to 300 yards or less and it should be fun.



My .22 & .25 ones are better than some “real” rifles at 100 yards and no need for primers or powder; however, the “buy in” can be significant. No “free lunch”, I guess.
 
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I bought 209 primers, a flat of Blackhorn powder and a flat of Triple 7 pills, and a bunch of bullets and sabots plus two CVA rifles, a nice stainless Wolf and a stainless Optima V2, all for give away prices at Walmart a few days ago. Should keep me shooting for a while. I have plenty of 22 and plenty of hunting ammo and ability to reload my favorite hunting calibers with sufficient supplies for the foreseeable future, but I am shutting down on centerfire shooting until I understand more fully what is going on. I also have a fleet of air rifles and supplies to keep them going, just some of them below plus one of my favorite slow fire .22 bolt actions, a Savage MkII Target:

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Big Bore 44 that price was for 1K. That would be 10 tins. That is the way to buy them, several K at a time. Think I have 10 K on hand presently. Dont ever remember buying just 100 at a time. That would be foolish with several cap an ball revolvers to feed. Just sayin'.
 
Years ago, i hosted a weekly traditional archery(recurve) league shoot in my shop. If it weren't for my bum shoulder, I would consider contacting the guys and do it again. At least we could get some shooting and competition in.

The ammo crisis hasn't slowed down the bp club too much, at least not the flintlock shooters.

I have ordered a break action .22 pellet rifle.

I shoot a little centerfire or rimfire every week to stay in practice, but i don't want to bite too deep into my supply.

So for now, archery, blackpowder, and airguns are scratching my itch.
What are you guys doing during the component/ ammo drought besides abstinence?

Continue to shoot 2-3 times per month..Youngest son 'makes the rounds' a couple of times per week to the local ammo places. Jax, Murdocs, Cabela's, Bass Pro, Sprtsman's Warehouse and has really no problem finding the stuff we shoot.
9mm, 223, 38Spec, 22LR..not a ton and not everywhere but hasn't been an issue..'slightly' higher than preCovid times but about 1/2(or more) of the online places..

Just no mag dumps, slower shooting..fewer 17/25/30R magazines..load them 'light'....But same frequency per month.
 
3crows reminds me of a low cost, low intensity way to stay in the fold.

I have 3 Sheridan Blue Streaks that have been great fun to rebuild and reinvestigate the very best projectiles for.

All three of these guns in the photo are from my youth and were used when I trapped and they still get shot on the cheap.

One fun quest is trying to find the most favorable load for the Savage. In the day, going up within shift-whistle sound of Federal Cartridge, we of course used only bricks of Federal. WHEN A *BRICK* WAS 500 ROUNDS!:cuss:

Then a cousin and I were out at his place up north and he was using some other brand which returned better accuracy. Now, I like to pull different .22 from my broad range of makers to compare them. You can imagine it taking a bit of time with the Savage out in the desert continually being distracted by sammiches & beer,

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Todd.
 
I had already started mostly shooting rimfire, for handgun training, by age fifty, almost a decade ago, when age, wear, and tear started afflicting my right thumb, hand, and wrist. One nice thing about a medium-frame DA revolver, is that shooing it has so much application to shooting every type of firearm. I love my S&W Model 17-4, which I have owned for decades. The current panic-demic has relegated most of our training to a couple of remote pieces of private land, that are in the family, where the manager of the estate would rather that we not tear up the land, too much, so I have been internettin’ rimfire bullet traps.

I have, also, been looking into flintlocks, and archery.
 
Who is actually hunting with their pellet rifle?
I can't use the present tense but that Sheridan of mine above not only hunted but got me good money to supplement my traps too.

Dead shot-head shot

Money in the bank!:thumbup:

Too, *air* rifles have a long and storied hunting history beyond my bagging rabbits and other fur$ critters.

Todd.
 
I've been finding enough rimfire ammo to keep me going without having me dip into my stored rounds---might be shorts, might be magnums, might be subsonics, might be Stingers ect.... and have purchased 4 rimfire firearms in the last year, adding to the ones I already had---I've gone rimfire in a big way.

Do have 2 old Sheridans and a TC Omega if things get really bad---but they haven't got that bad yet.
 
Who is actually hunting with their pellet rifle?
.... I've squirrel hunted in the past with the ..22 cal. Benjamin Trail from my earlier post. 14.6 gr. pellet @ an average 816 FPS, ( I chronographed it myself ). Did it for the challenge and because I had already seen what those pellets did to inanimate objects. It's fun if you have the patience to wait for the right shot; which is what hunting's all about. One thing I've learned is with that pellet weight & velocity my maximum range is about 20 yards to be ethical about it. But it's legal here and the season runs until the end of February. I was planning on some more 22LR squirrel hunts before then but I may take the Benjamin Trail out again just because it hasn't taken a squirrel in the last couple seasons. With regular firearms & ammunition currently in short supply and thus expensive, air rifles are gonna see a popularity increase which could mean that they, too, will go up in price and down in selection.
 
I've been squirrel hunting with a slingshot - and even bagged one ! That was about 30 years ago, I haven't done it since.

I've bagged squirrels and rabbits with a .177 air rifle.

As for using a bow, well, I've got tendonitis in my draw-elbow that's so bad I can draw once and then it's time to go home. So, bow hunting is out.
 
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