Art Eatman
Moderator In Memoriam
I took off for some wanderings, up to Taos, NM, for the Memorial Day weekend. Visiting some rafting outfitter buddies there. Found a gun-oriented pawn shop over on the northwest end of town. Friendly folks; they sell a lot of EBRs.
Then, over to Raton. Found the elinte Sporting Goods store on Cook Avenue near the Interstate. Friendly. Good selection of guns''n'stuff. A guy wandered in with some show'n'tell stuff: One of those evil 6.8mm pistols, and an AR15 pistol. He was going to a Barret .50 training session at Whittington.
Went out to Bo Clerke's rifle barrel operation. Neat! Lathes and mills and such all over the place! He holds bore tolerances to one ten-thousandth of an inch. Button rifling. Mostly .17, .20 and .22 caliber. Ships about 180 a week. He's an old-time competitor in such things as the Palma Match. Same attitude as Gale McMillan (and me) about the waste of time in "break in" of barrels.
Then wandered up for supper with Larry Ashcraft in Pew-Eblo, Colorado, and then on up to Colorado Springs. Went out prairie dogging with Justin, out east of town. Fun! Justin has a CZ .17 Mach II and I used my 77 Mk II .223. The wind wasn't bad, so we got shots out past a couple of hundred yards at times. I'd taken my ancient Model 70 Swift, but I wasn't doing all that well with it. Mostly me, I think, although I did get one really nice Ma Bell hit. (When a fine crosshair covers about a half a prairie dog, you know he's a ways out. )
On the way out of town, eastbound to the prairie dog area, Justin pointed out the Dragon Man's place. http://www.dragonmans.com/ Maybe next time I'll stop in and look.
And so to home. Now it's reloading time with some of those fancy plastic tipped .223 bullets. Hmmm. Browse Cabela's for a shooting table for the back of the pickemup, or the rooftop platform of the Gray Goat (Old 4Runner).
Fun.
Art
Then, over to Raton. Found the elinte Sporting Goods store on Cook Avenue near the Interstate. Friendly. Good selection of guns''n'stuff. A guy wandered in with some show'n'tell stuff: One of those evil 6.8mm pistols, and an AR15 pistol. He was going to a Barret .50 training session at Whittington.
Went out to Bo Clerke's rifle barrel operation. Neat! Lathes and mills and such all over the place! He holds bore tolerances to one ten-thousandth of an inch. Button rifling. Mostly .17, .20 and .22 caliber. Ships about 180 a week. He's an old-time competitor in such things as the Palma Match. Same attitude as Gale McMillan (and me) about the waste of time in "break in" of barrels.
Then wandered up for supper with Larry Ashcraft in Pew-Eblo, Colorado, and then on up to Colorado Springs. Went out prairie dogging with Justin, out east of town. Fun! Justin has a CZ .17 Mach II and I used my 77 Mk II .223. The wind wasn't bad, so we got shots out past a couple of hundred yards at times. I'd taken my ancient Model 70 Swift, but I wasn't doing all that well with it. Mostly me, I think, although I did get one really nice Ma Bell hit. (When a fine crosshair covers about a half a prairie dog, you know he's a ways out.
)On the way out of town, eastbound to the prairie dog area, Justin pointed out the Dragon Man's place. http://www.dragonmans.com/ Maybe next time I'll stop in and look.
And so to home. Now it's reloading time with some of those fancy plastic tipped .223 bullets. Hmmm. Browse Cabela's for a shooting table for the back of the pickemup, or the rooftop platform of the Gray Goat (Old 4Runner).
Fun.
Art
