After some serious prodding I finally decided to make my first trip out to the Big Bore match in Lincolnton this past Saturday. Now, granted, it's a bit intimidating thinking about hitting a 200 meter (220 yd) target standing with a S&W 44 magnum shooting cast lead bullets but I think my worst deterrent was the drive. I just retired 5 months ago & had been driving at least an hour each way thru Atlanta traffic for 32 years and I'm SICK of driving for awhile!!
But after listening to comments (from sw282) saying my truck wouldn't go past the Atl loop & my dropcord was 10 feet too short I knew I'd better suck it up make the haul. According to the trusty navigation app it said I was looking at a 2 1/2 hour drive to the Little River Gun Club in beautiful rural Jawja.
So up at 5:30 (ain't done that in awhile
) and down the road in the F-250. A couple of hours later the trusty Google map app tells me to get off the highway and next thing I know I'm driving thru old time neighborhoods left here, right there until I come up on a huge yellow sign that says "PAVEMENT ENDS". I'm looking at a one lane gravel road thinking ***?!?! I went ahead thinking this CAN'T be long and a half hour later, one make shift wood bridge and driving thru a creek later I hit real live asphalt again. Ten more miles down the road and I pulled up to Norm's Junkyard. This is like Get Smart's entrance to the silhouette range. If you didn't know about it you'd never know it was there. I pulled on in and drove through old cars, trucks, school buses, washing machines, lawn mowers, you get the picture.
Then, out of nowhere it opened up to a beautiful field and silhouette range.
Being my first time there I was allowed as many shots on the swingers that I needed to get my red dot zeroed in on my 629-4 PowerPort. I got it as close as possible and figured it was time to dig in.
First the 50 meter chickens, 100 meter pigs, 150 meter turkeys (them gobblers are hard to hit) & then the 200 meter rams. I really didn't know going into this if I even had a chance at hitting the rams but did manage to take one on each bank. Woo hoo! Total score was only 11 but that just means a lot of room for improvement, right?
Here's sw282 shaving the tail feathers off a chicken with his 44 Magnum Hunter.
And me taking shots on the chickens.
Every two banks there's a couple of guys that take the golf cart out & reset targets. That'd be a LONG walk without those two. It makes for a great time to take a short break.
Here's a pic of the other shooters. I do believe sw282 & myself were the only ones shooting from a standing position.
Next card I picked up a few more hits, feeling better. Then, time to move back to the ram station. First bank I got positioned next to a guy shooting 41 mag with a nice Freedom Arms that was spraying me with a powder blast every shot. Ugh. Hard to concentrate with that going on so I got zero hits on that bank. Next bank, I took 2 steps back and tried again. Four ram hits in a row!! Man was I a happy camper! Addiction setting in. My second & last scorecard of the day with a very decent improvement!!
So now I'll be setting up one of those GoFundMe accounts for diesel fuel so I can keep coming back! And for the record, I DIDN'T take the same route back home!!