The joy of shooting

Yesterday I packed up my CZ 452 and a couple boxes of ammo and trucked on out to the range. I didn't bring any super fancy hand canons, or any tactical tupperware, but just the .22. I had a ball. I forgot how fun it can be to simply try and shot small groups with a bolt-action .22. First I had to get the scope configured. Again, nothing fancy (spartan would be more precise), a Cabelas Pine Ridge in 3x9x40. Out of the box it was low and right, but grouping well. Over the next 50 minutes I got the scope semi-dialed in and the groups dropped. I still have some work to do, but the last 5 rounds could be covered by a dime. Of course, that was only at 25 yards, but I'm going to keep trying till I can do it at further distances.

What's in your range bag?

Brigid at Home on the Range wanted to know what I carry around in my range bag. Sadly enough, my range bag looks similar to my man cave. That is to say, Cluttered. My range bag does double duty, it is both a range and hunting bag. I didn't include the piece of beef jerky left from the last dove hunt, or the handful of receipts from range visits long past, but I do have lots of .22 ammo as I was sighting in my CZ 452 that I finally scoped. Sadly enough it prefers the expensive Greentag ammo, but hey at least it gives me a 5 shot group that can be covered by a dime (25 yards right now - good for me but most can do better I think). Essentially, it shoots much better then I do.

Back on target (no pun intended), the range bag contents.



Six types of .22 ammo
Eyes
Ears (electric muffs and in ear plugs)
A swiss army knife
Spray oil
matches
knife sharpener
flashlight
hand held talkabout
batteries
lip balm
Binoculars
3 stray shotgun shells (3 inch BB, 2 3/4 7.5, and inexplicably a .410 in 9 shot (I don't own a .410)
stray brass (.303, 30-06, 7mm, 223, 9mm, & .38 Spcl)
1 live .22 shell (probably from a Remington bulk pack that split on a previous trip)

March 2nd, 1836

173 Years ago today, Delegates to the 1836 Convention gathered in a small village named Washington-on-the-Brazos, and voted for Texas independence. A partial listing of this declaration is below. Here's hoping that US can hold things together.


"When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty and property of the people, from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted, and so far from being a guarantee for the enjoyment of those inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression.

When the Federal Republican Constitution of their country, which they have sworn to support, no longer has a substantial existence, and the whole nature of their government has been forcibly changed, without their consent, from a restricted federative republic, composed of sovereign states, to a consolidated central military despotism, in which every interest is disregarded but that of the army and the priesthood, both the eternal enemies of civil liberty, the everready minions of power, and the usual instruments of tyrants.

When, long after the spirit of the constitution has departed, moderation is at length so far lost by those in power, that even the semblance of freedom is removed, and the forms themselves of the constitution discontinued, and so far from their petitions and remonstrances being regarded, the agents who bear them are thrown into dungeons, and mercenary armies sent forth to force a new government upon them at the point of the bayonet.

...

These, and other grievances, were patiently borne by the people of Texas, untill they reached that point at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. We then took up arms in defence of the national constitution. We appealed to our Mexican brethren for assistance. Our appeal has been made in vain. Though months have elapsed, no sympathetic response has yet been heard from the Interior. We are, therefore, forced to the melancholy conclusion, that the Mexican people have acquiesced in the destruction of their liberty, and the substitution therfor of a military government; that they are unfit to be free, and incapable of self government.

The necessity of self-preservation, therefore, now decrees our eternal political separation.

We, therefore, the delegates with plenary powers of the people of Texas, in solemn convention assembled, appealing to a candid world for the necessities of our condition, do hereby resolve and declare, that our political connection with the Mexican nation has forever ended, and that the people of Texas do now constitute a free, Sovereign, and independent republic, and are fully invested with all the rights and attributes which properly belong to independent nations; and, conscious of the rectitude of our intentions, we fearlessly and confidently commit the issue to the decision of the Supreme arbiter of the destinies of nations. "