Time with Da

Meant to talk about this earlier, but getting wrapped up in heater install, chasing down propane tanks, and all the other stuff I was into today,

I forgot to talk about sitting on the porch with Da.

He bought an air-rifle several months back, didn’t like it and wanted to return it, but the place he bought it from was “exchange only”,,, Yeah,,, ok,,,

So, it sat, in its box until today and he decided “since I have it, may as well get it sighted in”: which means “Let the Jarhead do the trigger thing”

LOL Yeah, I still get that ‘dead-eye Dio’, even thirty years after I left the Corps.

So there we are, on his front porch, me cranking that breakbarrel for all its worth to get lead downrange, him in his favorite chair with bino’s playing spotter . We still butt heads over HOW to sight in a rifle: he wants to adjust the damn scope after every shot. I want to verify that I didn’t have a flyer or something. In this case that the rifle wasn’t the culprit with a burr in the barrel or something. Had an AR a few years back that would keyhole every round, unless you loaded the bullet into the cartridge backwards. Never did understand that but it was a tack driver with the boat-tail sticking out of the case, not the pointy end, couldn’t shoot for shit with factory loads. (BCE is gonna tell me about headspace and chamber issues now, betcha!!!)

Well, he played by my judgements of ‘gonna shoot three rounds and see if its consistent’ even though he would occasionally say something about ‘adjust that windage knob’ after I just said “I pulled that one” It’s not a bad rifle for an air-jobby, and the only reason I can see that he was having a hard time of it was he kept tweaking those knobs after every shot, not paying attention to his form. A jerked trigger or an exhale as the trigger broke; adjust those knobs some more,,,,

But,,,, we did have some quality time, doing something we both like to do: make little holes in paper from a distance. Doesn’t matter that it was an air rifle, though I would have prefered something with kick, not pull (that thing recoils the entirely wrong way!!!) the smell of burnt powder and hot brass. But trigger time is trigger time: the basics remain the same, I didn’t qual Expert four years running because I was lucky,,,, And I think Da was counting on that.

A little suggestion for y’all after todays fun: get ya a decent air-rifle and get some ammo for it. Its a helloflot cheaper than the big boys and you can get some serious time on the trigger for less than what you would spend on an ammo can of .223/5.56 And a .22 air rifle is a great game getter/pest control for around the homestead. Will easily take a rabbit or squirell and without the bangy goodness that attracts the wrong sort of attention. (and there are big bore air pushers too! Some Chinee company is making them in .357 and .45,,, sorry don’t recall the name.)