Weekend Updates – Hard work, high temps, good times
As you may notice in the picture, it got a little warm this weekend. The photo is from the drive home yesterday, as we were passing through the pit of hell that is Sacramento, but it was warm all over. Up at Coon Camp Springs on Saturday, temps topped out around104… and that’s at an elevation in the neighborhood of 6000 feet.
Well, the heat got the better of us, and we didn’t get a heck of a lot done on Saturday. Actually, the culprit was a combination of heat and exhaustion… from my 0500 wake-up on Friday to my 0200 arrival on Saturday, sleep was a precious commodity.
Even so, I got there before Dave, and sat sipping tequila as the crescent moon slowly rose over the sage-covered hills. I gave up around 0300 and went to bed… he arrived about an hour later. We were both up again around 0630.
Sunday, we got a bit more done before the heat rolled in and I had to hit the road for home.
We weren’t the only ones out in the heat doing good stuff this weekend, by the way. Jake Theyerl was out at Camp Roberts helping folks learn more about lead-free ammunition. I mentioned the event a time or two here on the Hog Blog. Anyway, here’s his account of the weekend… sometimes, no matter how well you plan, things get a little awry. The best of us work around it and overcome, as Jake did.
Hi Phillip,
Hope you had a great weekend. The shoot Saturday went just fine. Got a little hot…about 106, but we still had 30 shooters come to test out some non-lead. I think that the heat definitely kept a few folks at home that were originally planning on coming, but those that attended seemed to have a great time. We were able to set up targets initially at 25 meters for folks to get dialed in and then moved out in steps all the way to 400 meters. In all honesty, the demonstrations didn’t go as planned. I usually do the shooting for these, but bumped my scope hard while loading my truck. Luckily, I was able to recruit 3 shooters to take the shots for me. Unfortunately, it took all 3 shooters and a lot more time than planned to finally get the shots in the gel and barrel. I’m very grateful that some people stepped up to the task. Unfortunately, Instead of doing 3 rounds of the gel and water barrels, we only wound up having time for a single round. That’ll teach me to be more careful with my rifle! Good news though, I didn’t hear a single negative comment about the performance at this event. There are usually a few people that can’t get it to group, but we had great luck on Saturday. I was also able to hear some good success stories from last season. That is definitely encouraging. In general, it seems that people give more feedback when it’s negative than positive. As a result, I hear my fair share of horror stories. People don’t usually call me to tell me that they had a great dead right there shot (although I know I’m not the only one that is experiencing these). Well, I could go on and on about the day, but I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than read a play by play of the entire event. Just wanted to thank you again for your help advertising. I’m sure we had a few folks show up that heard about it through the blog. I’ve attached a few pics if you’re intereted.
Take care,
Jake
I know what he’s saying about negative feedback. It’s pretty common with the Human Condition that folks are more likely to talk about the bad stuff than the good. The lead ammo ban pretty much guarantees a large segment of the population will find any issue they can with the ammo, simply because it was jammed down their throats.
Anyway, glad to hear the event went well, Jake. Good job, even if it’s not as widely appreciated as it might be.
Had the shoot been three hours closer, I would have gone…
That gives me an idea: Perhaps we should have a shoot here in Sacramento, to show legislators about the ammunition, and also to talk about price problems, etc. Maybe COHA would like to organize it.
July 21st, 2009 at 10:23 am