Standing at the reloading bench in the basement, Garrett looked up and said, “Man, I’m so excited for this hunt in the morning. After that, we get to have a range day on top of that”. The excitement between him and me was palpable. There are few things we enjoy more than a good hunt and a good range day. During our last hunt, Garrett’s shotgun experienced a catastrophic failure that was unable to be repaired in the field. Which led to him missing out on the plentiful number of doves that were flying in the air. Fortunately, after a buddy of ours shot his limit, he passed his gun on to Garrett, and he was able to fill his limit. And a week later, we were right back out in the dove fields. Unfortunately, we did not have as good a hunt on the second outing as we did on the first hunt. But the pick-me-up was the range trip afterwards.
This trip was at my personal range, located at some family land in the Appalachian mountains, not too far from where I live. So it makes a nice little trip down to see some family and hit the range. This trip had five in attendance. My father, uncle, brother, Garrett, and I. We brought numerous handguns and shotguns for the day. Garrett and I are both passionate handgun shooters, but we wanted to get some work in on our hunting shotguns, too.
We elected to start the trip with some handgun shooting. Of course, for me, that was primarily my Smith and Wesson Model 686, and my new-to-me Model 28. The 686 is one of my favorites, and the 28 needed to be run through its preliminary shooting to ensure it was sighted in and functioned reliably. And with the plethora of reloaded 38 Special and 357 Magnum we had on hand, it was not hard to do. We did shoot at some normal targets, but most of what we shot were clay pigeons and pop cans. The only real data collection that I have from this outing is that the new Model 28 works fantastically. But that is the whole point of this article. Not every range session has to be full of data and testing; sometimes it is just for fun.
This was definitely a good exercise for Garrett, as he had never fire a single action revolver before. There is definitely a learning curve for the reloads
Now that doesn’t me this was not a beneficial range trip. Of course, we still practice our fundamentals of marksmanship, working from the holster, reloads, and multiple target engagements. The target stand that we had that day was one we threw together out of spare pallets. It has one large hanging bar for target backers and paper targets, but we also glued a series of clothespins to the lower part, allowing us to clip in clay pigeons. Accompanied by some of these Birchwood Casey clay holders.
Now you can’t put 5 shooters on the line and expect them not to come up with some kind of competition before it is all said and done. And that is exactly what we did. We would have one shooter with 6 rounds who had to engage a set of clays, but there were two other shooters, one on each side, who would try and beat him to them. The goal was to get all six and not miss any of the targets. When we started shooting, we were not planning this. However, my brother has a bad habit of “stealing” targets. He likes to let other people get on the line and then shoot their targets before they do. And thus, this impromptu competition was born. I am never one to shy away from a competition, even if I am going to lose. But there is one competition that I can never resist. And that is reminding my brother that I am a better shooter than he is. So when he stepped up to the line, in an attempt to be sneaky and steal some of my dad’s targets, I couldn’t resist taking almost all of his targets the next time he stepped up. I am a simple man, and when I can remind my brother that I can outshoot him, I do.
After we shot our fill of handguns we moved onto our shotguns. For me, that is my CZ Drake Over Under, chambered in 28 gauge. For Garrett this is a Mossberg 835. Now those with a sharp eye will notice that the photo above does not feature his 835. But rather my old Remington 870 Super Magnum. We had a bounty of guns out that day, and we all just took turns shooting one another’s guns. Now this was still beneficial. I just got a MEC 600 JR Mark V and started loading 28 gauge loads, both for hunting and for practice. That day was the first day we got to run some of my hand loads. For those interested the load is a 2 3/4 hull, primed with a Cheddite 209 primer, pushing a 3/4 ounce payload of 7.5 shot with 15.5 grains of Hodgdon Longshot. The wad I use is a Claybuster clone of the Winchester AA hull. Fret not, there will be a series on 28 gauge handloads coming in the future. But I have a lot of articles to work on, pictures to take, hunts to go on, and I am still pretty new to this whole website thing, so your patience is greatly appreciated.
There were numerous reasons for this trip. Getting trigger time on the hunting guns, exercising the wheel guns, generating some hulls to reload, but most importantly, to have fun. Garrett and I spend so much time chasing perfection in our load developments and working on the fundamentals of marksmanship that it can be easy to forget that we should be enjoying this. Not to say that we don’t enjoy all the development, testing and practice, because he and I absolutly love it, but it was nice to not have to collect data, change out loads, document every shot, hang a fresh target every five rounds, etc.
As you may have noticed, I do not have a ton a data to share on this post. The only real thing I have to report is that the Model 28 performed excellently, and my 28-gauge reloads worked perfectly for their intended purpose. I hope in the next couple of weeks to take some handloads out on another dove hunt and see how well they perform there. But the whole point of this article is just to remind everyone that there is nothing wrong with just a fun range day. We don’t always have to have an elaborate day of testing to have a range trip. Sometimes it is just about spending time with friends and family and having fun.
Speaking of having fun, I want to know, what is your favorite type of shooting just to have fun at the range. Are you a plinker? Maybe a sporting clays or trap shooter? Perhaps fast-paced handgun shooting? Head down to the comments and let me know.
Until next time, friends
Chuck