I mentioned gopher shooting in another post. I was out yesterday with my buddy Kurt. We shot a passel of gophers, I with one of my very few bolt rifles. A wonderfully accurate but soon to be obsolete 17HM2, CZ and a compact Leupold 2-7x and a ten shot banana clip.
My buddy Kurt made up for my lack of firearms class shooting a .22Lr Low Wall with a Parsons repro Lyman 5A that I build for him 15 years ago.
Shooting off home-made cross-sticks out to 125 yards his shooting was only a tad slower that my awkward manipulation of the modern mechanism.
We were off the Deep Creek Road between White Sulpher Springs and Townsend on large acreage where a rancher runs registered Herefords, big and beautiful red and white animals.We we're in a deep draw called a gulch in this part of the world with downhill shooting and no concern for ricochet.
There were several pairs of Eastern Kingbirds nesting in the chokecherries of the draw along with pairs of Mountain Bluebirds tending nests boxes on the fence posts along the gravel county road. The snappy rimfires didn't overly upset the residents, except the ones we were shooting.
We got rained on twice before the sun broke free and cloud sailed over us at a rapid clip most of the day. We sat on our gun cases chatting between spotting and picking off the little buggers. The smell of sage was strong around us and lupine and arrow leaf balsam root were just beginning to bloom. Lots of hits - lots of misses, Kurt and I agreeing that when we held the cross hairs really still we got the shot.
These photos were taken a few years ago about 100 miles away in a pasture off of another county road called Springtime. A similar pic with Kurt appeared on the cover of Dave Brennan's now defunct
Accurate Rifle Magazine several years ago.
One more photo (I had made into a postcard) of this same rifle and a 22 WMR in process in my workshop. Kurt's rifle has the keyed forend.
After the longest, coldest, snowiest record setting winter of my life it is great to be outside for a good part of the day recreating with a great friend who will occasionally let me shoot his very classy rifle.
