Sunday April 15th was our opening day for CAS in southern New Hampshire. I gathered up my duds and headed out to the range at 0630 Sunday morning. I really hadn’t shot either the long guns or pistols from holster since October last year so I was a bit rusty. Actually I’m always rusty but just a bit more in the beginning of the season 🙂
We had six stages and targets were placed at the almost impossible to miss distance (I missed one) makes the first shoot of the season all the more fun.
Two things plagued me. First is my dominant eye, which is my left eye while I’m right-handed. I have to close it when I shoot my long guns or I’ll twist my head and aim with my left eye. That usually takes a second or two at the beginning of each rifle stage….actually it seems like a minute fumbling between which eye to use. With the pistols I usually sight with my dominant eye….something I’ve gotten used to but on this shoot the targets were so close that I found myself just looking over the barrel with both eyes and pulling the trigger…with success.
My second problem was black powder fouling of my 1866, or at least I think it was. On stage 4 after 7 rounds my ’66 jammed. I had to lay it down and continue with the rest of the stage. It seemed to be a combination of fouling and maybe a round that wouldn’t chamber. When I go home I looked at my un-shot ammo and it appeared that the bullets were not seated deep enough and the crimp therefore was weak. I actually don’t remember having a problem while loading but apparently I didn’t pay close enough attention to the crimping. The weak crimping would probably contribute to excessive fouling and the added AOL, though way under the max AOL may have caused the jam as well. Needless to say I’m going to run all those bullets through the seating and factory crimp dies and make sure they are done right.
I met up with my black powder Pards, Driftwood Johnson, Iron Pony, Wild Bill Blackerby and Rafe Caradec (who doesn’t look anything like Tom Selleck, by the way) and we did have a great time makin’ smoke.
Willy