Sorry I’ve been away. It’s been the day job, and a bunch of other stuff. I’ll get you caught up and then let you know what’s cooking for the summer:

Turkey Season 2006: I had two close calls over 4 days of hunting, and then the weather turned ugly and the day job called me back. One gobbler came up the logging road at the campsite at midday on Thursday and I worked him for 45 minutes, trying to get him in. Saturday morning, I was working a gobbler close by, and another good ol’ boy lit down from his perch and came right to me. For 10 minutes, he was just on the other side of a big Oak tree from me, but I couldn’t get a shot. He was less than 10 yards from me, but he trunk was only 10 feet away. Thursday morning, I saw Mister Natural out in the pasture, doing his thing. He saw me at 400 yards and bugged out. I never saw him again. I also had a good flydown encounter at the mouth of Hootin Holler, but it never came to anything. I came back to town on Sunday. I didn’t feel defeated, but I didn’t feel satisfied. I ended up cashing in a week’s vacation for the money, and I only went back out on the weekends. That’s okay. I had my fun.

Shooting Projects: Both Moose and Angus love their Mosin Nagants. Moose tried the M44 and fell in love—to the point that I bought an M91/30 for him for his birthday. Angus was not quite up to the standard loads, so I set scaling down the 7.62X54R for him. My first attempt was still too stiff – 150 grain PowerPoints over 45 Grains of H4895. I knocked it back to 35 grains, and got into Angus’ comfort zone. I’ve also lopped off quite a bit of the stock and mounted a recoil pad and cheek piece. Moose took his M91/30 out in late May and had a serious blast. I’m going to fix him up with a good deer load.

The Rendevous: I had tried to get a 24HourCampfire Rendevous going in January, but it petered out as Memorial Day approached. At the last minute, Cincinnati Area Mensa decided to take the open slot and we had the apron filled with Class 3 shooters emptying Uzi’s, MAC 10 ‘s, etc. into the berm. A good time was had by all.

Upcoming Projects:

1) Now that the recoil onAngus’ bubbafied M44 is no longer an issue, I’ll tinker with the load to get the best possible 50 yard accuracy I can. Angus is going to be developing his own load.When it’s done, I want a hot 30-30 equivalent that will drive a 150 grain SPand down a deer inside 80 yards.

2) The M91/30 that Moose loves is probably going to get a 165 grain Hornady over H4895.

3) The Savage 99 was out this past weekend with 150 Grain Corelokts over H4895. It has a problem that still persists:it needs several fouling shots before settling in. I tested the load. It jumped around the chronograph a bit.I’m probably going to go back to 165 grainers, but I am bound and determined to work my way out of Varget and into H4895.

4) The Marlin 336 came out too this past weekend. I tried two variants of loads with sabots. Both stunk for accuracy, but when they did hit something—ZOWIE! 2-liter bottles with water are quite a show. I also tried a few loads with lead bullets and I was not really impressed. I do think I will try some more with pistol powder and see if I can’t get a nice plinking load out of it. 10 grains of Unique under a 160 grain gas-checked yielded 1400+ on the chronograph.

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