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Ya’ done been clicked.

My wife invited a friend of hers to visit with us for the weekend. She and her husband (we’ll call them Jane and John) rolled in from LA (that’s next to TX, not in CA). They arrived Thurs night and we talked about what we should do the next day. John had heard from my wife about the great shooting range near us and had brought along a new mini-14 he wanted to get sighted in so we decided to hit the range. I brought along a Marlin 60 that I had just mounted a scope on.

We got signed in and parked by the rifle range. This being Friday morning, the range was pretty quiet. The only other ones there were a couple in their 70s trying out their new AK-47 on the 50yd line. Mrs Neck and I took a stall next to them and I got the scope on the Marlin and roughly sighted in so Mrs Neck would be on paper.

While we were chatting with the older couple and taking turns with the .22, our friends Jane and John got set up on the 100 yd line and were blasting away with the mini-14.

A pair of guys in their late twenties or early thirties arrived and set up near us on the 50 yd line with two newly reconditioned Mosin-Nagants just back from the gunsmith’s. They set about finding paper and getting dialed in and were shouting back and forth like kids on Christmas morning about how much they loved the way the Mosins shot. After a cease-fire, they leapfrogged us and set up again at the 100 yd line.

Meanwhile, the RO was keeping an eye on us all and lazily launching an occasional .308 round downrange at the 500 yd berm where he had set out some clays as targets.

Mrs Neck was having a pretty good day. She had some trouble with cheek weld and eye relief on the new scope so I will have some adjustments to do there, maybe a strapon cheekpiece.

We had shot up the small amount of .22lr that I was willing to expend so we walked over to Jane and John to see how they were getting on. They were taking turns shooting and spotting and had gotten the new scope dialed in pretty well. They were about out of ammo, too, so it was time for the shootoff. Each of the four of us got five shots on the mini-14 at 100 yds. We won’t say who won but everyone felt they shot their best of the day.

We packed up and I lugged the gear to the car and went back to the line to get John, who had stopped to chat with the RO. The two young guys with the Mosins were still shooting and exclaiming excitedly with each shot. John, the RO and myself talked for a long while about the new silencer he was testing, hunting locally, and all things guns and the RO told us of his day with a youngster who’d been put in his charge to teach to shoot.

The boy was about eight. He had started him at 50 yds on paper and had gotten him familiar with the rifle and procedures and such. When the boy was grouping well, he set some clays on the berm and the boy set about breaking those. By now the boy was pestering him as to when he’d be allowed to shoot at 100 yds. He told the boy “There’s an awful lot of big pieces there. Shoot them all up and we’ll see.” The boy spent the next hour rendering all the clays to fine dust and ‘graduated’ with glee to the 100 yd line. I thought that a great way to get across the adage “aim small, miss small”.

By now, John and I were being reminded that it was past lunchtime so our morning at the range ended with a trip for chili, burgers and beer. A fine cap to a great outing at the range.