OFFICIAL WaGuns 2017 New Years Day Shoot at ESC

[Pineapple]

As with previous shoots I really accomplished very little shooting wise. It was more about BSing, eating, and watching people shoot stuff they would not normally have the chance to shoot. Watching my son shoot chasehooks Raging Bull with .454 Casull, priceless. He's one of those kids that's not happy if he comes back from the range without some body parts hurting. We need to do a summer shoot also. Once a year is not enough!

Chuck, YOU did a great job with some of the new shooters today and serving as an ambassador for shooting sports. your son is one hell of a shot and it was good to see you today for once outside of Cabellas.

[usrifle]

Left a little early but had a great time!

Special thanks to everyone that contributed food, heat, gennys, PIF stuff, EZ-Ups, etc.
Thanks also to the volunteers - RSO's, setup folks, cleanup folks, and Dan and Steve for making it happen!
And thanks to all for sharing your toys and making it a great, safe shoot!

Chris' Taco soup was outstanding, thank you sir! Thanks to the Admin, RSO's and all who contributed, it was a good time.

[hkcavalier]

Yes another awesome 1/1 shoot! I really need to suss my guns out FIRST so I can enjoy myself a little more. This event isn't really for zeroing and doing failure drills...

[Isildur]

Fantastic time, greatly appreciate the effort put forth by all involved.
Met a few new friends today!

[snozzberries]

It's crazy how many people and guns where there. I agree it's not time to figure out why things don't work, not time for troubleshooting. Also not time for precision shooting. Not time to hog a bench, or get too attached to doing any one thing.

Come out, blast some shit, have a good time.

I can't say it better than this so I'll just quote it:

Special thanks to everyone that contributed food, heat, gennys, PIF stuff, EZ-Ups, etc.
Thanks also to the volunteers - RSO's, setup folks, cleanup folks, and Dan and Steve for making it happen!
And thanks to all for sharing your toys and making it a great, safe shoot!

[PMB]

The shoot was great. Nice meeting several people for the first time.

I hardly ever travel anywhere without the Princess SKS and the Princess Balrog, but I was forced to today because of a grumpy ill Balrog. That was for the better I guess. It was cold and loud.
So our grand plans of dropping by to drop off food, ammo and a couple other items (as well as pick up a couple of things from a few of you- thanks gents) then split for lunch in Oly was foiled. I loaded the Burb with the 3 crock crockpot, not sure how much would still be inside since one of the dishes was kind of sloshy. Threw a couple of brand new thick towels over the tri-pot to keep as much heat in as possible and hit the road. Just for a change I thought I'd listen to some good hippy music from the 60s and early 70s on the 1hr50min drive. It was nice.
It started snowing around Kelso but the roads were still mostly clear- kind of slushy out of the middle of the lanes, but not too bad... Then a few miles before Castle Rock it turned into a white out almost. There were several sections of the drive that were thick fog and heavy snow. The freeway had a couple of inches on it and still snowing heavy and I'd passed 4 vehicles that had slid off the road (fairly fresh tracks for two of them, couldn't tell or didn't pay attention for the other 2.) I took the next exit and texted the missus to call up to the shoot to see if I was going to be in this whiteout the whole way, since the traffic that was on the freeway was mostly down to about 30mph. "Dan said it is clear skies, sunny and 70F." Alright then, back on the road. I actually put it into 4WD for a few miles - only because I didn't want to risk spilling the saucy meal in the crockpot. You starting to see how much I love you guys?

Pulled into the shoot not too late. I had the place of honor right next to the portapotty. Whoever brought that quiet generator- that is a cool machine.
About 45 minutes of meet and greet and set up followed. Got to meet Zombie66 again, after a few years since meeting at the Centralia gun show. I don't get it! He's a nice guy in real life!
A couple of WaGunners appeared to have tied one or three on last night, if the bleary eyed and slurred speech were any indication. J/k. Mostly.
Everyone gathered "on the green" to hear the welcome speech and The Rules to make sure the same number of people who arrived standing up would leave in the same condition.
Thank you RSO's for helping us keep safe!
I had to be reminded of my name (twice) Thank you Dan.
Dan and Chris bellowed out their speech and rules, then Steve Madpick seemed to have something to say. We could see his mouth moving, but it was as if he was miming. We laughed thinking it must be some of that famous MadPick humor, but that seemed to rile him up, so that bull-chested man leaned into his whispering so we could actually hear something like a breeze through a willow tree. Chris handed him a bullhorn, so then we got to hear about a 5 MPH breeze through a willow. Good times.
Finally got to meet Sted9r I believe that we have a lot in common from our chat.
Folks crowded into the covered shooting line ready for the opening bell - there were two special packages of something called "tan or white" (I don't know, I had my muffs on) placed out there at the 100 yard berm that seemed to attract some special attention. The line went hot and about 100 pounds of precious metal was immediately donated to the Evergreen Sportsman Club. (It sounded a little different than my hippy music... More like that noise that Eddy Dean and OlyDemon listen to.) About 5 minutes later there must have been an accidental ricochet that finally hit the "tan or white" ... It was a big disappointment, because up to that time I figured the purpose of that game was to see how long we could go without hitting one of them. 5 or 10 more minutes and an unlucky ricochet hit the 2nd package. Goddamned shame guys, to see that nice explosive ruined by an unlucky ricochet like that.

After a decent duration of only slightly less frenetic precious metal donation we took our first hiatus, which was prime time to fill the coffee cups and soup bowls. Whatever you have heard about Chris' taco soup- it doesn't do it justice. First as a hand warmer then it warmed the cockles of the heart. Delicious. Lots of people brought food and drinks and supplies- thanks to you all!

I got to meet Mashie finally, after a few years of our friendly banter (Mashie-"I'm going to kick you right in the balls with my steel toed boots" Me - "Oh really? Jokes on you bud, I'll be wearing a steel cup!") We were all very careful not to flip Michael any crap about the 49ers, just like we're careful here on the board.
I didn't get to hear the final score... What was the final score Mash?

Mr OKellogg and I discussed picking up chicks together. Sometime this spring we'll make it happen.

The next round of metal donation was going to start off with a suppressor-only 10 or 15 minutes... That was cool. Walking up and down the shooting benches without earmuffs on and hearing "puff"s and ringing steel... That was excellent. Then Ops showed up. This goof ball was walking around in shorts sporting his Thunder gun thing, but with his face wrapped. I have a suspicion that he was just showing off his nice legs. (They were nice, so who can blame him?!)
Somehow the call that the line was going hot was missed by a few of us standing around a little campfire, but the gentle sounds of Ops' Thunder Gun ripping the roofing off the shooting cover as he magdumped right at the "HOT!" call got the message out to us. Several of us exercised our middle fingers about that time, and Ops exercised his grin muscles. Fucker. Pieces of the metal cover rained down for a few minutes afterwards.

OldJim brought along a couple of beauties that he allowed me to handle. A single shot Anschutz 22LR rifle... nice heavy barrel, adjustable aperture sight, and a crisp ~1.5 to 2lb trigger. That is one fine shooting rifle. I believe that he has that gem for sale also.
After the Anschutz, he pulled out a 1911 in 38 Super. Bejeezus. The 1911 looked like a million bucks, and shot like a rifle. We were hitting a silhouette at 100 yards without any holdover. Accurate and a serious member of the Legion of Boom. Jim, please thank your wife for the item she sent along for my workbench.

Most of the food disappeared- although I think I discovered a secret familial relationship between MadPick and Thede&Co. MadPick's ability to unhinge his jaw has been long familiar to WaGuns... Lenny seemed to have an involuntary unhinging incident when he contemplated the Kahlua Cream Pie. Thank goodness that these two prefer different devour-able victims, Steve the cake and Lenny the pie. Imagine the dangerous struggle that would occur if they were both to lay claim to the same dessert! No, don't imagine it! It is too horrible. Carnage!

I was surprised at a few other things at the shoot. Apparently the DOL was compelled to issue Mr MadPick one of the few multi-trailer permit/license in the state for non-commercial vehicles. To spread the weight of his firearms and ammo over multiple axles was the only solution to his hauling needs. I didn't get a pic of his setup, but it was kind of like this except all guns and ammo.



For the drive home I thought I'd shake things up a little bit and listen to some hippy music from the 60s and early 70s.

[mash man]

My neighbor took this set photo.

[sc00by71]

Had an awesome time! Was fun meeting more members and putting faces to names. I didn't get to shoot much last year and made up for it this year. Thank you to all those that let me shoot from your collections as my new AR also had issues from a crap gas block causing a short stroke, failure to feed. Highlights were shooting the SCAR17, 50 beowulf, Suppressed XDM9, AK, Mosin... I could go on.
Thank you to Chris for being the head cook and for the awesome taco soup, as well as all the others that brought food to share.
Can't wait until next year!
Shawn

[sportsdad60]

Laughed out loud reading your AAR there PMB. Great synopsis of today's events.

I was thinking the same thing about the second Tannerite bomb not going off after a few minutes. All of those scopes at a hundred yards and nobody could hit the big one? I gave up my position to take first shot at it and I'm glad I did so that I'm not part of that group that missed it for the first 4 minutes LOL

[MadPick]

Here was the opening shoot for two tannerite, containers. I only caught one, the 2nd was much larger boom but I stopped filming.

https://vimeo.com/197719526

Well, that was a sad, sad display of accuracy. If those two Tannerite containers had been ISIS terrorists, we'd have all been dead. I think I have video of the full event on my phone, I'll get it uploaded.

Pineapple: You did a fantastic job as RSO, sir. Thank you for your time today.

Everyone: Thanks for taking the time to come out and play with us today; it really is a great opportunity for all of us to put faces to names, and of course to play with some toys too.

As PMB described so vividly, my voice was simply gone today and I could hardly talk. Sorry about that. I knew I was in trouble when I went through the McDonalds drive-through this morning to order breakfast, and I had to try three times to get it out. "I'd like to or... *crack*." "I'd like to order a... *crack*." Then I finally choked it out, and it was all downhill from there....

[MadPick]

Well, that was a sad, sad display of accuracy. If those two Tannerite containers had been ISIS terrorists, we'd have all been dead. I think I have video of the full event on my phone, I'll get it uploaded.

Well, I lied. I didn't keep filming long enough to get the second one, either.

I haven't seen shooting that poor since mash man brought his Russell Wilson Tannerite bomb a couple of years ago. He mag-dumped about 100 rounds at it and finally had to turn the rifle over to Amy to finish the job.

[Ops]

The RO dumped thunder making lightning. Its a lot more fun if you are closer to it.

I need to find a 308 100rd drum

[sportsdad60]

1 year is too long how about a July 5th or July 3rd shoot? Name it a Patriot Day shoot? :) fresh set of volunteers and let those who worked their butts off this time to have fun in the summer shoot? :)

[MadPick]

1 year is too long how about a July 5th or July 3rd shoot? Name it a Patriot Day shoot? :) fresh set of volunteers and let those who worked their butts off this time to have fun in the summer shoot? :)

I think we're all up for that, but we've had a really hard time making it happen. The biggest issue is range availability on a day when we can get a good crowd (i.e., not a workday), and a range that is okay with accommodating a large group of non-members.

[golddigger14s]

1 year is too long how about a July 5th or July 3rd shoot? Name it a Patriot Day shoot? :) fresh set of volunteers and let those who worked their butts off this time to have fun in the summer shoot? :)

Take over a pit during a clean-up?