Maybe I Should Get The Flu More Often!

This last week was a terrible week and a great week all in one. Last weekend I started to feel under the weather and by Sunday evening I was down for the count. I did not get out of bed for 4 days! Bleh. I missed two days of work which I always feel terrible doing. I always feel no one believes you. I tried to go in on Wed morning but the crew took one look at me and sent me back home. This flu was a nice weight loss program though! Just kidding. But somehow in between my sleeping and occasional sips of chicken broth there were things happening around me that were great. All related to shooting.

A couple of weeks ago, I had almost forgotten about it, I sent an email to Leupold optics asking them if they wanted to provide me with a scope to use on my rifle for the up and coming Boomershoot 2012. Hey it doesn't hurt to ask, right? Shelley Rae and I are a 2 woman team sponsored by ESS Eyepro. They are paying us to go shoot things that explode! Well I received an email from Leupold on Monday that they are going to send me one. A VX-3 8.5-20x50mm. How cool is that? I had a very generous friend Ken that loaned me his Weaver scope if I could not get one otherwise. But this is a great way to be introduced with the Leupold gang and start a relationship with them. The Stable Table that ESS ordered for us arrived in the mail. We will use this as our shooting bench at Boomershoot. The seat and table can rotate on a super stable base. Next, my shotgun is nearly done being altered by my gunsmith Jim Corolo from West Coast Armory.

As I mentioned before Jim has sealed up the loading gate "devil prong" as I call it and is beveling out the loading well opening so it is wider and leads the shells right in. Yea! JP Enterprises might be able to get my rifle in time to shoot it at Nationals next month in Vegas. Yea! It is going to be a beauty of a rifle too. Don't worry, I'll be posting lots of photos. My contract with Nosler was signed and I should be receiving my first  batch of about 4000 bullets of .223 and .308 and they are sending me 500 rounds of match grade 168 grain .308 ammo for Boomershoot. Yea! In my boredom this week I searched for a company that had a good selection of patterns to coat my shotgun with. Better yet could copy a pattern that I have in mind. I found a company in Spokane called Liquid Transformations that does coating for anything from guns to cars and cabinetry, you name it. There are tons of companies in our great NW that are related to the shooting world. They have over 100 patterns to choose from. They do a "dipping process". Many companies offer gun painting but usually the patterns look like they are sponge painted on. They look terrible and all the same. Liquid even has a live cam of there work shop and if you are lucky you can catch them working on a project. I hope to get to Spokane soon and take a tour of their facility and film it. They said they will give me the VIP tour! Maybe by then I will have an idea for my shotgun and can watch them "dip" mine. Of course the pattern I want is not in their selection and would take a few more bucks to create it. I'll have to think about that. Another good thing that happened is that a business idea popped in to my head two weeks ago and that is looking better this week.

An idea sprung to me of an internet business related of course to the gun industry. Believe it or not this angle is not out there yet. Well, it is but my version is well, different. I know, that is what they all say. Of course I can't mention it yet. But the select people that I have told think it is great. I don't think they were humoring me. The domain name I want was available so I bought up every version of it. My fabulous friend and graphic designer Jennifer of Yellow Paws Design who has done all of my business logos, etc is working on my design. I hope to be successful enough to hire Shelley-Rae to be my content and promotions guru. They always say to delegate out the work you can't do well to those who do. Find good people. These two ladies are the best at what they do. I know it is not fair to talk about this neat idea if I am not telling you what it is right? Well, too bad. You will have to wait. And last but not least an interview for a pitch of a tv show.

I have a good friend who's boyfriend is a freelance producer for many of the popular reality tv shows out there on some of the major cable networks. For months I had been throwing ideas out of topics that are not yet covered or are covered poorly of women and guns. Well he called me and is going to interview me and some of my other lady shooting pals to pitch to some networks. There is nothing guaranteed and could fall flat immediately. But I still think it is exciting! These are all little things by themselves. But I realized as I was complaining about how miserable I was all week that I had so many blessings at the same time. I will gladly take the good with the bad in this case.

30CalGal
"Shoot Like A Girl! If You Can....."

New Washers In My RPA Quadlock Receiver

I just got my rifle back from my gunsmith Jim Cloward last night. (I just realized I have two gunsmiths named Jim now!) I mentioned last month that I thought I was having strange un-called shots in matches at the end of the season last year. I did a side by side test to our Hall action rifle and I knew something was wrong. A friend thought it could be that the trigger springs (washers) might need replacing. Others said no way that those last forever in a Quadlock. Well it turns out the washers were bad. Not only bad but a couple of the washers were actually broken. Over time it got weaker and weaker. Normally the bolt action is really tough to work. It is the stiffest I have ever used. But that is the personality of a Quadlock. The last few times I fired it it was as light as any other action. Not good! So Jim replaced all of the washers and I dry fired it last night. Wow what a difference a day makes. It is back to the good ol stiff bolt action. Really stiff. Trigger feels great. I also mentioned before that the system on this action is not a coil spring as with most firing pins. These are curved washers. I found a photo at right of what it looks like. I took my lovely rifle out to a local match today at 500 yards to test it out.

I must say I was so happy to shoot my rifle again. I do miss the zen of slow fire. It has been a couple of months since I put rounds down range. Once again the weather was terrible. It rained all day. I am wishing I lived in AZ right about now. This is getting tiresome. Anyway, the rifle shot beautifully. I am confident to take it out again to long range. My first 1000 yard match won't be until May in Eastern Washington. So 500 and 600 yard practices will have to do for now. It helps in training for a hard hold and smooth trigger pull. I also need to sit down again and load a bunch of ammo. I slammed together 65 rounds last night for this match. Makes me nervous when I rush like that. Can't do that when I have a big event to shoot in. At least I loaded before I had the two martinis.

30CalGal
"Shoot Like A Girl! If You Can........."

Our Multi-Gun Shooting Clinic Today. In Sideways Rain.

I love Swingers! Now now gang get your head out of the gutter. Not that kind of swingers. Our friend Scott Hawkins who is a major Multi-Gun competitor met us (Charles and I) out at Cascade Rifle and Pistol Range today with his truck and trailer full of all kinds of fun targets. He works for a major target company so he has everything you could want. There were "Swingers" and Turners (not sure if that is correct name) steel plates, Texas Star, Double Swinger, long range plates and more! Unfortunately we were not able to use Star and other pistol steel because the range does not allow it unless pre-planned with the board. Steel in a general use has to be a minimum of 40 meters. So we used the "damn it" plates on the rifle range for 50, 100 and 200 yards shots. What are "damn it" plates? Those tiny, skinny, sliver thin steel plates that make you say "damn it!" because they are a bit difficult to hit. We had to paint them white because the berm was so dark and you really could not pick it out at all. Speaking of dark, it was raining so hard this morning when we all started out to the range.

The rain was sideways rain in fact. Dark skies. I think we all secretly wanted to call it but no one could be the first to admit it. It was actually quite comical. We all did admit it at dinner tonight of course. But at about 1:00 the rain stopped and although still cold it was much better conditions. Scott based drills off of the published stages of Nationals in Vegas coming up. The pistol drills were excellent for me. I worked on my timing of the moving targets. Not having a ton of experience in action pistol the moving targets always freaked me out. He had three stationary targets as well and I learned to make use of those still ones as my peripheral kept track of where the moving targets were and transitioned back and forth trying not to waste precious time. Now I have much more confidence and understanding of how to approach them when I see them. I need more of course and I wish I had the ability to train with these every day. Then we had an important drill of close up targets getting a cadence that is not a double tap. I tend to do double taps instead of a fluid flow of shots across the targets. When I tried to shoot super fast I fell in to the double taps. When I slowed it down I had a great even rhythm and my time was actually better. Next over at the rifle range Scott had us up and down off the ground in our drills. The very wet ground. Thanks Scott.

We actually had two mats but they were soon muddy from sliding on and trampling off over and over. Oh well. I knew a hot shower was waiting for me when I got home. These drills were to engage close up targets then the two far away plates however you wanted and then jump up and run over to the next similar set. Sometimes we started from the ready and sometimes with rifle on barrel unloaded and mag in holster. You learn quickly different ways of getting down in to prone and especially how to get up from that and keep running. Not so easy with a rifle in hand. Once as I was getting up my finger pressed the mag release button as I was fumbling to hold on and it flew out as I was running. That nifty new large mag release button was too big today. I see how this practice is priceless. Does the AMU need an "older" gal on their squad? All they do is practice shooting drills every single day. And get paid for it. And free ammo. Sigh........

Note to self: move out to the country and build a range in back yard and work for target company to get cool stuff and practice every day all day. Oh and Win The Lottery! Thank you again Scott for spending your precious day with us.

30CalGal
"Shoot Like A Girl! If You Can........."

Perhaps a Calendar of West Coast Armory Gun Ladies?

I have been working my Tuesday & Wednesday shifts at West Coast Armory for just about a year now. I noticed it took a few months before the gang accepted that I may be sticking around and was not just going to work there a few weeks and bug out. Shelley, Marilyn and Joanna were the three original ladies. I was told only recently they were a bit nervous that another woman was going to work there. A strange phenomenon but true that women especially in work environments tend to take awhile to warm up to each other. I understood. Sometimes it is fun to be the few special ones. Thank goodness they all liked me! At least I think they like me. The original three
took a cute range photo of them in a "Charlie's Angels"
 pose. (First photo at top) That was the profile pic for
 the first year of WCA. They thought it was time to take
 another photo. The first one of the four of us was our
 rendition of "Addicted to Love" or "Addicted to Guns"
 as we called it. (Second photo down) From there we
 have taken several more. Shelley, sadly for us but great

 for her, left WCA last month to work full time with
GUNS.COM. The new gal in our photo is Marlyn's
sister and she works admin in Marilyn's office.

Needless to say the photo shoots have been fun to do. The photos have been taken by both Jeremy Pagan with JP Visual Design and Roy Lin of Weapon Outfitters. I was thinking since we already have about 6 images we only need 6 more and we can fill a calendar year. Might be fun to make a calendar! A WCA promotional give away. Buy a gun or membership and voila. A gift for you! Of course that is if you think we are as special as we think we are.
Aren't we?

30CalGal
"Shoot Like A Girl! If You Can..."