Weekend Outings - Busts!

Seems like the two big outings I had planned for the weekend fell through in one way or the other. I was going to take the kids shooting out in Barboursville on my parents' farm with my step-Dad's old Ruger 10/22. After that we were going to go out to a friend of my Mom's place a few miles down the road to have a cookout.

Well, as far the the shooting goes, that was a complete failure. I knew the gun had a bad rear sight and I pre-ordered a new rear sight for the gun which had arrived on time. Victory, right? Well, not so fast. I couldn't get the old rear sight off without getting really aggressive about it. Since the gun isn't mine I just left the sight on my step-Dad's desk in case he wanted to try his hand at it.

On top of that, the barrel was plugged with what I can only guess was some sort of corrossion. To that end was left a little vial of some sort of ballistic corrosion cleaner, a cleaning rod, and some wipes. Okay - I guess I was to clean the gun, too. And I did try - for about 30 minutes. I made some headway with the solvent and cleaning rod. Every time I pulled one of the pads out off the barrel, it was filthy.

I managed to get the rod about two inches back into the barrel, but no more. The barrel was still fouled and my faith in this weapon was now severely shaken. I did oil the bolt up a bit (it was stiff as hell). I guess this old Ruger had been neglected for quite some time.

I thought I remembered my grandmother having some old bolt-action .22. So I asked her and she said, "Oh, I think I have something like that." So I followed her back to her wing of the house and she reaches into her dresser drawer and pulls out a loaded revolver! It was some old .35.

I said, "Grandma! This is loaded!"

To which she replied, "Oh, yes. Ready for action."

Haha. I love that lady! So I asked her if she had a .22 rifle.

"The only rifle I have is the one in the lamp."

Now, my Grandma isn't crazy despite her highly advanced years. She does have a rifle-lamp. It's an old Springfield 1903 (complete with ridiculously huge bayonet!) in an old-style wooden rifle stand that has a lamp built into it. It's actually very cool. Totally steampunk.

No worries - I took the kids out anyways. I had brought my shotgun and some target shells with me out to Barboursville. I taught them all some gun safety. Understandably none of them wanted to shoot the shotgun. I would've let them, too - standing there helping them manage the gun the whole time, of course.

Well, that was quickly finished. I only had 25 shells. Next on the slate was the cookout. We got there and there was a total lack of kids in the 10-14 age range. My kids (10 and 13) quickly got bored playing with the younger kids who were all eight and younger.

We stuck it out for a while, though. Just as the band was about to start playing, it started to rain. Between the soon-to-be-busted nature of the cookout and the bored state of the kids we decided to pack it in and go home.

Oh, well.