Long Range for the Grandson...

41mag

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Texas born and raised
It's been a while since I posted anything round here but thought I would share a bit from Easter Weekend with the oldest grandson. Some of you all might even remember when he shot his first hog just before his 4th birthday. He's come a long ways since then.....

The wife and I took a little time off work to head up to the country and have time with the grandkids, and piddle around on the farm. I decided that since we weren't going to be tackling anything over the weekend, that I would haul up a box full of reloading junk and try out a couple of loads. Well not long before we left the house the oldest grandson called and wanted me to bring some ammo for the 25-06 so he could get in a little practice. Since about all I had loaded for it is were Accubonds, I decided to look around for something else to shoot paper with, and found some old Partitions I messed up years ago and saved for just this purpose.

This particular rifle has always been a tack driver and shot many groups under 1/2" at 200yds. It has never been overly particular to the loads but is pretty partial to seating depth. So Thursday, I played around with some .308 and 30-06 loads I wanted to get going for hogs, while the kid was in school. We picked him up and rushed out before his baseball game, to work on some cases. We only managed to get 30 done up before he had to split. After his game he came back to the farm with us to spend the weekend.

So on Friday morning, with the wind blowing a steady 15, and gusting up to 20-25 we set out to load some ammo, and in between gust put a few down range. I had set up targets at 100yd, 235yds, and 350yds to shoot with the .308 and 30-06 while working loads up for them. The grandson shot up the 100yd target for a while and then decided to work on a few rounds at 235yds. Since he hasn't shot that far before, I think he managed a pretty decent group for a 9yr old with a rifle that is still a bit big for him. Especially since the ammo he was shooting wasn't anything especially worked up for accuracy. IT was simply ammo I put together from left overs to shoot hogs with.
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After he had shot some at 100 and 235, I cleaned the barrel. and while it cooled, we loaded up 30 rounds of new Accubond ammo for him to work on hogs and deer with this coming fall. After we finished with this I told him I wanted to just check the zero out on it, and we hauled a target out to 250yds which is where I had set it up last August.

This is actually my old rifle which I gave to my daughter, since we fought over it anyway. So I loaded up a round and fired a fouling shot down range. With wind blowing the target board and the grass swaying in front of it, I couldn't make out the tiny hole, so I fired another holding dead on the sticker. We drove down and looked it over and returned to load up the last few rounds we had cases prepped for. After this and the rifle cooling down I fired once more before we headed to the house for a sandwich.
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We looked the target over and the grandson told me, well I guess you got me again. For most a two shot groups means nothing, but I know this rifle and load and it will simply put them together time after time after time. It's been doing it since back in the lat 80's when I got it. I know if they hit like this in the wind we were having that day not to mess with anything.

Well he won't be long taking it to me on the range, and if I didn't have the added advantage of the rifle actually fitting me over him, he would probably take me now. I think he would have faired much better shooting the ammo we loaded which is what I shot. LOL

I still have a bit of seasoning on him but he is catching on fast hanging around with me.
 
Mike,

Good to hear from you!!

I'm partial to red heads. 4 of our kids are red on the head. The other 3 are blonds. What an outfit!:)

Sorry no read headed grandkids.:rolleyes:
 
Thanks folks, and yes they are pretty awesome. This one here is the oldest of three, with the other two coming along not too far behind him. One is 4 now and the youngest is gaining on 3 pretty hard.

This one managed to get his first buck this past fall the day after his 9th birthday, and only 3 days after his mom got her one from the same area with the same rifle.
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His was the very first time he had ever shot this rifle, and he made a perfect 125yd shot on it, hers was a bit more of a stretch at just over 225yds, but for her thats like most shooting 50 or 100.
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We have room to reach out to 500 on our property but due to neighbors building directly back of the hill we don't shoot that anymore. So our original range of 350 is about as much as we can stretch out there. Once the grandson gets a bit more proficient with his range we will start heading over to our friends place and reaching out a bit further.
 
That's awesome mike ..My 5 and 8 year old God daughters are already saying they wanna hunt... Hope that don't change
 
Very cool post. My daughter just turned 1 and I hope she enjoys the things I enjoy. She follows me around the house now, but hopefully that'll continue.

Congrats grandpa!
 
Well guy's, all I can tell you about your daughters is, if they learn to hunt and fish as good as you can, the boys they will date will have WAY more appreciation for them.

Once they hit about 11 all bets are off, but then around 18 or maybe 20, they get their head back on straight and things are good again. LOL Least thats the way it was around here.

As for the hunting, fishing, and shooting, well mine has been at it since she was 6, and the oldest grandson well he jumped in a bit early at 3.5 and now his next younger brother is itching really bad, but he needs a few more pounds on him to hang onto the rifle I have for him. I know lots of folks work with 22's, and we did too, but it didn't even come close to touching off that first live round in a centerfire, even if it was a reduced load.

I wish the best of luck to you all and hope yours all take to the woods like duck to water. Just don't think they are too young for this that or the other. You might have to sacrifice a bit of YOUR time for them, but in the end it will be worth it. I have had all of mine out since they were in diapers despite the neysayers telling me their too little to be out on the beach, or in the woods, or what ever. IF you bring them up in it, they don't think twice about it. Heck they even start getting twitchy if they don't get out there in it.
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