These are the kinds of words that stoked my passion for this safari.

"But there are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy and its charm. There is delight in the hardy life of the open, in long rides rifle in hand, in the thrill of the fight with dangerous game. Apart from this, yet mingled with it, is the strong attraction of the silent places, of the large tropic moons, and the splendor of new stars: where the wanderer sees the awful glory of sunrise and sunset in the wide waste spaces of the earth, unworn of man, and changed only by the slow changes of the ages through time everlasting."

-Theodore Roosevelt
Khartoum, March 15, 1910
 

A beautiful sight

Now that's what I call a productive afternoon.  Since my 59.5gr load shot so well in practice, I decided to load up 40 rounds for the Safari Rifle match two Sundays from now (30 March).  This will let me save my dwindling supply of factory ammo. 

Now, I've loaded almost 60 total rounds of 9.3x62mm, and I was shocked to see that I'm more than halfway through my pound of Big Game.  I'm used to loading mild .38 Special and .44 Special, with about 4-4.5gr of powder per cartridge.  I've been on the same pound of 700x for a year now, and I'm just barely putting a dent into it.  But when you're using almost 60 grains per cartridge, you burn through a pound of powder (7000 grains) in fairly short order.  Time to find a big jug!

Testing my gear under pressure

Now that I've got at least a semi-acceptable load dialed in, I can use it for practice far cheaper than even the Prvi factory ammo.  That's a good thing.  I still need to get a chronograph and see how the velocity compares to factory ammo, but based on the shot placement, it should be about right.  I reckon I'll load up about 40 or so rounds of this current load in preparation for the PR&GC Safari Rifle match at the end of the month.

The first time I shot this match was a year ago, and my rifle was brand new and just barely sighted in.  I hadn't gotten any real accessories for it, just the rifle, scope, sling and some ammo.  My goal then was to get used to the rifle and optic, and I was pleased as punch with both.  Now, my goal is to practice with my shooting sticks and fine-tune my walking-around loadout for the safari itself.  So let's make a short list of things I know I'll be lugging around on my own person:

1.  Rifle
2.  Ammo
3.  Water
4.  Snacks
5.  First aid kit
6.  Multi-tool
7.  Knife
8.  Flashlight
9.  Compass
10.  Rangefinder
11. Survival/possibles kit

I won't have all of these on my belt, of course, but I do want to fine-tune my belt setup further than I have in earlier posts/thoughts.  That generally means ammo, water, snacks, multi-tool, knife and flashlight.  My daily carry rig, as I mentioned before, is a Frequent Flyer belt from the Wilderness.  I've worn this for years, and it's comfortable, yet rigid enough to carry a pistol and all my daily accessories, and bomb-proof durable.  I see no reason to try anything else on this trip.  On the belt will be my Leatherman Wave (11 years old and still going strong) in the factory leather belt sheath, my Sure-Fire G2 (nearly as old, albeit with a replacement KX4 LED conversion head that makes it significantly brighter and longer-lasting) in an even more ancient Blade-Tech scabbard, a Twin Loader (also from the Wilderness) for two fast rounds, and my Westley Richards belt carrier for five more rounds.  For the purposes of the match, I also plan to carry a sidearm as I do when deer hunting.  In this case, it'll be a Beretta 92G in a Wilderness Safepacker holster.

So, how well does all this kit work on a single belt?  I'm used to having the Beretta on my strong side hip, plus the G2, Wave and a spare magazine on my left hip.  All I have to do is find room for the rifle ammo.  Now, ordinarily I like spare ammo on my left hip, but the manual of arms for a bolt-action hunting rifle generally means I reload with my dominant hand.  As such, I'll put the TwinLoader just in front of the pistol, and the belt carrier just behind it.  I'll give it a whirl at the match and see how I like it.  Since none of the stages are more than 5 rounds, I will download my rifle a bit so that I have to reload on the clock and put my setup to the test.  I have a set of suspenders designed for military 'war belts' if I need any support with all that gear as well.

Where does that leave the rest of my gear?  Well, my folding knife will live where it always does, in my right front slash pocket.  As for the rest, right now I'm looking at either a small daypack or using my existing Maxpedition Jumbo EDC Versipack.  The Versipack can hold quite a lot of gear, and is actually quite comfortable to wear over long periods (I use it a lot when hiking or even just going to the zoo with my family).  My concern is that it is not tied down (though I could conceivably lash it to my belt if I so chose), and I worry that it will get in the way of my right-side gear if I position it so the strap isn't on my shooting shoulder.  I may end up looking at a fanny pack of some sort.

I'll also test out some clothing choices at the match.  I've got a pretty solid choice of hats, either boonie-style or baseball-style.  I tend towards the former because I've got fair skin and get sunburned rather easily, so I appreciate the extra coverage.  I'll likely bring both in case the boonie proves too cumbersome in the brush.  I also tend towards long pants and sleeves when outdoors, for the same reasons.  I live in a desert, so it's not as punishing to have my lower limbs covered as it would be in, say, Houston.  Since I'll be hunting in the dry season, I hope South Africa will be similar.  For the past few years, I've been wearing Cabela's Trail Hiker pants.  They're a bit heavy and hot in the summertime, but they wear like iron and are very comfortable for me.  Everyone's a bit different when it comes to fit and cut, so your mileage may vary, but for me the Trail Hikers have the best wear, best pocket placement, and least chafing in long use of any pant I've worn in the past decade (which admittedly, isn't a lot of them).  Of course, footwear is also crucial, and until my Russell Joe's PH boots get here, I'll stick with my comfortable New Balance sneakers with Smartwool medium hiker socks for the match.

The moment of truth.

Well, it's time for the moment of truth.  I shot an IDPA match this morning, and did reasonably well.  I shot some follow-up drills and did better.  Then I scampered off to the rifle side of the facility to test out my first-ever batch of rifle handloads.

I set up a makeshift rest with the range's carpet-covered wooden blocks and my folded soft case, loaded up the first three rounds (56.5gr of Big Game) and got to work, checking each individual case for pressure signs.  Then three rounds with 57.5, three more with 58.5 and so on until I got to 61.5gr.  By that time, I had started to develop a bit of a flinch from shooting off the bench, and I decided it would be impractical to continue shooting groups.  I fired one round with 62.0gr from the shooting sticks (mostly to verify there were no pressure signs, and there weren't), and banged steel @ 200 yards.  I fired five more factory Prvi rounds, but the flinch was starting to show.  I buckled down and fired one last round and banged steel.  I like to finish on a high note.

Then it was off to the butts to see how I did.  And boy, was I surprised.  I had a few stringers that I will readily ascribe to the emergent flinch (especially on the last two sets of three), but the 59.5gr load (rounds 10, 11 and 12) shot sub-MOA @ 100 yards!

Now I need to get a chronograph and see how much velocity that load's pushing, and load up some more from about 59gr to 62.5gr and see if that's the sweetest spot or if there are greener pastures.

Now, on to the shooting sticks.  Work bit into my free time, so I only had time to craft one set of sticks.  I used the green Home Depot garden stakes with a section of bicycle inner tube to make a very simple apparatus.  And yet, with a proper hold, I was able to shoot reasonably well @ 200 yards with it.  I found that by laying my hand in the crotch of the sticks, and using that to brace the gun and prevent it from bouncing, I could shoot pretty well.  I really like these sticks.  They're extremely lightweight, stiff, tough, and practical.  Best of all, they cost me all of $7 and change.  I'm thinking of getting a third stake to try the tripod route, but right now I'm finding it hard to argue with the simple effectiveness of the current setup.  Still, experimentation is what this is all about, so I'll give it and the wooden swivel bipod sticks a run for the money.

Crafting Shooting Sticks, Part 1

I stopped by Home Depot today, thinking I could get some dowel rods to use for shooting sticks.  Unfortunately, HD's dowel rods cap at 4', not nearly long enough for use while standing.  So, off to the garden section I went.  My initial thought was to get some 3/4" bamboo poles, but again, no such thing was available.  I picked up a six pack of roughly 3/8" bamboo, but they are far too flimsy for my purposes.  Right next to them, however, were some 6'-long, 3/4"-thick polymer-sheathed, steel-core garden stakes.  Surprisingly lightweight, and reasonably priced, I think they might make a good two-legged set of sticks when linked with a piece of old inner-tube.  I also picked up a pair of 1"x1/2"x6' slats, a 5/8"x2" hex bolt, washers and a wing nut to make a hinged set of sticks.  By Sunday, I should have two functional pairs of shooting sticks to test after I fire my first set of handloads.  If either pair works, I'll use them in the safari match at the end of the month.

Pictures will go up once I get them created!

Reloading... progress!

I was supposed to fly to Dallas yesterday for a training conference, but Mother Nature decided otherwise.  To console myself, I ventured into the reloading room to work on my 9.3x62mm loads.  I had done a bit of research and talked to some folks who do quite a bit of reloading in this caliber (in addition to some good advice from people reading here), and it made me confident of some of the dimensions I would need.  So, off to the loading bench I went.

As commenter "BS" mentioned after my earlier reloading post, I started with a lower charge and worked up.  I loaded a few rounds in each charge weight, going up one grain at a time.  So now I've got 18 rounds theoretically (see below) ready to test-fire, hopefully next weekend if the weather cooperates (and it's Phoenix in March, so it usually does).

I did find some unusual results.  All of my cases are once-fired Prvi Partizan brass.  I miked four or five out of the batch to see if I needed to trim, and they were all within a few thousandths of each other, and well within acceptable length.  When I loaded them, I got a fairly wide range of COL.  Minimum was about 3.295, and max was 3.307.  That seemed like a large discrepancy, so I used my bullet puller to tap the projos slightly forward, and reseated them, thinking my seating die might have come loose.  They all reseated... to the same COL they were before being pulled.  The 3.295 cartridge reseated to 3.295, and the 3.307 cartridge reseated to 3.307.  All of them fed and chambered in my rifle with no issues, but it's troubling.  There seemed no rhyme or reason to why they were different lengths.  I had rounds with the same powder charge near each of the extremes.  None of the charges got up into the neck of the case, so I'm not yet dealing with compressed loads.  I'm going to start with the lightly-loaded rounds and see if there is any variation in point of impact, recoil, or any signs of pressure.  If not, then I'll gradually work up.  I didn't load up to the max yet, I can always come back and load them if I see no pressure signs.  The next batch I load, I'll mike every case to ensure uniform length, and the projos as well.

The second thing I wish to accomplish before the weekend is to construct a basic set of shooting sticks.  I'll shoot groups off sandbags on the bench, of course, but I would also like to shoot some factory ammo from the sticks to refine my technique before the match at the end of the month.

All in all, a day of both frustration and satisfaction.  The weekend will determine how it all ends up.

Sick and tired

No, it's not a rant, I am just literally sick and tired.  Hopefully the antibiotics will kick in shortly and my nose will clear enough to get a good night's sleep.

I'm also going to be away for the first half of next week for a professional conference, but hopefully next weekend I'll have some pics of a prototype set of shooting sticks.  Also, some behind-the-scenes progress has been made on the 9.3x62mm reloading quandary.  More to come when my head stops pounding, my nose stops oozing techinolor, and I've slept more than an hour straight.