Wednesday, August 6, 2014

The Seventh Annual Northeast Bloggershoot...Feast Your Eyes On The Guns

...and take a look too at some really happy campers shooters.

The bloggershoot - it was excellent. That regardless of the seven (7) hour drive to get there, a drive that should have taken about 3 hours and 45 minutes to maybe 4 1/2 hours at most (only about 5 hours to get home). Yes, the drive going there was pretty abysmal at least as to traffic. The company for the ride, my son Brendan and his girlfriend Haylie made it bearable. As I said though, the Bloggershoot was excellent and so too were the dinners (one the night before the shoot and one on the night of the shoot after it was over) but then they are all part of the annual NE Bolggershoots.

As usual (at least for the three bloggershoots I have attended) there were plenty of shooters and many more guns than shooters. The firearms ran the gamut from a derringer in 22WMR up to a Maschinengewehr 34 (MG-3) a full auto, WWII era, German machinegun. The guns we brought along were:

Hungarian Mosin Nagant M44 (7.62x54R)
Yugoslavian SKS (7.62x39mm)
Marlin 336 (.35 Remington)
Remington R1 1911 (.45 ACP)
Taurus PT145 Millennium Pro (.45 ACP)
Beretta 92SB (9mm)
Beretta 92FS (9mm)
Glock 26 (9mm)
Ortgies (.32 Auto)
Beretta 70S (.22 LR)
Ruger MKII (.22 LR)
S&W Model 22A-1 (.22 LR)

Those, with enough ammo to last the day made for a fun shoot. I shot a decent bit but most of my day was spent watching Brendan and Haylie shoot, helping to load magazines, getting reacquainted with shooters & bloggers I met at previous bloggershoots and meeting other folks whom I had not met before.

Enough jabbering about it, let me show it to you in videos and pictures:



Our fearless leader giving us some range rules
and safety pointers before the shooting started.

Jay talking about the firing line and the backstop.


Commence Firing. Actually not the first people firing but close
to it. The line could accommodate about 4 to 5 shooters at a time.
 

Is it my turn yet!

I am bad on names and don't remember his but I can tell
you that he was having lots of fun shooting lots of guns.

 I am going to have some serious fun with this.

See, what did I tell you!

Just another funster blasting away with a 22. The range was about
25-30 yards (my guesstimate), perfect for a 22 and okay for the rest.

I'll figure it out.
 
 
Got it! (And yes even folks with obstacles to
surmount showed up - its called dedication).
It wasn't all shooting fun, here are Brendan and Haylie hard at work.
When you shoot, shoot, shoot - it  means you have to load, load, load.

Beside the targets right at the backstop, I set
up my portable target stand at about 5 yards for
pistol shooters and as it wound up for 22 rifles
shot by newbies and shotguns shot by maniacs.


Lest anyone think, by my last caption that we had
less than responsible shooters in attendance, let me
point out that the stand made it through the day with
only two bullet holes in the PVC. Those were in the
cross member right under the cardboard. Actually we
had very responsible and safety minded shooters. Any
safety infractions were few and minor and caught quickly.
It was amazing that only two shots hit the PVC.
The targets on my target stand were pretty popular
throughout the whole day. As you can see it took
its shares of hits. The cardboard backer was a half of
a shipping box I had bought at Home Depot. About
$1.25 for the folded box, cut in half along the folds
and I had two backers for the price of one. Excellent.

There was a wide selection of toys, err firearms, available.
All one had to do was ask and the answer was almost always
"Sure you can shoot it" it meaning whatever you asked to shoot.

Wish I had realized there was table space left, I had my gun
cases on the ground along with my ammo and gear. Oh my
aching back. Anyway just a couple more of the guns at the shoot.

I am pretty sure that this gal was a brand new shooter in training.
"Training for what?" you may ask and I would answer - for a
lifetime of fun, ofliberty to exercise her rights, of being able to
defend herself, and of shooty goodness that puts smiles on faces.


After a quick lesson she goes right at it.

Speaking of quick lessons, here we have one on
what is almost an ancient firearm - I think it
was a Brown Bess (heard that mentioned a few
times during the day) but I'll be darned if I know
for sure. Anyway, our hostess and her eager instructor.

A bit more of a lesson on what
wound up to be a flame thrower.

More armaments, look an extremely eeeeeevil bayonet
on an equally eeeeeevil black gun - oh Lordy please save me.

Closer look at the revolver in the above photo. I think it's
a Smith & Wesson Model 17.

Oh shit - somebody is serious about his guns! Those are
both full auto guns. FUAC, in a free state, unlike as in NY,
The People of These United States can shoot what they want.
By the way, the one on your right is a MG-34 of WWII vintage.

Just another look ay marvelous engineering.
Haylie shot the one on your left and it put
what I can only describe as a divine smile
on her face, she absolutely was radiant.

Yes, in the state the motto of which is Live Free or Die, there
were an abundant number of silenced firearms at the shoot. 

Just another two.
 
Speaking of just another two, here is Brendan
shooting two at once. Think he had fun? 
 

As I said, there was one heck of a variety.

Nice example of a Mosin Nagant.


Lest you suspect there were not other great shots of folks at the
shoot or other great shots taken by shooters who were there,
just take a look at this photo by Cher. Talk about flame throwers
and let me attest it was loud too thus dad holding onto his son's
ear muffs. The blast you felt on either side of that beast slayer was
hotly immense to say the least. By the way, the young lad was one
of the safest shooters at the bloggershoot. Dad taught him well.

When table room ran short, folks started
putting their guns anywhere

Pistols, did anyone say pistols.

Boomers to the left of us, boomers in front of us,
boomers behind us, boomer to the right of us.

Some purdy big revolvers but not the biggest there by a long shot.

 
 
Three of these rifles would be illegal to own in NY. Thank the
heavens for free states like New Hampshire - Live Free or Die!

A nice Nagant revolver and I have no clue as to the other one.

Couple of nice Combloc (by my guess) pistols.

Lonely little fellow.
 
That pistol just above may be lonely but
Brendan and Haylie shot as a pair.
 

I wish I could remember the designation for the Soviet rifle at
the bottom of the three. Semi auto, was made to replace the
Mosin Nagant but never went into widespread production. I want
one badly, it shoots 7.62x59R just like a Nagant, really nice boomer.

Big pistols, medium pistols, little tiny pistols - even
one with a bayonet attached to its front end.

There it is that little boomer with the blade attached and,
I am guessing, also with a laser sight sitting on top.


Then there were the weird guns, well at least one of them.
This is called a Zip 22.
 
Just another shooter having fun with one heck of a gun.

And of course, how can I leave out those from the astral plane.
Oh, wait a second, that's an Astra, that's from Spain, not outer or
 inner space. A nice older pistol, one of the many I wish I owned.

Another baby pistol, probably illegal here in NY - FUAC.

Another one that I would like to own, a Colt Police Positive.
I have bid on these before but never had the high bid.
 
Did I mention we were all having fun?
Can you tell that this little guy had fun
watching everyone blast away at a target
that he brought along for all to shoot. We
used just about anything as a target.

Another nice selection of boom sticks.

These two were exceptionally nice; I wish
I would have asked to shoot the lever gun.

An AR with all the bells and whistles.

Leave it to someone (not me) to bring a sword to a bloggershoot.
Have to admit though, it's a nice sword and a nicer SKS.


Jay having some fun with a Thompson Center Arms
pistol in the veritable 30-06 chambering.
 
 
Did I mention we were having fun, if you doubt
that she had lots of fun, look at the next pic.
 
Well, that's just about it for now. I will have a few more pics to post later if Brendan ever sends me those I took with his phone camera. I would have had more videos on my own camera had some of the videos not come out like others from last year, in super fast motion. I don't know why it happens but this year it effected at least a half dozen of my videos. Too bad traffic wasn't moving like that.

There is one last photo I'd like to show you. It was taken by Wally and I shamelessly lifted borrowed it from him via Facebook. I am certain he will not mind. Can you tell, at least some of us were having fun. Made me happier than you can imagine to see that she and Brendan were having lots of fun. That he was having a great time was evident in the video of him shooting the two Berettas at once, that Haylie was having a great time could be seen when she smiled through the full mag out of a full auto gun (sorry no video or pic of that) and in this photo of her as she finished shooting a 50 caliber revolver.
 
Someone referred to it as the 500 mile smile which was,
I think, a reference to the one way trip of one of the blogger's
to the bloggershoot. Funny thing is that the round trip drive
for Brendan, Haylie and myself was almost exactly 500 miles.
They could not have said it better calling it a 500 mile smile.
Her smile said it all if you were wondering were we having fun!
While that's it for now, this hopefully is a work in progress and will have at least a few more photos added in the next day or three.
 
All the best,
Glenn B