We're waiting on our last cow to pop her calf any day now. She's really quite small and it's her first so we're keeping an eye on her. Rose slept out there last night in the van, I stayed home in bed
I had to go check her after lunch, but by the time I got there Rose had come home from the agriculture thing she was at this morning so we both spent an hour with the cows. We got home and a friend from down the road called to say she wanted to come and see the calves, so Rose went back down to the bottom block to meet her. I got my hunting rig on and grabbed the old BSA Sportsman 5. Drove down to the middle block, and walked in to do some offhand plinking on the gongs. I was sure the sky was going to open up and my hunting rig has the wind smock and rain poncho already strapped to it so it was easier than swapping those across to my every-day rig. I'm walking down the track and stop to climb over a large tree across the track. I'm looking for the black wallaby that hangs out in here on his own. I'm looking in the shadows of a group of trees around a small waterhole when one of the trees I'm looking at gives a big shudder and I hear a low-pitched crack. I'm wondering what is happening when this 30m-tall tree slowly starts to lean to the left, then starts dropping rapidly. At about 30-degrees it hits a second tree, pauses for a second then slams into the ground. Not often I actually get to witness one coming down less than a hundred metres away. Our cows, and ourselves were in that group of trees just last week, those trees were their shade. On a side note we noticed last night that the big dead tree that I sometimes shoot at near the house fell down yesterday so we'll have to clear that soon as well - it's about 800mm diameter and five-metres tall but very rotten. Luckily it fell into the block and not across the fence. It was particularly handy when I just wanted some velocities without having to walk further up the paddock.
I carried on down the hill and across the creek, scaring all the roos away. I noticed a large rabbit up near my gongs about 150m away and as I got closer it started bouncing slowly down the hill toward me, which seemed odd if it had spotted me. I kept going to where I was planning to shoot along the fenceline at the 120mm gongs and it kept coming down toward me as if I didn't exist, and finally stopped about 12m in front of me, just to the left. I lased the gongs at 33m and 62m and the plate at the fence at 137m, then fired three shots at the 62m gong. The rabbit just sat in front of me. I held the phone on it and fired one into the mud at my feet and it still didn't move.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_yndJpAnVcAll I could think is that it must have myxomatosis, which I haven't seen since I was a kid. So I walk up intending to shoot it in the head, only to discover at six-metres that it's a perfectly healthy hare, not a rabbit, and not bothered by me in the least
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPbg0cw8c94He wandered up the hill so I walked back to my firing position, and looked up to see him trotting back to the 62m gong, and calling his girlfriend to come join him. I asked them to move and they trotted up into the shade about 20m behind the target, out of the line of fire. When I lased the gong at 62m it was giving me 69m and 71m readings on the ground around the gong so my misses were hitting the mud about seven-metres behind. I doubt the .22LR was flinging mud back as far as they were but they just sat up there for half an hour while I fired seventy rounds at the 62m gong, with a few at the 137m plate to get some wind reads and a few on the 33m gong to confirm the mid-range trajectory, then wandered up the hill to inspect the target.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oELYwpbOovo
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Not particularly great, but with open sights I'm pretty happy with that. About 20 on the gong, two or three hit the wire hanger, a few on the 33m gong and a handful were around and on the longer-range plate when I'd lost the wind strength. I was mostly holding between the centre and half a target to the left of the edge of the gong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYDLrMMTqCEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOzCAGHymiEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLEUsahm7JsThe BSA has a V-notch rather than a U-notch. The U-notch on the SMLE is drawn up in the middle by the light being bent around my cataract to form a fairly distinct W-notch with rounded bottoms. With the BSA the middle of the V is being drawn up to form a large triangle in the middle of two tiny V-notches, a very distinct triangle that totally obliterates the front sight. A handful of times I could see a perfect sight picture, most of the time I could see this big black triangle and no front sight. I could raise my head to look over the rear "triangle" to find the front sight, lower my head down to where I figured the top of the blade should be level with the rear sight, move over the target, and make some hits. I didn't take the goggles with the EyePal aperture on them but I will next time.
I kept six rounds so I had a full magazine just in case I came upon a fox and headed up over the hill, seeing another three hares. I got up top when Rose rang to say she was almost ready to move the water trough so I set off to the bottom block at a fast walk. Fifteen minutes later we dragged the empty 600-litre trough up the hill almost 400m, with Rose doing almost all the dragging. Then I set off back along the route. I could've gone home with Rose and had her drop me back at the middle block to pick up the ute but decided I wanted the exercise. All up was almost exactly 5000m and felt good. Might manage it again tomorrow perhaps.