Two Days at the Range

With the exception of instructing at a Project Appleseed event, I can't remember the last time I went to the shooting range on two successive days.  I bet if I looked in my notebooks, I'd find that it was the last time I competed at Camp Perry, which was in 2017.  But whenever that might have been, yesterday and today were both range days, and it felt good to get out there.  I only recently started going regularly again, as my recovery from back surgery has been much harder than I anticipated (I see this is my first blog entry since the one about my surgery - q.e.d.)

Because today is June 6 (D-Day+81), I'm going to write about the days in reverse order so that the D-Day photo becomes the signature photo for this entry.  Like many other activities, it has been ages since I fired my M1 Garand, so I decided today was the day to dust it off and give it a little exercise in honor of those who went to war to help keep us free.

My M1 Garand on the mat and ready to ring some steel in honor of D-Day+81 years.

Having shot thousands of rounds through this rifle (it's on its third barrel), I know it very well, so I didn't take any targets, just planned to "ring steel" for awhile.  This refers to hitting the steel plates that are permanently installed on our range at 100, 200, 300, and 400 yards.  When a bullet hits the steel, there is a very satisfying "thwack" to confirm the hit.  With the exception of the 100 yard range, the sound of the rifle firing and the sound coming back from the target are separated by enough time that you can actually hear the bullet's impact.  At 100 yards I found it a little harder to separate the sounds.  But since .30-06 is powerful enough to move even the larger steel plates, I was able to confirm that I'd hit just by looking to see if the plate was swinging.   Shooting steel is fun, and I really didn't want to be walking downrange to check targets anyway - I am not quite ready to walk that far.

I've spent a lot of time down on the mat behind this rifle, so it was with great anticipation that I knelt down to "loop up" in the sling.  I had decided to modify the configuration of my sling from the way I'd used it in competition for years, and set it up the way the Army taught it when the M1 was in service.  Their way is slightly less stable than the modified competition setup I had learned to use, but has the advantage of being quick to get in and out of while still being able to carry the rifle by the sling if needed. Since I don't shoot in competition anymore, I just felt like being more historically accurate.  When I looked into it, I found that the setup is almost identical except for the placement of one keeper (the little leather loop), so it would actually be very easy to go back and forth between the two configurations if I wanted to.

As it turned out, getting into the prone position was much harder than I'd expected.  I didn't expect it to be easy, since my spine is now fused from T10-S1, but it wasn't just my back - my whole body protested.  I just haven't been physically active enough yet to have regained flexibility, and motions that used to feel like slipping into my favorite easy chair (with similar feelings of relaxation and contentment) were physically demanding and painful.  It turned out to be a very good thing that I was on the rifle range all by myself, as anybody listening to me would probably have called 911, lol!

I did eventually manage to contort myself into a reasonable prone position, sling and all, and fire a clip (eight rounds) at the 100-yard gongs (there were two, one large and one smaller).  I got 8/8 hits, four at each. This was very encouraging and felt good to do after all this time.  

I applied my known come-up from 100-200 yards (2 clicks elevation, i.e. 2 MOA), and shifted my aim to the 200 yard line.  Unfortunately, the hanging steel plates were not visible from the prone position, due to the height of the intervening 100-yard berm.  I guess most people at our club shoot from the bench, which is what I did.  I got up from the mat and set up to shoot from the bench.  Even sitting up, the larger of the plates was almost invisible as it was painted white, and I don't think I hit at all.  After four shots, I switched to the smaller one and got two very satisfying hits and one probable, the fourth simply kicking up dust with no "thwack!"

Since I could clearly see the 300-yard steel plates, I switched back to the mat and went prone for another 8-round clip.  After two shots, I decided that shooting prone is still just too hard for me (each successive line of targets requires that the rifle be aimed a little higher, and my body just doesn't bend that way yet!)  So I switched to the bench, topped off the 8-round clip with loose rounds, and fired from there.  3/4 hits on the larger plate encouraged me to try for the smaller one. I don't' think I hit it, but was never really sure.  

The preceding targets had finally used up the last of my M2 Ball ammunition head-stamped TW-56 (Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant, 1956 production).  This was the last of my regular practice ammo that was older than me - from now on I'll be shooting M2 Ball from Lake City (LC-66, -67, -69, or -72).  I had to break into one of my wooden cases to get a can of Lake City to take with me today, and now it was time to start shooting it.

Except it wasn't.  I repeatedly lose track and need to be reminded of just how much the healing process has taken out of me, and just how much work I have to do to regain my stamina.  Today was no exception, and I realized I was just *done*.  I did still have three clips and one loose round of some miscellaneous test reloads I had prepared years ago and just never shot up.   I decided those would be fun to shoot standing, semi-rapid fire, at the 100-yard steel plates.  Of the three eight-round clips, I hit the gong 7/8, 6/8, and 3/8 times, so it was clear I was tired and it was time to leave.

I packed up and drove back out past Fernan Lake, a beautiful drive that is a treat every time I go to and from the range.  Rather than turn to go home, I decided to keep driving straight on Sherman to Schmidty's for lunch.  They make the most decadent, delicious BBQ Bacon Cheddar Burger I have ever had - it never disappoints.  So my final act in honor of D-Day was to enjoy a red-blooded American meal - bacon cheeseburger, onion rings, and a Coke (well, Dr. Pepper, but who's checking?)

Schmidty's BBQ Bacon Cheddar Burger is absolutely amazing.  I've never gotten such thick bacon on a burger anywhere else.   

Thursday, 5 June, 2025

I am desperately in need of pistol practice, so I took exactly the same pistols to the range this week as I had the week before.  My performance last week was dismal, and did not merit any photos (nor any publicity, lol).  Hence the need for practice.

I shot at Project Appleseed Large Pistol Drill Targets at seven yards, the standard distance for our pistol clinics.  I started off with a warm-up by shooting my CZ-75 with Kadet .22LR conversion kit. I fired one box of 50 rounds, two magazines of ten rounds two-handed, then ten rounds left-hand-only and ten rounds right-hand-only.  My left-hand-only shooting was so awful that I decided I needed more practice, and fired the last ten rounds left-handed, five at a time (the same as the Appleseed Pistol Qualification Target).  

My .22LR Targets.  The notebook (photo below) shows the scores for successive strings of ten shots.  Some were fired on the same target.

I then switched to my Heckler & Koch P7M8, my preferred EDC gun for the last 40(+) years.  I shot my standard practice load for this pistol: 4.0 grains of WIN 231, 124 gr. Berry's plated truncated cone bullet, and Winchester small pistol primers.  After a five-round magazine to warm up and settle in with the different gun, I started firing ten-round strings, rapid fire with a magazine change (six rounds in the first magazine, four in the second, picked up from the bench just like an Appleseed PQT).  I didn't use my shot timer. The PQT allows 15 seconds for these strings of fire, but I was practicing for muscle memory and focus so I left the time element out and just tried not to lollygag.  (Humorous aside - one of the Girl Scouts at last week's Project Appleseed rifle clinic wore a t-shirt that said "Hang on while I overthink this". 🙂)

After doing this a few times, I switched to one-handed practice.  I had intended to fire two targets left-handed and two targets right-handed, but my left-handed shooting was so bad that I fired at the two right-side targets left-handed instead.  It was worthwhile, because I improved markedly on those last two.  Practice makes perfect, and I need a *lot* more of it!

At this point I had exhausted that batch of practice ammo (32-2).  I brought along a can of the next batch (32-3), but this batch used different brass that had not been shot as many times.  I segregate my brass according to how many times it's been fired, so that when the cases start to fail (either by splitting or by failing to extract because the rims are so beaten up) I can simply discard the entire batch. This meant I had to pick up my expended brass before shooting any of the other batch.   By the time I'd done that, I was ready to go.  

(Photos to follow later - suddenly Google has freaked out and won't copy them in) (Later edit - figured it out - Google doesn't like iPhone "Live" photos.  I need to turn that feature off.  I'm sure it takes more storage, anyway.)

My HK P7M8 ready for shooting.  Six-round mags on the left, four-round mags on the right.

The seven yard targets seem closer in real life than in the photo.  

Two-handed shooting, rapid fire with magazine changes.

More two-handed shooting, with relatively consistent performance.  More practice will help keep them all in the black.  

Initially I intended to shoot two targets left-handed and two right-handed, so the first two left-handed targets are on the left, top and bottom.  They were so bad that I fired the other two left-handed as well, with marked improvement by #4 (bottom right).

A typical page from my pistol notebook.  I have kept notes like this for every shooting session since October 1998.  It really helps to be able to go back and look at data for guns that I haven't shot in a long time, to track ammo usage and round count per gun, and to gauge my progress (or lack thereof!)

All in all a good day at the range, followed by another good day at the range.  (I checked, and yes, the last time I did that was at Camp Perry in July 2017).

Mood: Happy and Reflective

Music:  Wind in the trees and birds singing

Spinal Fusion Surgery - Part II

On 4-5 June 2020, I had spinal fusion surgery in my lower lumbar spine (L2-S1).  I wrote extensively about that surgery during my recovery:

Brad's Excellent Adventure: Spinal Fusion Surgery

The results of that surgery were excellent.  It was painful for a few weeks, and I had to undergo physical therapy for several months to retrain my body to adapt to the new spinal configuration and regain function.  It took a full year to recover completely, meaning that the bones were completely fused and I was able to resume all normal activities.  

At one of my last post-operative follow-up visits, the PA told me that because all of the mobility (thus the stress and pressure) formerly spread across my entire lower lumbar spine had now been transferred to the joint between L1 and L2,  every activity that I engaged in from that point forward would constitute a decision on "how to invest my remaining cartilage."  

I understood the message, and I knew just how I intended to make that investment.  Almost exactly a year after the surgery, I was once again backpacking in the wilderness, as I had dreamed of doing for years:

Brad's Excellent Adventure: Backpacking in the Lemhi Range, Idaho

Since that time I have had four wonderful years of activities I would have been completely unable to engage in before the surgery, including many trips into the remote backcountry of Idaho and the surrounding states.  It made the surgery totally worth the initial pain and the enforced discipline of limited activity during my recovery. 

During 2024, the time came to pay the price for these activities, as I began to feel increasing pain in my lower back.  I went back to the same person who did my first surgery - Dr. Daniel Blizzard at Axis Spine Center in Coeur d'Alene.  I am tremendously fortunate to have such an advanced medical practice with top-tier doctors located so close to my home.

X-rays and MRIs confirmed that the disk between L1 and L2 was essentially gone, and my movement in that joint was bone-on-bone (I could feel the grinding).  The doctor told me that surgery at that point was optional, but certainly indicated, and that it would eventually become necessary in order to prevent permanent nerve damage.  I elected to do it sooner rather than later, hoping that a surgery early in the year would enable me to recover sufficiently to have at least some capabilities during the summer of 2025, although I knew full recovery would again take a year. So we scheduled it for January.

In these cases, rather than simply fuse the next one or two vertebrae, their procedure is to fuse the rest of the lumbar spine and the first few vertebrae in the thoracic spine.  The reasoning is that transferring all the motion from L1-L2 upwards to the disk between T12-L1 would simply result in a repeat a few years later.  By fusing T10-L2, they extend the fusion upwards into the thoracic spine, where the vertebrae are further stabilized by their connection to the rib cage.

I was told that in the end, I should not lose much flexibility in terms of bending, but that I will lose a great deal of rotational flexibility, as my entire lumbar spine will now be one big bone, all fused together.  This seemed to me a small price to pay, with no other real alternative that would allow for continued outdoor activity. 

They also did one other procedure at the same time, fusing my sacroiliac (SI) joints.  This was not strictly necessary now, but could well have become necessary in the future.  I thought "Why go through all of this twice?", and elected to have them do that operation as well, all at the same time.

Unlike the first surgery, they did not have to go through my abdomen.  They made one incision on my right side to insert a spacer between L1 and L2, just as they had previously done for L2-L3 and L3-L4.

The really invasive and painful part of the surgery was that they had to open up my entire back, both to inspect the previous fusion and hardware to ensure that it could serve as a solid foundation for the extended fusion, as well as to insert the screws into T10-L1.   As it turned out, the bone fusion was good and all of the previous screws were solidly in place.  So they removed the rods that went through the existing screws, and then inserted longer rods that would continue to stabilize the previous fusion and also extend it upwards to T10.

Now my spine looks like this:

Anterior X-ray view of my T10-S1 Revision.  You can also see the long screws angling up from each side at the bottom, stabilizing my fused SI joints. 

Lateral X-ray view of the T10-S1 Revision

The most painful aspect of this surgery has been due to the fact that they had to stretch the heck out of my back muscles and ribs to get them out of the way.  The doctor told me to expect it to "hurt a lot for several weeks".  So far he's been right.  Although I am starting to feel better, I am definitely quite sore and don't expect that to change too much for awhile.

I was very happy to take the full dose of the prescribed narcotic pain medication (Oxycodone), but have started to wean myself off of it, as I really do not like the mental fog that it produces.  I want to be able to concentrate better so that I can do the readings and participate in the classes I am auditing at ARU (separate post later on that topic).

Now that the pain and swelling from the incision is subsiding, one of the hardest parts is the pain in my lower rib cage, especially on the right side.  They told me they wouldn't know until they got in there whether they'd have to cut my rib out of the way or perhaps even enter my chest cavity.  As it turned out, they did not have to penetrate the chest, and they only retracted the rib out of the way ("We don't think we broke it, but it's going to hurt.")  This has made wearing the back brace they gave me fairly uncomfortable.

I was prescribed the same electronic bone growth stimulator as last time, and will use it for two hours daily for the next year: 

 Orthofix SpinalStim

The back brace they gave me, however, is different than last time, as it has to extend further upwards to stabilize my entire back rather than just my lower lumbar spine:

Aspen 456 Adjustable Back Brace

I had this back brace fitted before my surgery,  and could tell that it would be very effective.  The central panel on the back is stiff, and the backpack straps help to keep it pulled tight against your back and keep you upright without bending while the bones heal.  I am supposed to wear this at all times when I am up and around, for something like the first three months.   I thought it was great, until the first time I put it on after my surgery.  A look at my back will give an indication of why:

The incision on my back, with the sterile dressing.  The small patch of gauze is where they had inserted the tube to drain the blood for the first few days.  They kept me in the hospital for one extra day until the bleeding subsided, then removed the drain and let me come home.

My incision after removing the dressing.  The shorter scars from my previous fusion are visible on either side.  The doctor said it would look like I'd been clawed by a bear. 🙂

They used staples instead of surgical thread, purportedly because they had to cut through a bunch of scar tissue from the first surgery to inspect the hardware. Apparently staples hold and heal better under those circumstaances.  It feels like a zipper!  Next week I get them taken out. One at a time. With pliers. Yay.

So that is the state of my back. Even just sitting in a chair or laying down in bed was very painful, despite the fact that we have a completely adjustable Tempur-Pedic bed with a memory foam mattress. (In the hospital they had intravenous pain drugs in addition to the Oxycodone, but they didn't let me bring any of those home, lol).

Teresa had very thoughtfully bought me a mattress pad made of open-cell foam, thinking that it would help me to be more comfortable sitting on the couch.  It turned out to be a bit awkward to try to use it that way, but it made excellent raw material for some additional padding.   The first thing I did with it was to try to find a way to keep pressure off of the incision (or at least minimize it) by putting some sort of pad on either side.   I tried a couple different approaches, which finally evolved into this:

I cut out a sort of "collar" of open-cell foam and taped it to the inside of a t-shirt using "100 mile an hour tape".

Turned right-side-out and worn over another t-shirt, this provided enough stand-off distance to reduce pressure on my incision and allow me to sleep and sit in a chair with less discomfort.  Later on, it also turned out to be excellent at holding an ice pack in place.

Once I was getting up and out of bed for more than a few minutes at a time, I tried the back brace.  I knew immediately that it would not work for me as-designed.  It puts *all* the pressure directly on the incision, which produced burning, searing pain (I have a pretty high pain threshhold, but this was extraordinary).  Although the padded t-shirt works well at helping to keep pressure from a flat surface off the incision, I also had to put some additional padding on the back brace, since it fits right into that gap:

Back brace padding, version 1.0

Back view

Side view showing additional padding where it presses on the incision.

This worked well, and I wore it constantly during the first couple of days that I spent out of bed.  But by the third day, the pressure on my rib cage from the side panels really started to hurt, and I had to add even more padding:

The additional padding across the bottom helps to relieve the pressure on my ribs from the side panels.   I also made one other modification - like many backpacks, this brace has a sternum strap to pull the shoulder straps tight across your chest.  But also like many backpacks, these straps are poorly-designed and do not stay in place - they migrate upwards to the point where they are choking you right across the throat.  So I added a loop of 100 mile an hour tape to each side to hold them in place.

Back view showing how the pad is secured to the straps. 

I sent these photos and description to the person who fitted the brace initially, and I plan to talk about it with the surgeon's people next week at my post-op appointment.  There are much more advanced materials available, and it seems as though they could have had some kind of temporary additional auxiliary padding to alleviate the pressure on these areas.  I should not have had to struggle with this, especially during my first few days home when I was in the worst pain, had the least range of motion, and was loopy from 24-hour-a-day maximum doses of my pain medicine. 

My other important accessories are several reacher-grabber tools placed strategically around the house, my dad's walking stick (it is not a "cane" - it had to be a "walking stick" for me to get him to agree to use it, lol), and a memory foam pillow recommended by a friend that relieves the pressure on my sacrum when sitting.  It just came yesterday and I love it, so I plan to order more of them so that I don't have to carry it around from room to room. They have different configurations and materials for different kinds of chairs, including car seats.

My dad's antler-handled walking stick and my new Everlasting Comfort cushion.

So that's the story - I am now at home recovering, going through the same kind of process as last time.  I am able to get around pretty well and am staying up out of bed all day, but am only able to focus and concentrate for a few hours from late morning to mid-afternoon.  The rest of the time I sit and watch TV, read some light fiction, play a game, or just sort of zone out.  I have started going for walks outside, as the streets are dry and clear despite the cold (I wouldn't dare do it if there were ice or snow on the pavement).  The poor dog is confused because I can't take her along, since I cannot bend over to clean up after her.

I am looking forward to being done with this recovery.  If all goes well I should be able to drive again in a few weeks, and perhaps even do some Jeep camping by mid-summer. But I probably won't be able to carry any kind of a backpack (even a light day pack) until the full year's recovery is complete.   I intend to follow the doctor's instructions to the letter, and hope to have similarly successful results and years of pain-free activity thereafter.

Mood:  Optimistic

Music:  Rammstein: Rammlied  ("Wer wartet mit Besonnenheit, der wird belohnt zur rechten Zeit...")

Veteran at the Range - Part 2

On Monday I took the Krag-Jorgensen Model 1899 Carbine back out to the range.  This time I went to the full-distance rifle range to see what I could learn about how it shoots at a distance, zero the sights, and generally just have some fun with it.  I did learn some things, but the results weren't quite what I was hoping for.

In the week since I'd taken it out to shoot it for the first time, I had read up on the sighting system and how to adjust it.  It was pretty simple once I understood how it was designed to work.  This carbine has a simple blade front sight like all the Krags. The rear sight is the Model 1901, a change from the Model 1896 rear sight that was installed on about the first 10,000 carbines produced. The Model 1901 sight remained standard through the end of production in 1903.

The model 1901 sight has four different sighting apertures on it, and it was the relation between these that I hadn't understood.   The Army manual for the rifle and carbine explains the various parts of the several types of sights, including the apertures and their uses:

The cover of the final U.S. Army Ordnance manual for the Krag-Jorgensen.

The first of four pages covering the Model 1901 rear sight. The rifle and carbine sights were identical except for different range gradations on the carbine version (due to the shorter barrel and corresponding lower muzzle velocity).  

These are the pages with the detailed information about how the sights are calibrated and adjusted.  Keep in mind that this was written for the average soldier.  I think our education system has declined significantly in the last 100 years.   

Paraphrased:  "Oh, by the way, none of what we just told you is reliable.  Go figure it out for yourself."

Actually, that last caption is a bit unfair - the text actually reflects the reality of rifle sights - you have to zero them by actual firing due to the variation in all the parameters listed.  Because the gradations on the rifle sights of the time could not be adjusted, they just had to learn where it would really hit by trial and error in the field, and then remember it for various conditions.   When the M1 Garand was adopted in 1936, it was issued with a new type of rear sight on which the sight aperture could be adjusted relative to the numbers on the adjustment knobs. Once the rifle is zeroed in, the numbers actually do represent the settings for the different ranges in yards.   

In any case, I now knew how to read and adjust the rear sights on my carbine.

The rear sight on my carbine, with the leaf folded down for carrying and close-in or hasty shooting.  The leaf slide has a U-shaped notch aperture for sighting when it is in this position.  The peep aperture is also visible in this photo, but can only be used when the leaf is in the vertical position.

The rear sight with the leaf in the vertical position.  In this photo, the peep aperture (little round hole) is set to 400 yards, and the U-shaped aperture on the top is simultaneously set at 1,000 yards.  The very top of the leaf has the fourth aperture which corresponds to 2,300 yards.  Although the peep aperture has a 100 yard setting, I could not see through it at all, so I didn't use it.

The side of the sight showing the gradations from 100 to 500 yards.  At its lowest setting (slide all the way to the sight base) it is set to 100 yards.  Moving the slide forward raises it on the sloped base, setting it to the ranges marked on the side.   "B" is the Battle Sight Zero, the setting at which the bullet will hit somewhere on a man-size target at any range out to 500 yards.  Also visible are the "C" markings on the base and the leaf, meaning these are carbine sights. Carbine sights are much less common than rifle sights, and are one of the telltale signs of a genuine carbine versus a fake made from a cut-down rifle.  

Now I was ready to go to the range and shoot!  I took full-size Project Appleseed silhouette targets, which are based on the old pre-1975 U.S. Army targets that had been used for practice and competition for decades.   I planned to shoot at 100, 200, and 300 yards, taking notes to remember the actual point of impact relative to the sight settings.  I was pretty sure they would not be exactly as marked, because the commercial ammunition was loaded with a different bullet than the service round of the time.   I also planned to use my nifty new Garmin Xero C1 doppler radar chronograph to record the muzzle velocity of the ammunition, so that I would know how to duplicate the cartridge characteristics when I loaded my own ammunition later on. 

It was kind of a crummy day, rainy and cold, but I loaded up and headed for the range.  It has covered firing positions to keep you dry, and I know how to keep warm.  🙂  Once I got set up and ready, I fired a shot downrange at 100 yards, holding a good sight picture across the base of the target.  A look through the scope showed that there was no hole in the target!  There was a hole in the white plastic backing material right above the edge of my paper, but I was not 100% sure it had not been there before.  So I fired a second shot.  Sure enough, a second hole appeared next to the first one.   Crum!   The rifle was shooting high, and the sights were adjusted as low as they could possibly go.

I decided to experiment with "Kentucky windage" (perhaps I should call it "Kentucky elevation", lol).  First, I fired three shots with the rear sight base in the same position on the target, but lowering the barrel so that the front sight was just barely visible as a little hint of a bump at the bottom.   This produced OK results (I scored three 5's) but they were widely dispersed vertically - one was almost off at the top and another almost off at the bottom.  So that was not an optimal technique.

Next I decided to hold as close to perfect sight alignment as possible (front sight blade centered in the U-shaped notch, with the top of the blade the same height as the top of the rear sight), and then hold low on the target by the distance I needed to bring the point of impact down.  It was difficult for me to do this consistently, but I did the best I could, and fired five shots.   This was much more successful - one 4, two 5's, and two V's (center of the 5-ring).  The group was much better, so this would need to be my technique at 100 yards.

My 100-yard target.  The first two shots are visible just off the paper at the top.  The next three shots are 5's - one on the line at 1:00, one at 2:30, and one at the bottom at 6:30.  The next five were better, although I did pull one up and left into the 4 ring.

This was all well and good, but I haven't mentioned that even seeing the rear sight at all was a huge challenge for me.  I just can't bring the sights into clear focus, which is essential.  Ideally you focus on the front sight blade and the rear sight and target are a bit blurry, but for me *everything* was a complete blur.  The only way I could even come close to seeing the sights well enough to achieve proper alignment was to wear my pistol-shooting glasses, which allow my eyes to focus at arm's length.  The target was a complete blur, but I at least could align the sights.  Given all that, I was very happy with the above results.  I don't think it is possible for me to do better with this rifle.

I will also note that at this point I took the velocity readings off the chronograph.  My commercial ammunition (Remington 180 grain Cor-Lokt PSP) clocked an average velocity of 2187 fps, significantly faster than the specified service round velocity of 1920 fps (for the carbine).

The .30 Government was the Army's first smokeless powder round.  The French had invented smokeless powder in the 1870s, and it was a well-guarded secret.  Every other major country raced to develop their own formulas, as it provided a huge technical advantage.

Next, I set up to fire a shot at 200 yards, but left the sights set at 100 yards to see how much it would drop in that distance.  It took me a long time, because I just could *not* get any kind of sight picture.  The pistol glasses made the target all but disappear at 200 yards.  I finally fired a shot, and decided to go downrange and check it before firing any more.  (In good weather, my scope can pick up .30-caliber holes in the targets, but it was a cloudy, rainy day and also starting to get dark).  

The target was completely unscathed.   I felt a bit like John Cleese in the Month Python cheese shop sketch  ("Predictable really, I suppose.  It was an act of pure optimism to have fired the shot in the first place.")  😂   I knew right then that I had fired this rifle for the last time.   It is an interesting historic artifact that I am happy to have in my collection, and will enjoy learning more about and examining from time to time.  But it is hopeless for me to try to shoot it.   Perhaps I'll bring it out to some public shoot someday and let the kids take a shot as a learning experience.  But I'm afraid I'm done shooting it myself.  

During the process of preparing to write this range report, I ran across some additional interesting information.  So for anyone out there who reads this (and gets this far without closing the browser tab!), here are a few additional technical and historical tidbits.  

First, some additional information about how the mechanism of the rifle works.  The Krag is unique among U.S. military rifles in that it is a repeating rifle that can only be loaded with loose rounds - there are no clips or detachable magazines.  The photos and diagrams explain:

On the right side of the receiver is a hinged loading gate with a large flange on it for use in opening it.

To load the rifle, you drop up to five loose cartridges into the open magazine well.  It has a spring-loaded follower arm that pushes them into position when you close the gate. 

The cartridges are now visible, ready to be loaded into the chamber when the bolt is pushed forward.

This diagram from the Army manual shows how the cartridges are fed in and around to be in position for loading into the chamber by cycling the bolt.  It also refers to the operation of the magazine cutoff, which I explain below. 

The Krag-Jorgensen, like the Model 1903 that replaced it, has a "magazine cut-off", a lever that when activated prevents cartridges from being stripped out of the magazine by the action of the bolt and permits single loading while holding the cartridges in the magazine in reserve.  Senior officers of the U.S. Army had strongly resisted adopting a repeating rifle out of concern that soldiers would "waste ammunition" by firing too quickly.  Even after the repeating rifle had been adopted, Army combat doctrine still stated that soldiers would load and fire single shots, using the magazine only in an "emergency".   The realities of modern warfare finally overcame this doctrine sometime around WWI.

Here the bolt has pushed a cartridge partway into the chamber. In the photo above, a single cartridge is being loaded into the chamber, with the cutoff switch in the down position (magazine off).

The bolt is fully closed and the firing pin cocked.  The safety lever at the back of the bolt has been rotated from left (fire) to right (safe).  The magazine cutoff switch has been rotated from down (magazine "off") to up (magazine "on").  The rifle is now prepared to fire six shots as fast as the operator can flip off the safety and work the bolt.

The concerns about "wasting ammunition" and requiring soldiers to fire single-shot-only in combat seems very strange to modern sensibilities.  During the Indian Wars, soldiers armed with the single-shot Springfield Trapdoor would try to increase their rate of fire by carrying cartridges in horse feeding bags around their necks, and by placing cartridges in readiness between the fingers of their support-side hand for quick reloads when under fire. This video shows that technique at about 2:00:  Firing the Springfield Trapdoor

I have always attributed the reluctance to adopt repeating rifles as well as the insistence on a magazine cutoff to hidebound, obstinate, overly-conservative Army Ordnance bureaucracy, but I recently read something that put the issue in a different light.  As noted in the ammunition description from the manual, a case of 1,000 .30-40 Krag cartridges weighed 78 to 79 pounds.  The actual size of an Army Regiment at that time was around 400 soldiers, maybe a little more (they were severely undermanned).  The basic ammunition load to fill the cartridge belt was 100 rounds.  400 soldiers x 100 rounds = 40,000 rounds just to arm the regiment with a basic load (not to mention resupply of expended ammunition). Forty 1,000-round cases x 78 pounds = 3,128 lb. of ammunition.  

When the Krag-Jorgensen was first issued, almost the entire Regular Army was stationed on the frontier, west of the Mississippi River. Most frontier forts were far from any railroads, and required resupply by horse-drawn wagons over very bad roads.  These facts make it easier to understand why senior Army officers were concerned about ammunition consumption - they wanted to encourage careful, aimed rifle fire.

There were a few other interesting historical gems in the manual and in another of my reference books.    Because the bullet flies in a parabolic trajectory, at any given range it will either be rising, be at its maximum ordinate (highest point), or falling back down due to gravity.  The farther away the sights are set, the higher the parabolic arc, and the shorter the areas at each end of the arc where the bullet would strike a target (vs. going over their heads).

The following tables and charts show the so-called "dangerous areas" for cavalry and infantry with the rifle set for various ranges. The way these would be used at the longer ranges was that the officer or sergeant would call out the range (say, 1500 yards), and everyone would set their sights to that range.  They would then wait for the enemy to be in the "dangerous area", and commence "volley fire", simply putting a volume fire into that area.  As the advancing enemy came close, different sight settings would be called out.  Within 500 yards or so, the sights would be set to the Battle Sight setting "B", and they could expect to hit any target within that range.

500, 1000, 1500, and 2000-yard trajectories and dangerous spaces.  The data were also presented in tables giving yardages, and stated the assumption that the rifle was 56 inches off the ground, Infantry was 68 inches high, and cavalry was 8 feet high, and that shots were aimed at the middle of the target.

500-yard trajectories depicted at a different scale.

My other Krag-Jorgensen reference is "The Krag Rifle" by Lt. Col William Brophy.  It is a really excellent reference with hundreds of photographs and detailed information about variations.  It has some interesting photos of shooting positions recommended at the time.  I found it interesting that *none* of them uses a sling as a shooting aid.  That must have come in with the M1903 rifle and the M1907 sling.

This book is out of print now, but well worth finding for a Krag collector or aficionado.

Very interesting sitting position!

No use of the sling for support.  It's also interesting to note that in prone, the trigger-side knee is not bent to raise the hips and free the diaphragm the way teach now. My dad was taught to shoot like this, and I had a heck of a time getting him to change it for our rifle league matches in the 1980s and 1990s.

This has been fun, but now it's time to clean my "War College Carbine" and put it back up on the wall.  Next time I take a historic rifle to the range, it will be one on which I can see the sights!

Mood:  Happy

Music:  "Damn, Damn, Damn the Filipinos (Civilize 'Em with a Krag)"

Veterans Day at the Range

Yesterday was Veterans Day, and as I do on most such holidays, I went to the shooting range.  (Coincidentally, it was a Monday, which is my normal weekly range day anyway).  I decided that it was time to take a "veteran" rifle that I have owned for almost 13 years but had not yet fired:  a Krag-Jorgensen Model 1899 Carbine.

After the Civil War, the U.S. Army's rifle was a converted muzzleloading musket that had been modified to use a metallic cartridge.  It became known as the "Springfield Trapdoor" because the conversion added a mechanism at the breech that opened up like a trap door to load the cartridge and to extract the fired case.  It was thus a single-shot rifle, and used black powder in the cartridges.

Meanwhile, European armies were adopting repeating rifles that used smaller caliber bullets and the newly-invented smokeless powder, a huge leap forward in technology that provided significant advantages.  The U.S. Army conducted tests in the 1880s and early 1890s, and adopted a modification of a Norwegian rifle designed by Ole Krag and Erik Jorgensen, which became known as the (surprise!) Krag-Jorgensen rifle.  It was a bolt action that used a new .30 caliber cartridge that became known as either the ".30 Government" or the ".30-40 Krag".  (The .30-40 designation was a holdover from black powder days, when cartridges were given a two-part numerical designation, the first being the caliber of the bullet and the second being the number of grains of black powder it contained.)

This was the U.S. Army's first magazine-fed small caliber repeating rifle that used smokeless powder, and is the earliest rifle of the era in which I have any collector interest.  It went through several iterations and improvements, the major models being the Model 1892 rifle (first fielded in 1894), the Model 1892 Carbine (a shortened version for cavalry troops), the Model 1896 Rifle and Model 1896 Carbine (this was the carbine used by Theodore Roosevelt's 1st Volunteer Cavalry - the famed "Rough Riders" of the Spanish-American War), the Model 1898 Rifle and Model 1898 Carbine (the final refinement of the mechanical action) and the Model 1899 Carbine (the final carbine version).

In the late 1990s I had owned a beautiful Model 1898 Rifle that I bought on eBay in the early days before they decided guns were “bad" and stopped allowing them to be sold (thus allowing Gunbroker.com and others to fill that void!)  Sadly, I had to let that go in favor of other priorities, and the Krag remained a gap in my collection for several years.  I started looking for one again when I moved to Fort Bragg in 2011. I had decided that I'd really like to have a carbine rather than the rifle, as the rifle is very long and I thought the carbine would be handier and more fun to shoot.  After examining a lot of fakes that had been produced by cutting down rifles to carbine length (apparently the carbines are more popular), I finally found a nice example of a Model 1899 carbine for sale.  

I checked my reference sources, and it looked correct in all the key aspects (serial number range, correct stock and handguard, and correct carbine sight).  I wasn't sure about the sling swivel, but it was the only substantially correct one I'd seen after several months of looking.  The clincher came when I checked the date of manufacture based on the serial number: November 1901, the same month and year that the U.S. Army War College was established.  This was in February 2012, the same month I was notified that I had been selected to attend the Army War College. I decided that happy coincidence would make this my "War College Carbine", and I bought it.  It looked great hanging on my wall for many years, but I had never taken the time to get it out to the range and fire it.  Today would be the day.

I had just learned something from my collector reference book "The American Krag Rifle and Carbine" that lent the occasion an interesting historical twist:  When the Army began fielding the Krag-Jorgensen in October 1894, the very first unit to receive them was the 4th Infantry Regiment at Fort Sherman, Idaho. The original site of Fort Sherman is now largely occupied by a city park and the campus of North Idaho College, and the main street running from there through downtown Coeur d'Alene is named Sherman Avenue.  I was about to fire my first shots from my personal Krag-Jorgensen almost exactly 130 years after the first Krags in the U.S. Army were issued to the soldiers stationed right here in Coeur d'Alene!

My "War College Carbine" at the range in Coeur d'Alene.

I had purchased a small amount of factory ammunition as well as a quantity of empty cartridge cases and the necessary reloading dies, but had never loaded any ammunition for it.  The original U.S. Army load used a 220 gr. round-nose bullet, but all the commercial ammunition I could find used 180 gr. softpoints.  This makes sense, because after the rifles were replaced by the Model 1903 and withdrawn from service, they were sold to civilians in the 1920s and 1930s and became very popular hunting rifles.  They are not nearly as popular now as they were two or three generations ago, so the ammo companies only make limited production runs, typically once a year right before hunting season.  I had six 20-round boxes of Remington commercial ammunition - one bought in the 1990s and priced at $14.95, two bought a little later at $16.95, and three that I bought at the same time as the carbine for $49.95 (!)  You can bet that if I shoot this rifle much more, I'll be loading my own ammunition.

I had a collector-oriented reference book, but no books or references on shooting the rifle, particularly how the sights were regulated. For this trip, I just wanted to make sure it would fire safely, and "get it on paper".  If all went well, I'd return to the range at some later date and actually put it through its paces.  I set up an NRA B8 pistol target at 25 yards and planned to fire from the bench.  For the first shot, I stood off to the side and fired into the berm just to make sure the bolt would hold - this design has only one bolt lug, so there is no safety margin if it turns out that lug has a crack in it.  All went well, and the rifle stayed in one piece, so I sat down behind it to see where it would shoot.

I fired shots #1 through #5 from the bench, making minute adjustments to windage to try to get it centered.  I finally decided it was as good as I was going to get, given my eyesight and the increasing difficulty I have bringing carbine-length open sights into focus. (it was also late in the day and starting to get dark).  I let a friend fire a shot, and then I fired shots #6, #7, and #8 from a standing position.   I was very pleased with the results:

Two nines and a ten, standing offhand, with sights I don't really know how to adjust properly.  I'll take it for now, lol.

Now that I've finally broken the ice and fired this carbine, I really want to learn more about it and get out to shoot it some more.  Ian at "Forgotten Weapons" has a pdf version of the Army manual for the rifle available here:   U.S. Army Manual for Krag-Jorgensen Rifle and Carbine . I've ordered a reproduction of this manual so I'll have a printed version, and will be on the hunt for a vintage original for my collection.  The next time I take this carbine out, I'll know more about the sighting system and will shoot at actual service rifle targets.  But for now, I'm content to have gotten this 123-year-old veteran off the wall and out to the range in honor of Veterans Day 2024.

Mood:  Happy

Music:  Pat Benatar, "Hit Me With Your  Best Shot"

A Hike in the Selkirks - Beehive Lake

 Placeholder post for when I have time to write about it.

A week in Montana

 Placeholder post for when I have time to write about it.

9/11/01 plus 23

The events of September 11, 2001 changed my life in varied and unexpected ways.  Like most Americans of the time, I remember exactly where I was, what I was doing, and how I felt when I learned of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  There was a lot of pain, suffering, and shock that day, but also incredible heroism and a sense of national unity and patriotism that I have seldom experienced in my lifetime.

Now, 23 years later, we are in the midst of an intensely divisive election, and an entire generation has grown up that has no memory of 9/11/01 and scant awareness of or appreciation for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I think it's important to remember, and so each year on 9/11 I do something to commemorate the day.

This year I decided to take my go-to home defense rifle and web gear out of the closet and out to the range for a brief practice session.  I planned to shoot at steel targets at 15 and 25 yards, and shoot a few practice drills.  It's always good to practice, but my primary purpose today was to clear away the current distractions from my mind and remember the events of 9/11 and its aftermath.

My rifle and web gear.  The boonie hat is USGI, from my first mobilization in 2006.  The targets are at 15 and 25 yards.

The rifle is a run-of-the-mill DPMS Panther 5.56mm AR-15 in civilian M4 configuration (semiauto only, 16" barrel).  I replaced the stock front handguard with one that accepts M-Lok accessories, and have it set up with a Trijicon MRO red dot sight, a Crimson Trace MVF-515 front grip that incorporates a flashlight and green laser, a Troy flip-up rear iron sight for backup, and a Condor 2-point sling.   I was shooting PMC 5.56mm with 55 gr. bullets - standard MILSPEC M193 ball.

My targets were an 8" steel disk at 15 yards and a 12"x16" steel silhouette at 25 yards. The silhouette target is a "hostage target".  It includes a 5" steel disk on a pivot behind the head - when you hit it, it flips around to the other side.  I have this painted red to distinguish it from the white-painted silhouette. The silhouette represents a hostage, and the red disk is the bad guy's head.  The idea is to hit the bad guy without injuring the hostage.  This target seemed appropriate given my reason for being there today.

I fired my first shot at 0846, the time the first plane hit the south tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11.

I started off shooting at the hostage target, single shots from a standing unsupported position using the red dot sight.  For the first ten shots I had the red dot at full power, and found that it almost obscured the red disk.  That string resulted in a respectable 8/10 solid hits on the "bad guy", with two misses.  Seeing a dark mark on the white silhouette, I initially thought I had hit the hostage with one shot, but closer examination revealed that this was just spatter from the hits on the disk.  Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of the target at this point.

After this I fired a few shots at the 8" disk, then switched to some transition drills, shooting two shots at one target followed by two at the other, all in close succession.  As I accelerated the pace of these drills to "controlled pair" speed, I began to miss the second shot more often than I'd like.  Examination showed most shots on the disk were low to start with, so I suspect I was pulling the second shot even lower by overcompensating as I pulled the rifle back on target for the second shot.

For the final drill, I went back to the hostage target and fired off my remaining rounds one at a time.  This time I turned down the MRO intensity setting from six to four. The lower-intensity red dot was much smaller and crisper, which helped. I wasn't shooting rapid fire per se, but I wasn't shooting like the standing slow fire stage in a service rifle match, either.  It was something approaching "Rifleman's Cadence", except that I wasn't in a stable position so I had to re-aquire the sight picture rather than rely on the sling and my breathing to bring me back on target after each shot. 

This time I did slightly better - 20/24 shots hit the "bad guy", with 4 misses.  I think I may have clipped the hostage's shoulder with one of the misses, but I'm not sure as this was after I had already been deliberately shooting at the silhouette. 

The hostage target with the "bad guy's head" disk to the right. It flips back and forth with each hit. The effects of bullet spatter can be seen on the white silhouette.

Same target with the disk to the left. I may have clipped the hostage's shoulder with one shot.  

The  8" disk at 15 yards.  The shots are clustered low, so I think my misses probably went even lower.

The net result is that I feel very confident firing shots at one target, but I need more practice on transitions between targets as well as on rapid follow-up shots.  

I packed up the car and left the range to head home, and pulled out the gate at 0937, the time the third plane hit the Pentagon on 9/11.   During the beautiful drive home out of the mountains and past Fernan Lake, I reflected on how fortunate I am to have come through that period of history with everything intact to live a wonderful life in retirement. Many were not so fortunate, having died in either the attacks or the rescue efforts, or while fighting to defend our nation and preserve our freedom.

Never Forget.

Mood: Pensive

Music: Darryl Worley, Have You Forgotten.