Ding Dong the Fridge is Dead

Our fridge died a few weeks ago; after having given us months of trouble and irritation; spoiled food and melted ice etc... etc...

At any rate, we'd suffered far more than our share of aggravation from the fridge; and this weekend, it was time for payback.

We began with some detailed research into the effect of large projectiles on the structural integrity of refrigerators:

The large holes here are 12 gauge slugs fired from approximately 35 yards. The smaller holes were some sighters from adjusting my new scope at 50 yards (the riser rail was loose and I had to start over); eventually hitting the 2 in one hole groups you can see on the left side.

Next, we decided to demonstrate once again, that birdshot is NOT a useful self defense load at more than a few feet away. This is what happens when you shoot a fridge with four #7 shot shells from 15 feet away:

You can see it LOOKS really nasty; but in fact none of the pellets actually penetrated.

Remember this is from 5 yards away, on extremely thin sheet metal (most cheap discount appliance store fridges are made with 24ga steel - 1/40th" thick - , and even the best home fridges are only 18ga steel. Commerical coolers are 14 or even 12ga - 1/12th to 1/9th" thick).

Yes, it's turned the surface into an orange peel; and it's messy; but it's shallow. The effect on a human being isn't much different. Most people wouldnt consider .22, .25acp, or .32acp to be adequate for self defense, and they ALL penetrate both sides of the fridge wall; but birdshot doesn't even penetrate the outer skin.

Next we decided to conduct experiments in penetration of pistols at long range:

That is a sealed compressor unit, which is made of 14ga steel. Excepting the holes directly on the reinforcing band, and the one in the angle iron (which were from JohnOCs .308 lever gun) those 16 holes are from my 10mm 1911 at 50 yards, rapid fire.

Yes, a rapid fire pistol at 50 yards.

That copper residue on the holes is from Remington 180gr FMJ at 1150fps; a mild load for 10mm (in fact only a bit more powerful than +p .45; and about 250fps below a max load in this weight), but obviously an excellent penetrator. Never doubt the power of the ten.

Next, we conducted applied experiments in the generation of happiness in the american male.

We' discovered that a small explosive target produced a notable, but mild state of happiness in the test subject:

Testing with significantly larger boomers however proved beyond the capacity of our insturmentation to measure:

The technical term for the expression on the subjects face is I believe a BOSEG (Big'Ol Shit Eatin Grin); though it is sometimes referred to as a BFG (Big Fuckin Grin).

Said "big boomer" is 3.5 lbs of tannerite; 7 times the size of a normal reactive target; and of a size sufficient to create a 30 foot diameter blast in free air.

Finally, we decided to attempt to correlate our happiness experiments with further tests on the structural integrity of refrigerators:

We screwed down and braced the main door; and cut a hole in the side of the fridge using a reciprocating saw, to give us a target window for our boomer.

We then backed off to 100 yards, and set up the shooting position:
Heres a couple of views down range:

Finally, we prepared to conclude the experiment; and Mel was given the honor, as the offending appliance had caused her the most trouble of any of us (warning, the first pic is a link to a large video, the second to a VERY large picture strip of the same event):





YOu may want to try it from YouTube instead:

We had figured we'd be trucking out a fair bit of waste from this little experiment; but we'd underestimated the power of the Tannerite drastically... or rather, we KNEW the power of the Tanerite, but overestimated the strength of the fridge... there just wasn't very much left.

This was the largest piece left:


Thats the back plate of the fridge; which is also the thickest steel in the piece, excepting the compressor.

And this; the freezer door, which we hadn't secured;was the largest piece we found relatively intact... actually, the only piece we found intact:

This piece, about 18 inches by 24 inches was thrown over 60 yards, and stayed aloft for more than 5 seconds. I had actually put the camera down, not realizing the piece was still in the air, so I didn't get a shot of it coming down:


We never found the compressor or any heavier parts, though we looked for 15 minutes.

Oh and a fun note: Mel got the boomer in one shot; at 100 yards, on only her second time shooting an AR... or any other centerfire rifle not in a pistol caliber for that matter.

Yes, this was as fun as it looks.

The AR, the A-Max, and the Defender

Well, since the second day of the Texas shoot was cancelled, the first chance I had to take out the now complete AR was this past weekend.

I mounted up a relatively cheap Bushnell Sportsman 4-12x40 scope on sale for $60 from wally world (until I can decide on and acquire the permanent optics), and I grabbed the rest of my 75gr A-Max experimental loads... the ones that were loaded with 24.5gr of Varget, with no crimp... and this time I didn't let them sit out in the sun for an hour before shooting.

The last trip I had some overpressure problems, even with the Federal commercial loads never mind my max pressure A-Max loads using 2230. The overpressure made the loads inconsistent, and the powder was pretty dirty... and I had wanted to use Varget anyway (they were all out of stock locally) so I was happy enough to switch over.

The first news was the functioning. For the first 20 rounds everything was great, but then I got one failure to feed after another. Finally I got really irritated and looked at the mag lips... well, the cheap national mags I bought as a stopgap (Brownells was out of stock of everything else) were completely out of spec, with the mag lips flexing and bending; and galling against the bolt.

SO, I unloaded those mags, and loaded into some good mags JohnOC brought with him, and we were golden; not a single problem for the remaining 60 rounds.

I will say though, even in a 10lb AR, you definitely feel the max pressure 75gr loads a LOT more than a 55 or 62gr standard .223. It's by no means unpleasant, in fact it's a lot like a .243; which is appropriate considering that it's performing at about the same level.

So, how well did it shoot?

How does 5 shots into one ragged hole at 50 yards, and one slightly larger ragged hole at 100 yards sound?

We only had 100 yards where we were shooting so I didn't get to try anything at longer ranges, but the gun was quite literally putting down 1/2 moa or better groups at 50 and 100 yards; making one big hole in a lot of cases.

Even better though; not only was I getting one hole groups, but so were JohnOC (who will tell you he's no great shakes as a rifle shooter), and Mel; and this was only the third time she'd ever fired an AR.


At this point I'm very confident the gun is going to make the 1/4 moa mark, at least out to 300 yards; and hopefully with the right tuning at least 1/2 moa at 600.

Yeah, I think they liked it; and so do I.

Next up, my 75gr hornady BTHP Match loads, hopefully at 300 yards. Oh, and my new progressive press arrives tomorrow; so I can crank out some bulk loads for plinking.... time to place that powder valley order.

This was also the first time I'd been able to take out my new Defender; and I also have to say, I'm VERY happy with it. It groups well, shoots well, and even with my hottest loads it's still controllable; something I couldn't say when I had a G36.

Here's an amazing, but HUGE pic of Mel in a rapid fire string; where I managed to catch some brass in the air. Seriously, it's cool, but its 1.3 megs so don't click unless you're prepared to wait.
Oh, and jsut for the hell of it, here's a pic of my small collection of the designs of John Moses Browning (not including Mel's - she has a Llama, which is a 1911 clone; and an Ithaca model 37, a modification of a Browning shotgun design):

Flirtin' with disaster

"Im travelin down the road,
Im flirtin with disaster.
Ive got the pedal to the floor,
My life is running faster."
Flirtin' With Disaster - Molly Hatchet

That damn song has been stuck in my head since last Thursday... I wonder why?

So, anyway, I figured the best way to do this was to give you the bad news first, so we could all enjoy the good stuff later. This post will be all of the stuff surrounding the trip that was either bad stuff, or not directly related to the NoR conference. The conference and shoot itself will have it's own post up later tonight.

Lets start at the beginning, Thursday morning. I get up at 6am, and I'm expecting an easy day where I can get ready for departure in a leisurely fashion; and let me finish up the last few hundred rounds of ammo I had to load, the guns I had to prep, and to pack the truck.

Yaknow that old saying, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans"...

Thursday ended up being one shitstorm after another at work, and I didn't get ANYTHING done that day until my last meeting ended at 3pm. Then Kommander, JohnOC and I finished the handloading together, while Mel prepped the truck.

Well... during the prepping process one of the legs of our 10x10 pavilion buckled, and we ended up having to go out and get a new one. Then stuf went missing. I ended up leaving the last 50 rounds of rifle ammo un-loaded (we got our 9mm, and .45 and that was the important stuff).

Well, the truck got packed, animals fed, house locked up etc... at a few minutes past 7, and we went out to dinner to set us up for the road; finally finishing up and hitting the highway at 8:40; about two hours later than we'd wanted, but doin pretty good.

We made great time and reasonable gas mileage all the way through 'til central New Mexico, when the wind started getting ridiculous. We had a big cargo bag strapped to the roof, and between that and the cargo box, the sail area was blowing us all around; and would continue to do so for the next five hundred plus miles until we hit about Odessa. We had to re-tighten the straps on the cargo carrier every stop until the wind died down.

Things calmed down, until somewhere between Midland and Abilene we picked up a small slow leak in the left rear tire. I sealed it, re-inflated it, and we proceeded. The slow leak continued through the whole weekend, with us losing about 10 PSI overnight each night; and I was planning on fixing it before we left.

We lost about a hour with various delays, and the tire, but we cruised into Ft. Worth at 11:40 Arizona time, 12:40pm local, having taken 15 hours to go about 1040 miles; an average of just 70 miles per hour, including the gas stops; or just about 75mph without.

... and this is where the "fun" began...

EVERY damn highway is blocked, gridlocked, or under construction. This is Friday after lunch, not Monday at 8:30am, WTF?

We tried to loop up 820, then over to the 35, and up and around (we were heading to Little Elm, north of Plano)... no go. 30 packed, 35 packed, 635 packed. We finally got off onto city streets, and picked our way over to the 121.

That was god. That was a road that would take us where we wanted to go; only Mel was doing the navigating, and getting more confused and stressed out every second.

So, we go by Texas Stadium, and Mel freaks out, "no, thats wrong, no, we can't be here its in the wrong direction we need to turn around now!" and she sends us off some weird other direction.

At this point I'm kinda irritated, and Mel has worked herself up to the point where she can't see straight. She wasn't reading the whole map, just the next five miles or so; if she HAD been she would have seen that we were fine.

Anyway, I took over the navigational duties, got us back on the RIGHT highway, and around to the other right highways, and then finally to the 289 (which is just a big city street with a lot of traffic lights) in Plano (the George Bush and Dallas Parkways were both parking lots); and it was a straight shot from there.

We finally ended up pulling into her brothers house at 3:40pm AZ time (5:40 local); having taken 4 hours to travel what should have been the 47 miles across from Ft. Worth to Little Elm. It ended up being about 70 miles with our detours and turnarounds.

Final tally, 1117 miles, 19 hours, avg speed 58mph, avg Fuel Economy 15.2mpg (hey, it's a fully loaded expedition with a bag cargo box on the back, and a big cargo bag on the top).

So at this point we're all dead wasted; John and Mel having taken most of the driving because I was working all day with my laptop balanced on my knees and a headset stuck in my ear (Yes, I was working on a day we were driving from Arizona to Texas. Fun eh. ) In fact funnily enough my last meeting for the day ended just as we pulled into her brothers driveway.

Of course we were SUPPOSED to have been there four hours earlier so we could clean up and take a nap etc...

We all took showers, then rushed out to run down to Kim and Connies place (about a half hour drive) to be there for the fun little opening party; and a great time was had by all 'til 10pm when they wisely kicked us all out because we had to get up at 6am to get down to the range for the shoot.

We make it to the range, and, as promised, the place is a mud pit... actually more like a tar pit.




We all get elephant foot within minutes; but things get set up in surprisingly little time considering; and we're off to the races.

Here's some more pics

This is what I mean by "elephant foot" if you aren't familiar with the term. Actually this is an almost non-existent case of it. I had mud clumps a full 3" thick all the way 'round my boots.

"Errr welll... fuck... I hate this shit..."

I'll save the days range report for the next post; except to say that very little bad happened and lots of good; which is what this post is all about.

From my perspective, the only bad things were the heat, the humidity (about 95 degrees and 100%), the mud, and the genius who shot a steel plate from 10 yards with a rapid fire .308; which of course holed the plate, and sent shrapnel flying, cutting two people.

Oh and I managed to break the recoil spring on my commander; a little bit before I expected they usually last me more than the 7000 rounds or so I've got on this one; but it was at the end of the day, and I had a spare, so it didn't really cause me too many problems.

So, the next day dawns bright and clear... and that lasts for about a half hour. The rain starts just as we finish re-packing the car (not long) for the trip to the range; and by the time we get to the highway its coming down so hard we can barely see. Theres lightning EVERYWHERE. We manage to get through Dallas and are heading south on the 45 when we actually see ball lightning.

Seriously. Two lightning bolts hit the ground at most a couple hundred yards away from us, and as the bolts finish, a glowing irregular sphere of lightning inflates up like a balloon from the ground, and then explodes with a crack. It was incredible.

...but it was also a bad sign for the continuation of the shoot.

We call up Combat Controller, who's driving his tricked out 7 series, with his side seater looking at the weather map on his mobile wireless internet (ok, I admit, I would have been too, but my mobile card broke last Wednesday, and they couldnt send me out new gear before the shoot. It was waiting on my door step when I got home). There's solid red cells completely wrapped around us, and will be pounding us for the next couple hours.

Of course by this time we're only a few miles from the range, and we've got a bunch of crap we need to pick up sitting in the storage trailer down there, so we head in, pack up, and head back to Kim and Connies.

While we're unpacking the truck to do some show and tell, and to bring out the cookies Mel baked for the occasion (which were much loved as always), Mel accidentally closed the truck door on my left pinky. My hand was on the B pillar, and the front edge of the door nearly sheared the damn thing off, half popping it out of joint in the process.

Not completely dislocating it, but mostly. Hurt like a son of a bitch. Hurt worse when I popped it back in (I've dislocated it before playing football. I've popped it back in before too. Sucks every time).

I went into the house where everyone asked what took us so long out there, 'pon which I said "Oh, that bloodcurdling scream you heard out there was me screaming and crying like a little girl".

Still hurts like an SOB by the way; and is stiff as hell; but it moves, and it functions, that's all I care about.

Anyway, the rest of the day was great; and the day ended without incident with us going out for a really good steak at Texas Land and Cattle... well without incident except Kommander getting a full tray of cokes and cowboy beans spilled on him.

That's not a disaster, that's comedy gold.

Oh and let me take this aside to recommend Texas Land and Cattle. They serve probably the best steak of any mid-grade chain steak house I've tried. Dinner for four with drinks, two appetizers, and four dry aged steaks was $170 including a decent tip (sounds like a lot unless you think about how much a Ruths Chris would charge for the same meal - about twice as much for maybe a 10% better steak).

So next morning I go to repair the leak, and my brother in laws air compressor just isn't up to the job of re-inflating my tire from dead flat; plus it's a pain to find the leak, and Wal-mart will do the deed for $10.

So we head down to the Wally World, where they take in the truck, and then 25 minutes later page me saying they wont do the repair, because I'd already used sealer on the tire, and their policy is not to repair tires that have already been sealed.

It's a silly policy but at least it's understandable. I just wish they'd told me that BEFORE they wasted a half hour of my time.

Anyway, I had them mark the hole for me (they spray soapy water around the tire until they see blowing bubbles, then use a tire chalk pencil to mark it off). There was only one relatively small hole to plug, so I figured no problem doing it myself, if I had an adequate compressor.

We drove around looking for a place within easy reach that had an air tower, but this neighborhood is one of those "ready built in six months" type places, and there isn't a gas station with an air compressor within 5 miles.

So I grab a new plug kit and some yellow slime (great stuff by the by; it seals just about anything), and head back to the brother in laws house resolving to use my high pressure storage tank, which I brought with me for just such an occasion, and then just use the little compressor to keep topping up the tank.

Anyway, I pull the valve core, slime the tire, plug it, replace the core with a new one (always replace the valve core when you pull one out. They're cheap anyway), and everything is ready for me to re-inflate.

The high pressure tank got the tire up to 25 before pressure in the tank and tire equalized, and then it was down to cycling the compressor up to the tank, refilling the tank to out 80psi) and then adding another 5 psi into the tire; which took for-frikken-ever.

The good news here is the tire was great (and we checked all the other tires and the spare just for good measure), the repair was smooth and easy. The bad news of course is that we'd just lost two hours.

We didn't manage to hit the highway until 11:40 local (9:40AZ - kind of a weird coincidence how all these departure times are on the :40 mark). Then we're almost out of Fort Worth, when we hit something on the shoulder of the road, and start wallowing.

30 seconds later and we're on the rim, crawling down an offramp to get to a safe place to change the tire, which looked like this:



We get the car into a safe position, check out the damage... ooooh boy. At least it looks like the rim is going to be salvageable.

Only one problem, the spare wont crank down. Ford trucks have a little winch with a retainer on it that cranks up to hold the spare in place; and of course cranks DOWN to release the spare.

Only one problem, the spare isn't coming down more than a couple inches. It's loose, but not moving down any further.

Even better, while I'm trying to get the tire down, another SUV (a Jeep Grand Cherokee) pulls up right in front of us with the same problem. Looks like she hit the same thing we did. Only she's having an even worse day than we are. Her father died the day before, then this morning she'd had a hypoglycemic fainting attack fallen down and cracked her eyebrow open. She was driving home from the hospital, with her dead fathers personal effects in her car, when she blows the tire out.

Anyway we help her out as well, Kommander helping her jack up the car; while I calm her down (she's having another attack. Stress and not enough food, bad combo); and we get her tire changed.

Then I wedge myself under the trailer hitch, because the only angle where I can get my arm in under the tire is that wedged position (which hurts like hell by the way), and I get a light up in under the tire to see if I can fix the problem.

There's a hairpin clip that holds the crank to the winch on the spare; and the pin had slipped, so the crank wasn't cranking down. Thankfully the pin was right there, just not engaged with the winch; and I was able to pull it and re-seat it.

Squeezing in and out under the hitch a couple times bruised the hell out of my ribs; but I got the tire out, and the rim back under; and it got us mobile.

We finally pass the Ft. Worth limit at 2pm local; and if all goes well it's going to be 14 hours or so to home.

Thankfully, everything DID go well, except a bit of rain, and skirting some INCREDIBLE thunderstorms.

We also stopped in Sweetwater for Lunch/Dinner at a place called "Bucks Steaks and Barbecue", which was absolutely excellent. Great food at just above the hole in the wall level. Not quite barbecue on paper plates, but the meat was as god as that. The sides weren't as good, but they were all you can eat, with a $9 two meat combo plate.

Oh and Kommander bought a hat. An honest to god black, Rodeo King, double felt, steam shaped C-Crown cowboy hat (a Pro-5x specifically). Personally, I prefer a pinch crown 4" brim crushable felt drovers style (which is why I own one).

Anyway, we lost about an hour and a half getting dinner and the hat; but I think we were all happy with the results.

Of course by the time we get to about an hour outside of El Paso we're all dead knackered, and it's seven hours more to go; so we traded off at two hours each 'cept Kommander who was pretty much dead, and was supposed to go to work at 5am, who tried to get some sleep.

We finally made it home a bit after 5am; Kommander and JohnOC had to call in, and I was dead today. From the time we started out, 'til the time we ended home was almost 20 hours.

I haven't done the total gas numbers yet; but it was about $480 and we averaged a bit above 15mpg. Total mileage was about 2500. Total drive time including local about 42 hours.

I ended the weekend with a dislocated finger, sore knees, and bruised to hell ribs.

Was it worth it? Hell yeah.

Quick hit on the NoR shoot number 2: Summary

Just as a teaser to tide you over til I get the full post up, here's an outline

1. Damn. tired
2. Wheee, party at Kims
3. Damn you, you magnificent bastards.
4. Mud
5. No really, MUD
6. Blasty goodness, REALLY big grin
7. More mud
8. Damn it's hot, and I'm tired.... but more blasty goodness
9. And more mud
10. Ahhhh, BBQ and sleep
11. Rain... lots and lots of rain
12. HOLY SHIT WAS THAT BALL LIGHTNING 100 YARDS AWAY FROM US
13. Yes, yes it was
14. Blasty goodness cancelled, on account of not wantin to get blowed up and buried in mud
15. Whee, party at Kims

A Mothers Day Range Report

So as I said yesterday, Mels mothers day present was her newly repaired and functional Llama Especial (first model) in .380; a repaired and reconditioned bubba gun acquired from a pawnshop as a Box-O'-Gun.

Well, yesterday we took it out to the range to test fire with the new parts; and excepting one failure to eject (I limp wristed) the pistol functioned flawlessly through 70 rounds, including two mags fast as I could fire controllably…

...which is very. This thing has practically no recoil. I was emptying a 7rd mag in just over a second into an 8” gong at 10 yards. Sounded great, like bolts dropping on a tin roof. VERY fun.

It’s a sweet little pistol to shoot; with basically no recoil to speak of; but the same feel and function of a 1911.

Anyway, more important than my impression is Mels, and she really liked shooting it.

Only one problem. The safety worked loose under rapid fire; and while I was reassembling, the plunger tube spring launched into the ether…

...so, one day after we get it back together with new parts, it's back to the parts guys for a a new plunger tube spring and detents… joy. We're also going to pick up a new safety, a couple spare mags, and some spare parts for it as well. I would have done that before, but I didn't want to buy parts for a gun that might not be functional.

Anyway, we took some pictures. Unfortunately the lighting was a bit off for the "Mel smiling and happy holding her new toy" shots, but I did get some decent action snaps.

I tried to get her in “full recoil” as the gun writers say, but the best I could do was a shot with the hammer falling, and then one with her in recovery.

The final shot is the string I shot for group, offhand at 10 yards. There were 4 into 3/4” with one flyer (I screwed it up and I called it) opening the group to 1-1/4”.

Thats with the cheap winchester white box. We need to do some load testing with it to see what it likes, but if it can put 4 into 3/4” at 10 yards offhand with the WWB, I’m entirely satisfied it can do the job with whatever we feed through it.

Sure, it makes small holes, but it can make a lot of them in a very small space, very quickly… and I’d say that’s pretty good.

Blasty Boomy Goodness

Just a quick report on our range trip this weekend.

Mel wasn't feeling well, but wanted us to go anyway, so we kept it simple; and I only took out the 1911 (because of course I can't go shooting without blasting some .45; in this case about 150 rounds), the new Hi-Power, and my new upper to function test.

The Hi-Power itself functioned flawlessly; the same cannot be said of the somewhat beat up browning factory magazine (one of 4 I got with the gun), more on that later. The 18rd KRD mags actually worked great. I also figured out the gun likes gold dots, and doesn't want to feed HydraShoks when it gets dirty (its OK clean).

I put about 150 rounds through the gun, shooting it in all manners, orientations, and speeds; and the only failures were magazine related from the dodgy mag, and the aforementioned HydraShoks.

Yaknow, I really just love the BHP design. It fits my hand great, and with the mild recoil of even +p+ 9mm in this full frame; there is no sweeter gun to shoot rapid fire strings with, even the 1911 (though it's close).

At one point while I was demonstrating rapid fire grip techniques, Kommander (the pistols prior owner) looked over at me and said 'Where did you manage to get an auto sear for a HiPower"; only half jokingly.

He then made me demonstrate again, so he could try with his SIG. I promptly emptied an entire 18rd KRD mag into a 10" or so circle at 25 yards, in about 3 seconds.

He looked at me funny; and then tried it with his new SIG p229 in .40. He couldnt manage the speed, or to keep up the strings for more than 4 shots without going way off target; but he's getting better.

Of course the point of that isn't to spray and pray; it's to learn to control recoil better so you can rapidly put more steel on more targets.

At that point we brought the rifles out, and had some fun.

Why emphasize the rifley fun goodness?

Because we'd also brought some Tannerite. Boomershoot was this past weekend, and we couldn't make it; but we could at least have some fun with boomers of our own.

Where we were shooting had some old computer monitors, motherboards, hard drives, and an old microwave scattered near the backstop.

Hehehehehehehehe.

Kommander taped his boomer to an old video card he had brought. We managed to find one small piece of it, the backplate; the rest was dust.

JohnOC put his boomer in the microwave, and blew it with his new BLR (in .308). The chassis burst quite satisfyingly, and the metal outer shell blew about 20 feet in the air with a hangtime of about two seconds.

Emily used JohnOCs new AR (his other BAG day gun. The lower was my Xmas present to him); and it took her a while to get settled in; but she blow that monitor into tiny little bits quite handily.

I also planted in a monitor and used JohnOCs AR, but I had one little extra. Remember that recalcitrant factory Hi-Power Mag? Well, the mag was rapidly reduced to it's component elements, and my monitor split in half; the lower bits becoming dust, and the top half blowing about 30 feet straight up.

I also function tested my new upper, and the experimental A-Max ammo I'd loaded for it, but I'm saving that for another blog post. I DID however use the heavy barrel to my advantage, and feather fired a full 30rd mag out in under 5 seconds (without any malfunctions, on a brand new, unbroken in gun).

Funny enough, the people who were camping and shooting the next wash over, sent someone over to ask what kind of cannons and machine guns we were shooting.

Unfortunately just about then a massive thunderstorm started rolling in, and we had to cut the day short. We managed to get packed up and in the truck just as the rain hit; scrambling out of the flash flood zone as fast as we could (we were about two miles back down a twisted and gnarly hilled wash).

Ahhh, good times.