Dead Eye McGurk, Terror Of Tejas

We finally took one of my grandsons, Dean and Stephanie's oldest William, shooting. The first step was letting the boy know exactly what a gun can do, we had three melons of various sorts, a cantaloupe, something else and one of those little personal-sized watermelons. there were shot with my .45 Colt rifle and the .30-06, plus the one shot up with the .22. The .22 impressed the boy, those plain vanilla Remington high speed hollowpoints left quarter sized exit holes in the melon, plus sprayed a good bit of melon out over the grass.

The .45 Colt, shot with a "Ruger Only" load that was a Hornady XTP 250 gr Jacketed Hollowpoint that leaves the 24 inch barrel of my Model '92 clone at near 2000 feet per second blows up a melon nicely. The .30-06 was most impressive of all, though, it hit the melon and sent a spray of melon guts all over, plus some larger chunks falling from the sky well after the BOOM!

We started William, excuse me, Dead Eye, with the .22. This .22 is mine, I bought it back when I was sort of flush, actually I bought a Shilen Match grade bull barrel and a Hogue overmolded stock for a Ruger 10-.22, before I ever had the action. Then I bought a beat-up 10-.22 along with a set of Volquartson action parts, a target hammer, sear, etc. I basically turned a small game and plinking carbine into a target rifle. Then I later turned the original stock and barrel over to Dead Eye's Daddy to cut down to fit him. The ruger has a simple barrel change, the barrel is held on by a V-block and two allen bolts. Since the bull barrel is too heavy and the Hogue stock too long for the seven year old we made the switch, leaving the action modifications in, nobody has ever been hurt by shooting with a good trigger.

Even as light as the stock barrel is, the rifle is still a tad heavy for the boy so he used a rest. He fired close to fifty rounds with the .22 and then, for grins and giggles, fired a few rounds from a S&W Model 60 .38 Special, two inch, some .38 ammo in a Ruger SP101 .357 and, the piece de resistance, the .45 Colt in a Single Action Army clone. All of those, of course, with mild loads, 3.5 grains of Hodgdon's Titegroup behind a 158 grain semiwadcutter in the .38 and .357 and 5.5 grains of Titegroup and a 250 grain flat point round nose in the .45. The boy loved him that .45. He also liked the .38 but not the .357. I'm not sure if it was the bigger grip or the heavier weight. The boy is now watching my heath carefully, in hopes of inheriting my shootin' irons. He's also got a beady eye on his Dad's .30-06.

We've created a monster! As always, click on the pictures to embiggen them. I'm hoping Dean's Dad will send me some of the pictures he took so I'll have some of him with the .22.