Wednesday, January 19, 2011

The Fellowship Of The Ping!


I cracked open a case of Greek .30-06 and headed to the NRA range this evening.

But I spent the first hour wandering the NRA museum. Here's the Star Model B used by William Holden in The Wild Bunch.

Here's the H&K pistol used by Tom Cruise in Collateral.

And the gun used by the mysterious Kaiser Soze in The Usual Suspects.

But the highlight was the Peterson collection, just added to the museum. Check out this Holland and Holland double rifle in .700 H&H:

You would think that the recoil from one of those monster rounds would loosen the gold inlays!

There were THREE Fabbri shotguns, the most incredible shotguns in the world. This one featured bulino engraving of nudes and peacock feathers, visible through the magnifier:

When I got to the range, I tried to get a recording of the Garand. It is loud!

And ahhhh! the fragrance of 41-year-old military gunpowder! I fired forty rounds and no problems. This Garand was made in May, 1945 and has an unrelieved op-rod, but I am loathe to have it altered. The rifle fired about 3" to the right at 150 feet, which is the fault of the front sight being out of adjustment. It was caked with cosmoline when I got it from the CMP. I'm not complaining!

The NRA Range has new target gadgets with touch-screen controls, very high-tech. Now they need an iPhone app.

This is a Borchardt pistol, but what's that little wood-grained thingie in the lower left, that looks a bit like a magazine?


1 comment:

Jim said...

I thought wood accessory looked like a dummy magazine. It took a little binging to see it's called a "barring block."

http://www.landofborchardt.com/C93_acc.html#images