The Great Thunderville Raid

[NETim]

Hey catchy title huh?

Well, I managed to survive another 3 days at 5000' running around like a fool, this time totin' an evil black rifle. That's right, Urban Rifle at Thunder Ranch.

First of all, Clint wasn't around much as he's having some major issues with his knee right now. As a matter of fact, he was admitted to a hospital the second afternoon of the class. (big blood leak in his recent knee replacement surgery.) But it appears he's on the mend fortunately. The adjunct instructors there, Roger and Mickey, not to mention Heidi all did a great job as usual.

I sharpened up my already formidable rifle skills (ahem) some and learned that 20 round p-mags and at least the brand of frangible ammo I was using are not the best combo. 30 rounder's were good to go, but 20 round pmags intermittently caused rounds to hang up halfway into the chamber. Another piece of gear that got a thumb's up was the VTAC padded sling. Yay padding after 3 days!

Also, 56 y/o eyes (complete with cataracts) need some kind of magnification on stuff past 100 yards, particularly on dark, misty days. I could hit the IPSC sized steel up the hill at 210 yards but not consistently. So the next carbine class I attend will see an Aimpoint magnifier hung on the Noveske gun.

We broke the plane out of Omaha Wednesday morning and returned to the airport after two minutes in the air. Something about a landing gear mismatch. So I had to wait for a later flight. That put me into Lakeview at 530AM my time after getting up at 4AM to start the whole travel evolution. I was a bit foggy by the end of the first day.

Overall, I was pleased with my performance and shot well. Learned some great stuff, like another technique to clear bolt over malfs w/o resorting to crowbars and C4.

Plus it was just nice to hang out for a few days with my brother, who can really shoot.

Attachment 1498

[Jay Cunningham]

For whatever reason, 20 round PMAGs seem to suck.

[NETim]

For whatever reason, 20 round PMAGs seem to suck.

I've never had any issues with them with standard FMJ stuff, my reloads or otherwise, but regardless, I'm done with the 20's.

The 30's just run.

[JHC]

For whatever reason, 20 round PMAGs seem to suck.

DocGKR warns of the same. I've not had a problem (yet?) with a few of them but they've only seen light range and hunting duty. Weird.

[BoppaBear]

Glad the class was good. Also glad to know about the 20 rounders...I've got plenty of 30's and had thought that I would go after some 20's if I could find them at a good price. Glad to know that there are some issues...helps make my decision for me.

[Sparks2112]

I bought some new Gen3 20 rounders to try out, they're supposed to be better. We will see.