It’s one of my favorite days of the year. I look forward to seeing people of whom I’ve come to grow fond. I think also of people of whom I am fond who can’t come any longer (without major effort) because the politicians and politics of my home state have driven them away. It’s always a good time and the drool factor is high with esoteric hardware.

First, a thank you to our hostess and host Mr. and Mrs. Double Trouble. As Mrs. Double Trouble commented,  “It’s a lot of fun, but also very tiring.” No doubt because they put a lot of effort into making sure we have a fun and safe place to gather, talk, and shoot. Thanks also to JayG, who is the sun around which we all orbit. This was his concept and he puts a lot of effort into organizing the event. We wouldn’t have this event if it weren’t for these fine folks.

Second, I apologize if I seemed a bit stand offish this year. I spoke to fewer people than I usually do. Friday I received some very bad news about one of my cousins. In fact she is the one I am closest too both in terms of locale and emotional attachment. For reasons I won’t bore you with, of my eight first cousins she is the only one I see on a regular basis. Sadly, sooner rather than later we’ll be losing her forever. When the time is right, I’ll blog about that.

In addition to our host, hostess, and social director, it was great to see Wee’rd Beard, Aaron, Libertyman (we always have the most interesting conversations), Yankee Fried, Markos, Christina LMT (and offspring), Wally and his integral twin, JD, and Mrs. JD, Mopar and Mrs. Mopar, Les, and Brad_In Mass. Like Wally, I didn’t recognize Dave H, but did enjoy watching him shoot his armament. I’m sure I forgot someone, if so, please forgive me.  I also was not able to attend either dinner, which is more the pity as the conversations there are terrific.

As Jay points out, the conversations vary, or maybe veer is a better term, across a wide variety of topics. Which is always the case. There are some pretty sharp people there, sharper than I. Which most days is damning them with faint praise.

As always there were firearms of every description on hand. And as always, people were generous with them. “Would you like to shoot it?” was said more times than I could count. There some very interesting fully automatic weapons in attendance. And even more Mosin Nagants. Enough that there was a volley shoot of just Nagants in various configurations. Video was taken and will no doubt surface. Lots and lots of handguns new and old. Revolvers, semi autos, and a few single shots as well.

Did I mention the Bren Gun? It’s one of those if I ever had a lot of disposable income and lived somewhere that I could actually shoot it guns. This one was rebuilt by someone who is a welder by trade and who was in the reserves of a country that used the Bren in military service. Sadly, it wasn’t cycling properly so I didn’t get to shoot it, but I did get to touch it. I didn’t drool on. At least I don’t think I did.

Shooting is a lot more fun when the targets jump and dance as they are hit. Empty detergent jugs, clays that went poof when hit, Elmo, bowling pins, and what seems like the obligatory UN blue helmet. Which prompted many comments including “You’re generally safe from UN Peace Keepers unless you are a prepubescent girl.”

I brought two of my Enfields along, as well as Mosin Nagant, and those WWII vintage bolt action rifles are a ton of fun to shoot. They are also incredibly accurate with battle sights. That’s provided the person doing the shooting does there part. I hope I didn’t let my Russian ancestors down with my efforts.

Repeating what Jay said, there were a good number of people there with even more firearms and everyone kept safety as the top priority. Several hundred, no probably several thousand rounds were sent down range without anyone doing anything silly or unsafe. Which is what happens 99.999% of the time when legal gun owners go shooting. Fun is had and people head home intact when it’s all done.

It was over all too soon and the clean up was taken care of in short order. We talked a bit about the next meet, which will probably be for dinner as it will likely be too cold for shooting.

I’m already looking forward to next year.