last year my goal was to work my way up to 800 yards w/ a degree of competency involved in the shooting, but, the weather and circumstances conspired against me. well, maybe not "conspired," but things just didn't work out.
two days ago my shooting mentor called and said, let's go shoot at 1,000 yards. you betcha, i said.
as the ground laid out, we didn't quite have the ground to shoot at 1,000 yards, but the topography gave us a very workable target distance of 935 yards, fixed by gps. (and, confirmed by the ballistic programs and the actual shooting.)
neither of us shot very well, lying in a mound of dirt with a bad slope, and the target was difficult. it was a matter of "aim close" in order to experience "missing close." but, we learned a lot.
one, we found out that relaxing just before the shot to get a good trigger pull resulted in the lay of the ground "rolling us out" of a good shooting posture, and making it almost impossible to hold the target. a lot of near misses.
two, that at shorter distance you can make some errors in fundamental technique and get away with it, but, that at 935 yards there is very little margin for error. you cannot mess up on your trigger pull, you cannot afford not to have good form and follow through on the trigger pull, and you cannot muscle the rifle into a proper shooting position.
in short, you have to follow the basics that you know, without fail. you don't do things right, you don't hit the target on purpose, or where you aim.
and, three, even if you struggle a little bit, it is all tremendous fun. we spent the whole day on private ground, without interference, out in the country rolling around in the "buffalo chips" and watching the weather roll in and roll out as we shot.l
i found out that there is nothing magical in the difference between shooting at 300 or 600 or 900 yards. you calculate the shooting solution for the range, you set up, and you try to aim true. it is just that it is exponentially harder to hit the target at 900 yards than at 600.
you must know the exact distance. you must know the exact velocity of the bullet, as near as possible. (yes, i know that the statement is not entirely logical, but, it is true, and an imperative. in short, that means you don't always hit the target. simple as that. and, if you have troubles, you don't hit it. period. as noted, you come close. but, a miss is a miss.) and, you must do things as correctly as possible, or substantial error is induced.
fun day. we'll do it again. we'll get better, and we'll communicate better and more clearly. long range shooting is team work.
john jay @ 02.25.2016
p.s. see below. apparently i have shot at 888 yards before. i'd forgotten all about it. read the post, see if my views have changed all that much.
(back from reading the "update" post linked below. i must say, the pictures in the post are the prettiest i've ever published. and, it shows what an absolutely gorgeous area i live in. hint: it is not flat. it is "tough ground," and very pretty. all year long.
during the entire episode at burn, oregon which led to the shooting death of lavoy finicum not a single protester/occupier assaulted any federal officer, nor did so much as point a gun at him or threaten him. the closest anyone came to doing so was probably finicum himself, who said he would not be taken alive.
the proof of this assertion? well, now the feds are starting to round up protesters from burns, and previous protesters who were involved in the clive bundy confrontation well over a year ago. they do this, now that they have killed the heart and soul of the protest in the person of lavoy finicum. now, for all of this "terrorist" activity carried on by the cowboys and ranchers who have made up the movement, have they been charged w/ assault w/ deadly weapons, or anything like that? nope, they have been charged with a rather vague and incredibly chickenshit charge of interfering with federal operations. (i haven't specified the charge, as it is so nebulous and vague as to be largely incomprehensible in the real world. not to the feds of course, they are a far more enlightened species than i.)
now, presumably, at the time and date of his shooting death lavoy finicum had done nothing more dangerous that committing the same charge with all of his fellows. (this to the full of bullshit forum experts who have opined that finicum deserved shooting because he was a dangerous felon. no, he was not, not by any stretch of the imagination.)
so, understand this, if you are the right species of dissenter you can get yourself shot dead in these united states for interfering with federal operations. the federals are scared shitless to release finicums autopsy, afraid to admit how many bullets interfering w/ federal operations can get you, ... , and, with good reason. the only thing i can conclude is that they are afraid of the firestorm it will cause when they make the information public.
but, consider that for a moment. and, consider this.-- finicum neither struck, or pushed or even touched another person in a criminal way that i am aware of. if i am wrong, please so inform me. he threatened no one. he displayed or brandished a gun towards no one. he shot no one. he robbed no bank, held up no liquor store, raped no woman nor did he kill anyone.
the "law enforcement types" who effected his "arrest" by shooting him dead knew all of this. if he had done anything like that, it would have justified his arrest earlier. it did not. either that, or they are gutless and cannot perform routine law enforcement duties, being reduced to gunning people down in their stead. one man, one riot apparently depended on a better model of "one man" than we have available now.
(i enumerate this sorts of things, because these are the sorts of things that justify a "dead man" road block. a person has to be a person fleeing from this kind of felony charge or event to justify the use of a "dead man" road block to apprehend him. again, this is for the full of bullshit experts who blather on the internet forums saying that finicum "deserved" to be shot.)
lavoy finicum, to put it bluntly, got killed for being a pain in the butt.
now, consider this. http://www.americanlibertyreport.com/articles/d-c-crime-bill-to-pay-people-to-avoid-committing-crimes/ . in washington d.c. and in several other municipalities in the united states of america (and i use the term loosely, as we are no longer "united" and we are no longer legitimate states, but banana republics that exterminate dissenters) the governing bodies are considering paying known & previously convicted criminals not to commit crimes any longer. the stipends in washington d.c. are substantial, up to $9,000 not to boost liquor stores any more. let me see, the persons in washington d.c. likely effected are on welfare, food stamps, rent assistance, w.i.c. and good knows what other types of public assistance, and that is not enough. now, they are going to be paid not to commit crime. does anyone want to make a bet, that they will be "moon lighting" even while taking the money, or am i just too cynical?
washington d.c. and several enlightened communities in california (anyone want to make a bet that they are all pretty much spelled "los angeles") are going to pay convicted thugs, persons who will no doubt have to demonstrate that they are indeed of the criminal class, not to commit crime.
lavoy finicum was a pillar of his church. he ranched and farmed. he raised foster children, in addition to the 11 children of his own that he raised. he was respected, and a voice of a people who feel themselves aggrieved by the rapacious land acquisition policies of the federal bureaucracy.
and, for these activities, he did not get paid not to commit crime.
instead, he got gunned down at point blank range by "law enforcement," with no gun ever displayed or in his hands. and, to the best of my knowledge, never charged nor convicted of any criminal offense by either the feds or any state government.
one man, one riot, indeed. i guess they had men for cops, in those days.
john jay @ 02.14.2016
p.s. imagine the scene is washington d.c., a government building with white and black tiles, and long lines waiting in front of the counter. at the counter, a man approaches, and spreads out some papers. "this is my rap sheet, ma'am, three armed robberies, 7 burglaries, 3 while armed, and 6 assaults, one w/ a deadly weapon. a couple three dui's, and some marijuana and meth convictions." the clerk, who has seen a lot of this in the last couple days and who seems terribly unimpressed, says, "well, i guess you qualify for the maximum, but, then again, so does everybody else i've seen in the last week or so since we opened. is this all anyone in this town does, is boost people and beat them up." "oh, yes, ma'am says the applicant, i myself have been the victim of 6 home invasion robberies, of people trying to come in and rob my drug sales." and, adds the man, "i am hoping to qualify for the bonus, that says if i don't kill anyone in the next 30 years i am on the program, in or out, that i get a $50,000 bonus for being good." the cleark says, "well, we'll see about that. for that, you gotta get in another line, tomorrow morning. i'll give you a ticket." "what the hell," says the man, "i gotta do all that to get me some money." the woman looks over the tops of her glasses and says, "well, yessir, but, times are tough." and, then she adds, "you'll qualify. and, you don't have to wait 60 days like social security, you know, when you pay your employment taxes, you ever done that, you will get your money in about 3 days."
"next," she bellows, as the applicant hitches his pants above his butt crack, and ambles out the door.
the same day lavoy finicum's body is exhumed and his shooting reenacted. filmed, of course, from overhead by an oregon state patrol and fbi operated drone, so that everyone can see how a solid citizen gets treated in today's west.
has it occurred to any of you that the filming of lavoy finicum's shooting death was passing odd? what, do you think the oregon state patrol was flying an airplane along highway 395 out of burns, oregon filming traffic?
nope, the plane and camera were there to record finicum's apprehension. and, to my mind, his expected shooting death. granted, finicum was not perfect. and, his proclivities were exploited: he was pushed to react a certain way. and, in my view of the world, his resultant death was anticipated and expected.***
you ever watch "hunters" who set up a provoked charge from a lion, so they can be filmed killing the hapless beast?
john jay @ 02.12.2016
*** the government has people who do this, set up these sorts of operations. this is how they make a "living."
as time goes along, as it is wont, it become abuntantly clearer why it was so important for the united states of america to kill robert "lavoy" finicum, any way it could.
finicum was clearly the spirit that animated the free range rebellion, as it has been styled. the government recognized this, and decided that finicum had to go: the reasoning being, that if you kill the spirit of a movement, you've killed the movement.
you may view the whole operation at burns, oregon as the domestic equivalent of killing osama bin laden. there really is not too much difference in the motivation of the government in either effort. both efforts.
what you say, osama bin laden was a terrorist, who killed many innocents as a wolf tears through a pack of sheep. and, further you say, finicum never hurt anyone, and was in many respects an admirable man. well, it seems, it makes no difference to an empire whether you are an evil malevolent irritant who kills without restraint in as grisly a way as possible, or whether you are simply a person who stands up for laudable principles.
an irritant to empire is an irritant, and it must go. and, so it has gone. and, so has robert "lavoy" finicum. the government expects to roll up the free range rebellion as you would roll up an old soiled carpet, and dispose of it.
the government didn't figure so well with osama bin laden, his kind seem yet to flourish. we'll see how the government's assessment of robert "lavoy" finicum's friends turns out. stay tuned.
when i was a kid i remember people saying with utter confidence "that government is best which governs least." henry david thoreau. well, it was a quaint notion, to say the least. and, if anyone believed it who occupied a seat in government that person is as dead as the sentiment. belief, & person, ... , dead as dodo's.
how would we describe the prevailing sentiment of government today, by those who run it?
let me modestly propose, "that government is best which governs with the most grandiosely unobtainable objectives requiting the largest edifices to attain failure."
the western world watched in abject horror for 100 years as the soviet union & china killed millions in an effort to make the soviet and chinese "man," to make man into the ideal socialist being. and, watched in awe as socialism attempted to harness the inherent energy and creativity of man by making failed socialist economies one after the other.
having the benefit of that spectacle, western societies now attempt to duplicate it with "soft" socialism, instead of the threat of a bullet to the back of the head.
i watched a thing on pbs last night, "the world from outer space." lotsa lights. roads, ships and planes and heat and food for the masses. all powered by coal and oil. coal and oil account for about 60 or 70% of the world's power generation.
the chief political & economic aim of the world's leadership is the reduction of carbon emissions. it is a goal which is absolutely unobtainable given the realities of the world. the world's population is 7.5 billion people, likely to go up to 9.5 billion person in the next 35 years of so, if forecasters are correct. and, assuming no horrendous wars, no crop failures, and no mass pandemics which will alter the "progress of things."
coal and oil make synthetics, medicines, fertilizers, plastics, cloth and probably carbon fiber, for all i know. not to mention powering the thousands upon thousands of coal fired electrical generating plants the world over, and not to mention the millions upon millions of automobiles coursing our roads, and putting the jets that bulwark modern transportation, and the ships that ply the seas w/ international trade.
yet we have politicians who pander to the idiocy of the modern masses w/ promises of harnessing the ingenuity of the world's sciences in order to reduce our profligate use of coal and oil.
it is the posturing of idiocy in the face of implacable reality. all to keep the world's temperature from going up several degrees in the next twenty years.
yet, incredible wealth will be squandered attempting to do things which cannot be done.
and, every bit of it accompanied by insufferable rhetoric and posturing about the nobility of government attempting to do, well, my view is well established, the impossible.
and, i can guarantee you, dimes to vanilla creme crullers, that not once in the next 20 years will you see (an increasingly wrinkled) judy woodriff (of the pbs news hour) note that king knute once commanded the waves to stop, with equal grandiloquence, and equal lack of effect.
government has decided that it will not govern those things which it can attend to profitably, but that it will devote its labors to "hopeless change" which it can never hope to effect.
hey, "knutism," would be a good name for it.
how can i say this with any degree of confidence? well, i will note something that is a bit of an historical fact. human kind got itself into this mess pretty much while being "governed" by the same bunch of idiots who govern us now, and pretty much with every conceivable government agency and all of its little policy makers and planners attempting to avoid this pretty little mess. the fact is, government is pretty ineffectual at almost everything, witness the post office, that it undertakes, except making the ocassional war and making government grow. and, government will be equally ineffectual in its contemporary efforts at changing the world as it has been to shape the growth of the world to this point.
the fact is, the world races ahead towards, ... , what, doom, paradise, who the hell knows what, ... , with idiots at the steering wheel, the tie rods broken, ... , well, where it is going. and, where is that? you'll just have to find out.
but, it won't be where the idiots in washington d.c., or paris, or bonn or even in moscow tell you where it is going. because, while they preen and posture and pronounce, they haven't the slightest fucking idea what is going to happen. all they know, is that they will eat well while it happens.
so, we'll have global warming held in check by idiots mouthing platitudes, even while coal and oil production continue unabated, and while the world's atmosphere is inundated w/ carbon particles. (which, i might remind you, has gone on for millennial with the oceans rising and falling, and continents being covered with water and being laid bare to desert, and with weather patterns transforming the sahara from lake to deserts since the dawn of time. all without coal plants, all without climatologists, and all without coca cola commercials extolling "one world.")
and, in keeping with current enthusiasms, they are gonna make all of us like and admire each other.
they are going to make sex w/ dogs and chickens a natural "personal choice." they are gonna make bill cosby behave himself. and, they are gonna make religious differences disappear.
"stop the waves, i command you. for, i am knute, and i am puffed up beyond the point of ridiculousness, and i am damned important." that has become government. oh, yeah, don't forget the bullet to the back of the head, in a damp dark dank basement, if you have the temerity to disagree.
herschel smith at "the captain's journal," along with others to whom he cites, has done the leg work on these topics, so i will simply link you to his house for the reading. in short, be advised that the film linked below clearly shows the blm disdain for cows and ranchers, and clearly shows that for environmental zealots they have a clear vision of the piggy bank. (and, i would add that the "cattle warning" sign that they bandy about is probably a sign stolen from the oregon state highway department: unless they loaned it to the environmental types to aid them in cheerleading the land grab from oregon ranchers.)
the first link. the rich get richer, and the fat get fatter, and they like to sup over their triumphs. and, gloat upon them.--
the second link. herschel smith at "the captains journal" explains how a little town & county in southeastern oregon, which most of you have never heard of, is helping the clintons and the russians get rich from mining uranium, and how the pious blm posing as environmentalists, is all to happy to tear up ground under a grouse preserve to help them line their pockets.
all of you "progressive thinkers" out there, you modernists, should be quite proud to learn that bland mollusk like bureaucrats can do a pretty fair imitation of the robber barons you despise so much.
http://www.captainsjournal.com/ . proprietor, mr. herschel smith
there you have it. go to those websites, and watch, listen and read, ... , and learn how good old fashioned greed and a lust for ill gotten profit are displacing ranchers and farmers like the hammonds who now sit in prison, and destroying the likes of robert "lavoy" finicum who now resides underground. where money is involved, the greed of those in power causes them to trample the little guy. they like to do it in shadows, and in the dark, so it is nice to shine a little light on them.
the remains of a couple missing for several days have been found in a wood stove belonging to a local handy man, and "debris" were found in his yard as well. in addition to that, "numerous knives and saws" were also found at his residence. my guess is, the dna evidence is gonna be pretty extensive: sounds like a killer who enjoyed his work.
my guess is that obama will use an "executive order," number 746,987 of his presidency, to ban wood stoves, knives and saws. "they" did it. the compelled the handyman into being a deranged killer. simple as that.
john jay @ 02.07.2016
p.s. horrible crime. committed by a deranged bastard.
did you know that knives, axes, saws, blunt objects, fists and other miscellany "account" for as many homicides as intentional killings by firearms? (you lefties can ignore this ... you don't care about facts in the "gun debate," you simply don't want your "lessers" to have the means to redress their grievances, politically. simple as that.)
you shot lavoy finicum. you created the furor over his death, by causing his death. you have possession of the autopsy results, along w/ the oregon state police, i presume.
your reputation is sullied, to say the absolute least. it is your public duty given the controversy surrounding your conduct in his shooting to release the autopsy. you claim that he was shot reaching for a pistol hidden in his jacket. others, who have watched the video see his last gestures as consistent with reaching towards a wound to his lower abdomen.
you need to face this issue: it is not going away. your silence indicates only that you feel you have to hide the facts. the best way to address these matters is to release the autopsy, or, at the very least, to release an accurate summary of the autopsy results, including a full disclosure of all the wounds to his body caused by gunfire at his death. and, in the interest of full & transparent disclosure, to summarize the gunshots that were fired at him, and that struck his body. (every police officer "logs" his ammunition supply, and, in the event of firing ammunition, he is to indicate the number of rounds fired.)
your failure to do so only causes further speculation about the wounds he received. and, raises serious doubt about the conduct of the f.b.i. and the osp during the shooting death of lavoy finicum. your silence does nothing to dispel the questions about your conduct.
right now, you do not look so good.
john jay @ 02.04.2016
p.s. i have no interest in reading the officer's reports on the incident. such reports are like to be more self serving than truthful. i will leave it to finicum's private counsel to explore such matters on deposition and discovery, to get to the truth of the matter.
lavoy finicum was shot in the face, and perhaps again in the head, according to information that is spreading quite rapidly on the net. these reports, based on a facebook entry, indicate that he was shot an additional 7 times.
that kind of a shot and resulting wound was done for a purpose of intimidation, and creating fear of the power of the police and their prowess as killers.
that kind of a shot also indicates that he was killed at the relative leisure and ease of his killers. and, that his death was not as a result of self defense, as the time to take that sort of shot was not made by an officer under duress, or fear of his life.
the killers were not pressed for time, they were not shooting quickly because their lives were in danger. indeed, they did not "know" a pistol was in his pocket (by their own version of events) until 10 minutes after his death, and as none of them had ever seen a pistol in his hand. (how could they, "it was in his pocket." he did not take it out and threaten officers with it, and then place it back in his pocket, as his head was exploding. we can be relatively certain of that. again, this is based upon the fbi's own account of the shooting, made at a press release in portland, oregon.
nope, they took their time, aimed for his head and face because they were not fearing for their own lives, and killed him to create the utmost impact of fear and revulsion among their intended audience. oh, they don't give a rip about you, you'll forget about this before the 1st half of the super bowl is finished ... they did this to quell the "sage brush rebellion" that has been festering in the western united states for years. let me give you a hint, ... , they made no friends among ranchers and hands out west.
this was a cold, calculated and planned shooting. it was the killing of a man to make an example of him, and to quiet his voice, which they must have found disturbingly effective. oh, they will have ample pretext, and there will follow an inevitable parade of abjectly humble officers who will mouth that they feared for their lives, and had no choice but to shoot him at absolutely point blank range. and, that time and circumstance permitted no hesitation, for to hesitate would have cost them their very lives. so multiple officers shot him.
and, had time to shoot him in the face. i want to watch the officer explain how he managed to shoot a man in the face with a high powered rifle from feet. not yards. not hundreds of yards. but, feet.
oh, they, there's always a "they" in such matters, will explain how they are so well trained for such situations, and that their skills are honed by constant practice. well, you cannot have it both ways. if they are so damned good at what they do, surely from feet away, they would have noted that he held nor brandished a weapon visible to any of them, at any time during finicum's execution.
and, if they were so damned good as to shoot him in the face, they damn well should have seen what was going on. the fact is, they had all the time in the world to aim and make the shot, and lavoy finicum's time on this spinning orb was expiring.
i cannot tell you how cold, cruel & ruthless this group of shooters was. that was the most heinous act they could have performed, to shoot a man point blank in the face with a high powered rifle.
i want to know who commanded this fiasco. i want to know who was responsible.
john jay @ 02.03.2016
p.s. no press reports on this matter, (that i have googled), nor will there ever be, unless the fbi feeds the servile bastards a self serving portion of ... . the press are not only physical cowards, they are intellectual cowards. they unleash their powers, only when it serves the leftist regime. otherwise, it is crickets in the meadow. and, that's a fac', jack.