Airgun Therapy

Walther LGR and Target Set-up

Last week while reading Vin Sparano's anthology "THE GREATEST HUNTING STORIES EVER TOLD" I came across Jim Carmichel's "The Great Jonesboro Pigeon Shoot" and that reminded me that I have been neglected one of the greatest form of shooting anyone, Professional Small Boy or not, can dream about: airgunning.

If you dive though the different posts in this blog you will come across half a dozen or so air gun related postings, but my writing is rather primitive when compared (if it could be compared at all) to Mr. Carmichel's.

Another great writer that also penned some fantastic airgun words is the late Peter Hathaway Capstick, who I believe coined the term professional small boy, which I still shamelessly. Two of the best Capstick's air gun stories are "Backyard Safari" and "Mini Sniping."

One or way or the other I have lived similar experiences as those described by these gentlemen. I may not have shot pigeons out of a court room, but I did that out of fertilizant plant and from the middle of a park in an undisclosed South American country, and while I have not bagged the dreaded bull Gundwan, I have stalked and terminated the dangerous saurian Ameiva ameiva, also known as "Jungle Runner" or South American Ground Lizzard.

I've also spent countless hours with friends or alone in my basement airgun range, mostly shooting at reactive targets for the almost instantaneous gratification of seeing a target flipping or flying. Many of the different targets that I shoot at are improvised: playing cards hanging from binder clips that are suspended from a cooper wire, spent .22 LR or center fire pistol cartridges set on golf tees (the only practical use that I have for an golf equipment), and any other thing that is same to be shot at. I also have a very nice Gamo running deer target (Gamo MTS 1000 Moving Airgun Target System to be more specific).

But with spring coming to Traverse City, and beautiful sunny days ahead, cold or otherwise it is indifferent, I just could not bear the thought of being in the dungeons and wanted a set-up that would allow me to enjoy airgun shooting in my backyard.

In the past, shooting an airgun in the backyard could put you in trouble with the law depending on where you lived in Michigan, but since July 1, 2015 airguns are no longer considered firearms, and as part of the provisions in the Air Gun Reclassification Package "these devices cannot be regulated on private property where authorization is given and the possessor takes precautionary measures to ensure that the projectile remains within the bounds of the property."

So yesterday night, when I stopped at the local Gander Mountain to buy my spring turkey license, I bought a Caldwell Resetting Airgun Target System Steel (if the Gamo is called the MTS, then this one should be called CRATSS), and this afternoon I inaugurated my new private outdoor range.

I placed the CRATSS in front of one of my archery targets to have a large and dependable back stop, placed a chair at about 20 meters and started banging at the target. Actually, my Walther LGR is so quiet that the only noises that I could hear were the hammer striking the valve and the pellet hitting the target (or the backstop if I did not do my part.)

The 10X scope on the LGR is dead on at 10 meters (the distance I generally shoot in the dungeon - sorry, the basement - and I found out that the first MIL-Dot above center was dead on at 20 meters, and when I moved to 30 meters I just had to go back to the center of the crosshair.

The cold wind blowing from the West Arm of Grand Traverse Bay easily pushed the pellets an inch sideways at the distances I was shooting, and with time the near freezing temperature started to take its toll on my finger tip sensibility. Finally, the setting sun started to play a torturing game of shadows and mirages. This was a great reminder of how much more challenging outdoor shooting is than when done in the controlled environment of an indoor range.

My next plan is to set a regulation Mini Snipping range. Of course I will have to get permission from my wife, as she is the only grown-up around the household. I will keep you posted on that, provided she allows me.

And tomorrow, the Brown Truck is supposed to bring me another Walther: a .22 caliber LGV high power spring piston. You know, professional small boys just cannot have enough toys!

A Professional Small Boy Christmas Gifts

My not so impractical Christmas gifts

While I may be a bit older than nine-year-old Ralphie Parker, who wanted only one thing for Christmas: "a Red Rider Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time," I am still enough of a Professional Small Boy (as coined by the great late Peter Hathaway Capstick) to not only want, but truly desire impractical things for Christmas.

As I've been married long enough to be a grandpa, my wife already gave up any attempt to make me grow up a long time ago, and we both understand that if I need something I will just go to a store and buy it, and that special ocasions like birthday and Christmas are for gifts so impractical that they may approach being useless.

But the truth is that the world is round and if you push too much into one direction you will come around the other extreme, and end up in the other end of scale, and that is what may have happened this Christmas, since my gifts may not be so impractical after all.

Our new "Up North" life in Traverse City is presenting us with a large amount of snow and somewhat colder temperatures than in in southern Michigan, and while I have enough coats and jackets, the ones that are not camouflage are a tone of green or brown, olive drab best describing the color, and so my wife used the opportunity to change my wardrobe with a very warm Cabela's red & black plaid coat. While it may be a big step away from my traditional hunter's colors, the red & black plaid is a traditional up north team, and I guess at during next hunting season I will be able to dress like Elmer Fudd.

Next comes a fantastic Helle Skala folding knife. I bought my first Helle during a long family weekend in Luxembourg, and soon learned to appreciate the clean design, excellent manufacturing and fantastic laminated blade, where a hard high carbon core is swanduiched between two layers of tough stainless stell. The laminating process is not too different from the technology used in classic Samurai swords, and when the blade is sharpened the harder high carbon core always make the cutting edge. The Skala is a beautiful folder and its only potentially impractical aspect is that I already have one hundred and fifty other blades or so. Well, one never knows when there will be a lot of butchering or whittling to be done.

And finally we come to my Christmas alternative to Ralphie's BB-gun, the Savage Model 99 lever action rifle. In my opinion, the best word to describe the Savage Model 99 is elegant, and I believe that the brainchild of Mr. Arthur William Savage is the quintessential lever rifle. 

While Winchester undisputedly built "the gun that won the West" following the pattern laid down by the Volcanic and Henry firearms, their success at the end was a hindrance for innovation and it took an outsider in the form of Kingston, Jamaica, native Mr. Savage to recreate the lever rifle and make it a relevant hunting rifle for the twentieth century.

The main differences between the Savage Model 99 and other lever rifles at the time that it was created are its ability to fire high-intensity cartridges with spire-point bullets (something that the Winchester 1895 can also do) with greater precision due to a much faster lock-time made possible by a very well built hamerless action. Additionally, the elegant rifle is highly ergonomic, and it can be equaly well used by either right hand or left hand shooter, a scope can be easily mounted due to angle ejection, and the quality of manufacturing is really good.

My particular rifle is chambered for the 300 Savage, a cartridge designed in 1920 to basically offer 30-06 performance level in a package that would fit the Model 99, and is available both with 150 and 180 grain bullets. Later on, the 300 Savage was used as the basis for the design of the 308 Winchester or 7,62x51 mm NATO. 

The Savage Model 99 in 300 caliber is an effective 300 yard rifle for deer-sized animal, and very few lever action rifles can claim that. A short time ago I was reading Jeff Cooper's Commentaires and while that he considered that there were only three modern interesting rifles, the Steyr Scout (308 Winchester), the Blaser R93 (30-06) and Jim West's Alaskan CoPilot (45-70), in several passages he mentioned the Savage Model 99 (in 300 Savage) as one rifle that could fit the role of the Scout, especially for left hand shooters. Knowing how calous Mr. Cooper could be, this is a great compliment to this old rifle.

And what will I do with my rifle? Well, right now I will play with it indoors, at least until my doctor releases me to shoot again. Then I just may load some Buck Shot rounds for it and take it squirrel or rabbit hunting in the Old Mission State Park, at which time I will be wearing a heavy red & black plaid coat and will be carrying a Helle Skala folding knife to help me skin any game I may eventually shoot.

Doesn't that sound like the kind of thing that a professional small boy would do in order to run away from the world?

My $99 Anschütz

The perfect complement for my Haversack

On my latest trip to Brazil I had the opportunity to visit my hometown in the last weekend of October, and during that time I had the pleasure to meet my friend Aluísio Albuquerque, and during a brief visit to his home he showed me a gift that he had received shortly ago, a little Winchester 22 bolt-action "Tumb Trigger". To say that I was envious would probably be an overstatement, but that reminded me that I did not have a single shot twenty-two, and a professional small boy, to parafrase the late Peter Hathaway Capstick, who was too smart to take himself too seriously, not only needs, but truly desires such a timeless classic.

Well, some weeks ago my wife, who among many other responsibilities takes care of our mail and personal accounting, handed me a US$ 120 vaucher that Gander Mountain sent me and minutes later I found another US$ 10 gift card gratiously sent by Pheasants Forever. With that much "free" money available I was compeled to visit the local Traverse City store and explore the many possibilities to use my newly acquired funds.

The first trip with my wife was unsucessful as nothing caught my eye, but a week or so later the situation changed. After dropping my wife at the gym I drove to Gander Mountain to again search for that special something that would find a place in my heart and my life (you know how small boys behave).

Upon entering the store and quickly perusing the new firearms without finding anything attractive I moved to the relative small used guns shelf and among a lot of Mosin-Nagants, several shotguns and other center-fire rifles there was this small bolt-action twenty-two. I saw that it was in very decent shape and started to exam it and two things really caught my eye: the ANSCHÜTZ logo on top of the action and the $99 price tag!

As the sales associates were busy and there were other people looking at used guns that could steal my just found treasure I just stood there until help came my way, and before anything I double checked the price. It really was $99 and soon afterwards we , the little Anshütz and me, were on our way home.

When we arrived I immediately started an internet search to learn about my new acquision and after some false starts which called the rifle a "Garden Gun", which would have made me happy if that was the case as I really like those ancient European smooth bore "micro-shotguns", but finally I found a copy of an early 1960's Stoeger catalog that portraited ANSCHÜTZ JUNIOR VARMINTER .22 Long Rifle Caliber Rifles and Carbines. There were four guns on the page with prices varying from $22 to $110, and the top and least expensive one was the MODEL 1361E .22 RIFLE. The description matches my own rifle in every aspect, except that while the catalog states "A single-shot rifle with a manual cocking knob" my rifle will cock upon the bolt being closed.

As we had a week of pretty nasty weather the only place that I could comfortably test my new rifle was my basement airgun range, and in order to make it safe I relied upon Aguila's Super Colibri ammo which is actually less powerful and quieter than some of my air rifles, and therefore totally safe for my bullet traps. At around thirty feet off-hand (remember Jeff Cooper: rifles must have practical hitability) the little Anschütz performed as expected, hitting the twelve gauge empty hulls I was using as reactive targets and later my airgun metallic silhouettes. The only noise was that of the 20 grain lead pointed bullet hititing its target.

Today I disassembled the little Anschütz for proper cleaning and to better understand it mechanism. A single screw joins the stock with the lock and barrel. A robust leaf spring provides resistance to trigger movement, and the complete lock mechanism is of a sinmple and elegant construction, and the complete rifle probably has less than twenty parts, counting all moving and non-moving parts. "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" - Leonardo da Vinci

Since my Anschütz held minute of mice accuracy in the indoor range, I am sure it will perform just as well outdoors, and I am now planning a small game safari after cottontail rabbits and maybe squirrels for the Christmas holidays, but first I must secure the front sight that has some play to it. Maybe Del will coach me.

Well, now I have a rifle that not only rivals Aluísio's Winchester Tumb Trigger, but complements my grandson's Crickett (maybe in four or five years), and also is the perfect companion for my haversack. And who knows which adventures we may enjoy in the northern Michigan woods?

The 1960's Stoeger catalogue page

The Haversack

Your haversack can take you here and beyond
(Illustration from "Caçadas de Pedrinho" - book by Monteiro Lobato)

When I was a child a haversack (the name in Portuguese is "embornal") was a very common household possession, especially in the rural environment where I grew up.

Every one of the farm employees had one, almost always white made from discarded and reclaimed flour or sugar cotton sacs and with their initials embroiled by hand, with greater of lesser skill. Every morning around 9:30 the wives or daughters would bring the haversacks with the just cooked lunch and rang them in hooks outside the farm workshop from where they would be taken to fields.

That pretty much defined the standard dimension of the haversacks, since they had to have enough room for a caldron about six inches in diameter, which contained he inevitable rice and beans filling about three quarters of the volume and some sort of meat, pork or chicken being the most common, since almost every family kept at least one capon and several piglets plus a number of chickens, hens, and at least one nice looking rooster.

The lid was kept in place by an elastic band, and together with it would go a former soft drink glass bottle filled with very sweet, and soon to be cold, coffee. Those haversacks had a very practical use, but almost every one of those men also liked to fish, and some to hunt, even if only to provide some free protein for their families, but none had fishing boxes, all they need would fit in another haversack. And why not, since their wives could make them for almost free?

My brothers and I had our lunches in haversacks many times, more out of wanting to be part of the environment than for need, but like most of the other children in the farm we used ours to help us in our adventures.

So I started to consider what a haversack should be stuffed with to make us feel like children again!

First and foremost it should have a pocket knife of any type imaginable. Of course a Swiss Army knife would be the most desirable and useful knife anyone could carry, but they were too expensive and rare for children, and probably we would have to rely on a single blade friction folder, almost certainly with a sheep's foot blade that was handled down by some salesman, most likely chemicals being used o fight a losing battle win the boll weevils that were destroying our cotton, and that my father to his grave would swear where parachuted in Brazil by the CIA, so the big American companies could sell us their chemicals.

Next we must have a slingshot, as no self-respecting boy at the time would go out in the bush unarmed. Many dangerous mangos and other less desirable fruits would still be haunting the country if we did not have our slingshots to bring them down from their towering heights. Of course we could also try our luck at the multiple doves and pigeons that populated our woods or some careless tinamou that decided to prove Darwin wrong.

Marbles would be third in line, for they provided both entertainment during long lazy days and also could use as ammunition to the slingshots in case a trophy of enough importance would present itself for such expensive and high performance ammunition.

Following these basic staples we have a long list of absolute must haves, at least in the opinion of a professional small boy like me, and I will present the in no particular order.

Fishing hooks, sinkers and line that could all be accommodated inside a match box allowed us to y our hands for the "lambaris" (Astyanax sp.) and "traíras" (Hoplias sp.) among other fish that hid themselves in the dark muddy waters of the Córrego do Rosário that bisected our property, and that would come out in the early evening, about the same time that the annoying mosquitos would wake up to make us company and render us misery. A small glass jar with a screw in top that formerly held medicine or food is always useful to carry earth worms, rotting corn or other bait.

It is hard to overstate the importance of twine or cord or even some steel wire. They are essential to make an "arapuca" a very effective trap to catch birds and other small animals.

There is no reason not to carry as small container of .177" air gun pellets, even if your father, like mine, did not allow you to have an air gun. You could always come across another kid that had one, but had no pellets, and the priceless gift of half a dozen pellets or so would surely grant you access to that coveted gun. But I can't complain about my father for as much as he was afraid of air guns, he would allow me to carry a small bore shotgun, so in my haversack I always had a small handful of .310" rimfire shotshell made by CBC. The older version had glass wads that let us see the No. 11 shot while the newer ammunition was crimped.

Matches or a Bic lighter are critical to start our fires so we can cook our fish or the rare birds we hunted with our mortal slingshots. The frying pans were made from discarded cooking oil cans and were generally good for a single meal. More cans could be found when necessary. Of course the pocket knife was used to make he fry pan and then become the cooking utensil.

The haversack should also carry a small and inexpensive flashlight. Nowadays we have reliable and bright LED hand torches that cost next to nothing, but to us professional small boys (and I freely steel once more the expression from Robert Ruark) nothing is better than and old and barely functional flashlight, with worn out batteries that barely light the old bulb, and that before the night is over will have to be boiled or frozen to give us a couple more lumens that reflected from the eyes of a timid alligator someplace win the lagoon.

Being the nerd that I always was my haversack was also home to a magnifying glass, mostly used to burn black holes in mango leaves, and a small notebook and pencil, that of course was sharpened by the inseparable pocket knife.

A whistle is very useful if you are lost, or even if you just like to annoy people and disturb their early afternoon nap and any child will soon find out how easy it is to lose it when overused or misused.

A very important item is a magnetic compass, especially if it is inexpensive and not too reliable, as it provides us a good reason to get lost for as long as we desire.

A good haversack can carry many other essentials, but it cannot transport or contain the most essential and necessary "items" for a us, professional small boys, adventure spirit and imagination.

Just get away from this computer screen and go explore your own backyard! You will discover a world that you thought was lost.