Road trip/GTG - CMP Talladega Marksmanship Park, Feb27th!

[chopper duke]

On a serious note....Thanks to GeauxLSU for suggesting and coordinating this trip. It was a BLAST and the CMP does an AMAZING job. Thank you!

Absolutely thank you!! I even heard someone mutter "finally, a mod who does stuff." It might have been me that muttered it.

 

[DerekB711]

23" barrel chambered in 7.62x54R with a 8x POSP scope.

Gotcha I have the 308 23'' and I have yet to shoot it
the pics look awesome boys im not gonna miss the next one

 

[GeauxLSU]

Ok.... my report... that place does NOT suck!
Holy wah... what a facility! It's apparent it is well poised and likely purpose built to host some major events. One thing that struck me was that even though there were two separate competitions going on, and our modest invasion force, the place never once felt the least built crowded, even though it was obviously a beautiful Saturday. People that live even remotely near that place won the shooter's lottery. They probably get the entire place to themselves during the week. If there exists a nicer facility I can't imagine what it is. The grounds were immaculate and even the staff was great. (I thought I was going to have to arm wrestle the old guy who was the RSO at range 1 when he saw my LSU cap and he was sporting his Bama cap. )
If I HAD to try and find an area for improvement (and you most certainly would have to try), I 'guess' it would be the targets. A 3-4 black mil dot on a white background made finding center not as precise for these old eyes as perhaps it could be. I don't understand why they don't have horizontal and vertical alignments. When I mentioned it to the RSO at the 100 yard range he smiled and saying we are adding them THIS week. Obviously that didn't slow down anyone else but I'll take all the excuses I can get.

Pictures? Pictures?!?! Imagine turning a dozen plus 12 year olds loose at Disney World and then trying to get pictures. Yeah, GLWS.

Started off on the 100 as most did, then spent most of the day on the 200-300/600 as most did, then a quick run to pistol. Unfortunately by then it was already 5:00 (the day FLEW by) so couldn't do sporting clays. @CheshireGoat and I closed out with 2 rounds of the aptly named 'crazy quail'. I'd had have been more productive shooting the moon.

I had never shot a suppressed weapon prior to Saturday. Thanks to @se3racer and Bear44 for letting me shoot some of their cool toys. It's going to be really hard to continue to fight that urge now!
Another things, SOME REALLY NICE armaments there! Imagine the coolest "gun show" where the owners are happy to let you test drive their toys. Really nice mix of old (really old) school and the tacticoolest MSRs. (Bear let me touch his Nightforce when nobody was looking)

Even thought it was just over a 2 hour ride for me, the great thing about that is, it was ample time for me to come up with a littany of excuses on my ride back for why I didn't shoot better, and NONE involved my own lack of ability.

Yep, we have to do it again. I'm up for a September invasion to make it a bi-annual nice weather event but if y'all want to plan something sooner I may do that as well. I am NOT bringing as many guns though. I spent almost day yesterday cleaning.... Small price to pay.

It was really great to meet you guys and once again ODT is batting a thousand on quality members.

 

[GeauxLSU]

On a serious note....Thanks to GeauxLSU for suggesting and coordinating this trip. It was a BLAST and the CMP does an AMAZING job. Thank you!

Absolutely. Thank you again, GeauxLSU

Pfft. No big deal obviously and I was going one way or the other. I just needed an 'excuse' to make the ride. Thanks to YOU GUYS for helping provide it! I told my wife, "But Honey, I HAVE TO GO now."

Absolutely thank you!! I even heard someone mutter "finally, a mod who does stuff." It might have been me that muttered it.

In my best Nixon voice... "I am not a mod!"
And oh yeah Chopper Duke, I think you get the award for most effort to make the trip after your schedule. You da main!

 

[palmettomoon]

....
But gotta tell ya, as nice as the RO was at the 100yd lane, the RO at the 600yd range was a crotchety ol' cuss. I only had a short amount of time to shoot before having to get back to the 'Creek so I asked nice for him to raise the 600yd target. He said he was sorry but that he needed me to shoot the 200yd target to prove my skills.

I gotta say I'm a pretty easy-going kinda guy and the last time I shot there was back in July and no one questioned my marksmanship skills. The rush for time was the biggest thing I guess. But it kinda got under my crawl. But he's the guy in charge so I guess I have to dance when he says dance. I get it though, you shoot the target system and break it, it gets expensive.
.....

LOL, at the end of the day I asked for the 600 yard targets to be let down on the two points my brother and I were shooting from and the 200 yard target to be raised so I could check my 200 yard far zero. I plan to shoot an M1A match Sat at RBGC and all courses are at 200 yards.

Anyway, Leon raises the 200 yard targets and I remove 14.5 MOA from my rear elevation and settle in for a few shots, nothing. After 7 rounds, nothing is "hitting" the target. I move to my brother's point and again, nothing. I ask if there is some way to verify that the scoring system is indeed working and he asked me if I was sure I adjusted my sights correctly.

The look on my brother's face when I turned to him was priceless. He looked at me as if snakes started squirming out of my head. I must have looked six kinds of pissed.

I informed Leon that I was certain my sights were correctly adjusted and that I had been hitting the targets all day (about 250 rounds downrange) from 200, 300 and 600 yards. He finally asked me to move to another bank (there are 5 targets in each "bank") and fire a few rounds. I did and hit the X ring 5 times as the correctly scoring target indicated. He told us that someone must have shot a wire in the frame of the 5 target bank we were shooting at and when severed, someone has to go downrange and repair the break. It was late (5:00) and I was finished up anyway so it wasn't a huge deal.

I can imagine Leon gets that same mindset that gun shop owners get after dealing with people for years. He was very nice once he realized that I knew a little about what I was doing and I wouldn't be disappointed to see him as CRO again.

 

[GeauxLSU]

the RO at the 600yd range was a crotchety ol' cuss. I only had a short amount of time to shoot before having to get back to the 'Creek so I asked nice for him to raise the 600yd target. He said he was sorry but that he needed me to shoot the 200yd target to prove my skills.

I gotta say I'm a pretty easy-going kinda guy and the last time I shot there was back in July and no one questioned my marksmanship skills. The rush for time was the biggest thing I guess. But it kinda got under my crawl. But he's the guy in charge so I guess I have to dance when he says dance. I get it though, you shoot the target system and break it, it gets expensive.

I missed this. Next time bring free soap!

 

[strokin99]

Here are a few pictures of the kids shooting the 6.5 at 600 yards

 

[woodstock]

Cool place, I wanna go next time

 

[Bear44]

Thread resurrection!

Who thinks it's about time to do this again?

 

[Zeake]

I wish I were there right now.