Thanks so much everybody for the birthday well-wishes. It means more than I can say, especially after such a lackluster time in here the past few months. With the advent of cooler weather mom is spending far less time out on the patio and more time inside. I recently started back into reloading pistol and rifle ammo with my reloading bench set up in the game room. The beauty is that the bench is right beside the game table where we have mom set up with her jigsaw puzzles. We get to spend time together but both get to do something we love doing. Working out pretty well for both of us. She's been here long enough now that some routines are developing, which is great. Things are a bit more predictable now. One of the routines is her taking a couple hour nap pretty much every day. On days when Tracy is working from home, I get a little reprieve and can go to the range for a bit while when mom is taking a nap. Not a whole lot of "fun time" but it's far better than nothing I guess

For years I was primarily into pistol shooting and many years ago I was into shooting long-distance pistol competition. Never won anything but had some great times. For some odd reason though, I've recently developed an affinity for rifle shooting. Got hands on a cheap Mossberg .308 a while back and really enjoyed range time with that thing. Now I'm getting more and more into precision shooting, which is far more challenging than I used to think it was but still love my pistols. The Mossberg unfortunately just isn't up to what I want for long-distance applications though. It's a great field gun, but not a precision rifle. Somebody was smiling on me for my birthday this year (or just feeling sorry for me) and added a couple of toys to my toy box. This is a Savage 110 Tactical chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor that was bestowed on me a couple days ago. Along with that toy came a
Vortex Venom 5-25X scope, which is a pretty nice piece of equipment. This rifle is the baby brother to the same model I got a few weeks ago chambered in .308.
In addition, I was the proud recipient of a new hand-held toy. It's a Canik Mete chambered in 9mm and is their competition model. Both the trigger and barrel are competition grade and this thing is a dream to shoot....although I've only run a hundred rounds or so through it.
Turns out that the birthday blessings were continued yesterday, much to my surprise. Tracy made arrangements to work from home yesterday to take care of mom and I took an hour ride with a good friend and top-notch shooting buddy to a long-distance tactical range. WOW!! What a kick in the a$$ that was. We were on the range that goes out to 600 yards with steel targets at 8 different distances. Started out at 100 yards to make sure the scoped were zeroed in and worked our way out from there. In all my life I never imagined myself shooting at distances like we were yesterday and actually hitting the target

Somehow, some way, I managed to hit every shot and every target with both rifles out to 550 yards. Then things dropped off a bit. It took a couple shots to hit the 600 yard target with the .308 with my buddy spotting for me but finally managed to smack it a couple times. Only managed to ding it with the 6.5 though. Never really got a solid hit with that one but up to that point the Creedmoor was pretty much a laser. I was shooting factory hunting ammo though that I bought just for the brass so I could reload it for precision rounds after shooting it all up. Until yesterday I'd never shot farther than 200 yards and it was pretty intimidating. All in all though, I'm thrilled. Both rifles are top-shelf AND I was able to hit targets at distances that were unimaginable to me. Next time we are going to the Extra Long Range and gonna try our hands at 1000 and 1200 yards. That's gonna be challenging!!
Oh well, gotta run. Need to get back to a few folks that have sent entries in for the Throwdown...and those are making me VERY hungry so probably need to get something down my gullet before I pass out from malnutrition

Y'all take care and I'll be back later....and thanks again for all the support. You folks are simply the BEST!!
Robert