Old Rebels and Old Friends, Wandering In the North Carolina Back Country with Rifle In Tow (Part Two)

After Lunch, we put the Remington 700 to rest and I brought out my 20 inch HBAR rifle build.
There's something nostalgia-evoking about a full length AR pattern rifle.  Even after all these years, with all the modifications and improvements to the design, carbine length weapons with collapsible stocks, flat top uppers and free floating railed handguards, flip up iron sights, short PDW style carbines chambered in a plethora of rounds, I still find myself picking up a 20 inch heavy barreled beast, clunky and cumbersome as it might be. It began as nothing but a stripped lower receiver, and I sourced the components Johnny Cash style, as in "One Piece At a Time", until finally all that I needed was setting on my work bench, patiently waiting for me to bring it to life.  After a the initial build and several range sessions to function test, it was time to take it out for serious business. Sitting atop it's rail was a Nikon ProStaff 3-9x40mm optic, to give my eyes a bit of an advantage.
Iron sights are important to have and to learn to use, but with age comes a degradation of one's senses. Vision in particular. For me, anything past 75 yards has to be assisted with some form of magnified optic.
I placed it up on the bench, and loaded a 20 round Magpul PMag with 6 rounds of Winchester 5.56mm NATO 62grain FMJ. Removing the sub par quality Weaver lens covers I had been talked into by a local shop (a problem soon to be solved), I peered down through the Nikon at the target.
I charged the rifle, and gripping the stock, I pulled it in tight to my shoulder.
A solid, well built, and ergonomically comfortable feel to this stock, my cheek weld was perfect.
I dropped the safety, and with controlled breath, I squeezed the trigger.
I felt the bolt slide back through the buffer with the sound of the spring reporting that familiar "ChingChing" as the bolt returned to the chamber loading another round. The emptiness filled my brain again, washing away all the struggles and worries of the past week. It was me, the rifle, the trigger, and the target. Nothing else. I squeezed the trigger.
That 62 grain projectile split the air and raced across that range piercing the target once again. 6 times, and 6 hits. This felt right. Point and click.
Stew laid the binoculars on the staging table, and said "It was hard to tell exactly, but I think it was a pretty tight group."
We hopped on the Trail Wagon and rode down to the target to examine my group up close.
The circle was slightly bigger than a quarter, and while I could feel myself shaking a bit on the 5th and 6th shot, I was still satisfied with my group, and well within my expectations for my rifle.

I'm sure that when Eugene Stoner designed the AR , he never imagined all the different evolution that would take place within the design. All the different accessories, mods, parts, and upgrades that are available today are staggering, some vastly improving the design, and some of highly questionable usefulness. But with all the "bells and whistles" sometimes a simple, reliable weapon is a refreshing change of pace. I believe it to be that simplicity for me.
After a couple of hours of simple informal plinking, the sun was beginning to crawl down past the tree line, the orange and gold beams of light etching their marks across the North Carolina sky.

Stew and I sat on the porch of the cabin, nursing cups of coffee,and chatting about the day's success.
These simple days are the ones I remember with the fondest regard. The weekdays belong to the money grubbers, task masters, and bureaucrats. But the weekend belongs to us, the men and women of the blue collar, whose hands bear the scars of honest work. We don't spend our days at the country club, or on a well manicured golf course. We find our leisure on the back roads, and the open field, where city ordinance is a myth, and HOAs are just a bad dream. The next time you need to find yourself, you might want to check an old country path. You might be patiently waiting there the whole time.

Losing Yourself In The Backwoods: Wandering Into the North Carolina Back Country with Rifles In Tow (Part One)

In case you haven't figured it out, I am not, by any means, a city boy. The city, and all that comes with it, is a means to an end. It supplies me with a place to work, and that's pretty much it.
It's never really offered me much, other than an example of how the other half lives. The other half being sheltered entitlement babies, and yuppie schmucks.
So, I find myself steering clear of the city on weekends. I certainly get my fill Monday through Friday.
My friend Stew called me up on Friday,asking if I had worked anymore on getting my zero squared away on my 20 inch AR rifle. I had  it pretty much where I wanted it, but it never hurts to put some more hits on paper to confirm, not necessarily the rifle, but yourself.  Stew had a Remington 700 in .308 Winchester that he desperately needed to sight in, and "desperately" is not an over-exaggeration.  If you've had a rifle such as that for over 3 years, and never fired one shot, it is in desperate need of testing, and frankly so are you.
We loaded up the truck on Saturday morning, and headed out to the Farm, a remote location in central North Carolina, well off the beaten path, where your neighbor is seldom seen, the roads are still made of dirt, and if you do happen to meet a fellow traveler on the road, one of you will have to give way to the other, simply to allow passage. I'm sure to the average urbanite , wandering down a road such as this paints images in the mind, of banjos, and genetic deficient hillbillies, hell bent on violence and forced sexual congress. But to me, it's a Freedom Road, leading to a lifestyle unfettered by modern hustle and bustle. This Road winds and twists around as though those who cut it followed a drunken blacksnake through the dark.
  The Farm itself, a redoubt, a place for a blue collar boy such as myself to find a little bit of tranquility, in a world going to hell in a handbasket.
A fair day lay before us, the temperature not terribly high, and surprisingly the humidity at a minimum.
Which for anyone who had spent a summer in NC, they will tell you that is certainly rare.
Stew dug around in the back of his truck, mumbling a few profanities in regard to the cluttered state of his once well organized system, finally dragging out an old leather rifle scabbard, brought with him decades ago when he came back East from Oklahoma, his home stomping grounds.
I had always wondered why a man such as he would have stuck around with us tenderfoot rascals after retirement, but he told me he was too old to move back, but I digress.
From within the leatherbound case, he drew forth an unfired Remington 700 Tactical, chambered in .308 Winchester, with a threaded 1:10 twist heavy barrel, resting in a green Hogue Overmold stock.
Mounted on the top was a Sightron 3.5-10x44 ccope. So strange, from such an old case from yesteryear,  comes such a modern day piece of hardware.
Oh, the anticipation of firing a new rifle. It's something hipsters, and gourmet coffee house loiterers will never understand.

We started off at the 50 yard bench to simply get on paper, but we found that out of the box, the Sightron was fairly close as it was. After about 5 rounds, we moved to the 100 yard bench.
Wind was nonexistent, so really the only thing that would affect our shots, should be quality of ammo, and our own capabilities or lack thereof.
Such a smooth and simple weapon, this Remington 700. As I toted it up the line to the bench, I was surprised that it wasn't quite as heavy as I thought it would be. The smell of burnt powder and CLP filled my nostrils, and the faint warmth emanating from the barrel felt like memories of an old friend.
Some of the happiest days of my life were spent pulling triggers with folks I have loved and respected. Some still here, some who have gone on. These are the days that I live for.
Toting a rifle up the line, on a beautiful summer day, a type of absolute freedom...it is one of those brief moments of perfection I talk about.
At 100 yards, Stew sat down behind that glorious beast, determined to leave the Farm having tamed it.
With each squeeze of the trigger, each adjustment of the windage and elevation, that Remington pulled in to where he wanted it.  The goal of one ragged hole became reality, as each shot made the previous larger. My old friend stopped, removed his ear protection and said, " Give her a try , that's why there's an extra box of ammo. "
I took hold of that brilliant piece of American engineering,actuating the bolt. Even out of the box, without  any level of custom work done, it was smooth. I put my 3 shots in for the group, and sent the bolt home,drawing it firm into my shoulder.
 The glass of that Sightron scope was as clear as about any I have ever looked through.
Looking out across the range, I picked a lone orange target and placed those crosshairs in the center.
Dropping the safety, I let everything that buzzes around in my head fade into nothing.
No worries, no agitations. No overthinking, no shaking.
Forgetting everything in life and the whole universe, I took a controlled breath.
I stopped, I squeezed the trigger.
"She's in the black, dead center." Stew lowered his binoculars, and smiled.
Again, I worked the bolt, and drew it into to my shoulder. The emptiness filled my mind once again.
And in a brief moment of perfection, it was "in the black. Dead center.
"100 yard ain't even hardly a good run around the block for this. We need to work her out at 200 at a minimum" , Stew declared, and I knew what this meant. We were going to have to build another shooting lane in the near future. But it would be worth it.
There are some people that will never understand those moments.
It's beyond their comprehension.
Stew was ecstatic, thoroughly impressed with what had up until a few moments ago, been nothing but a safe queen. Now it was christened and destined for many a session at the range. Hopefully.
Several boxes of ammunition later, Stew wasn't just infatuated, he was in love.
The sun was high in the sky, with lunchtime beckoning. A call that a well fed country boy such as myself cannot resist, so we broke for lunch.
It was time for me to take out the rifle I had brought and see what it would do...

(I will post Part Two tomorrow if possible.)

"Living To Run, And Running To Live..."

I have a hell of a time talking to people these days.
Part of it is me. But a good part of it is people. The inability to communicate in a civil manner, and a general degradation of the culture has prompted me to simply withdraw from social interaction.
Yeah, it borderlines on reclusiveness. I starve for intellectual conversation. Of course, these days, I don't know whether or not I could keep up with folks like I use to.
I think I feel myself slipping....slipping as in getting older, and not nearly as sharp as I once was.
I suppose it's a natural progression for most all of us in our lives.
We hit our mid 30's or early 40's and we look in retrospect on the time we can never get back, realizing our lives are about half over. I'm understanding those old Bob Seger songs more and more everyday.
"Against The Wind" isn't just a good classic jam anymore, it's an anthem of the heart.
I can even forgive the commercialization of  "Like A Rock", and listen to those lyrics as an epitaph to lost youth.
From "Like A Rock" :
" And I stood arrow straight, unencumbered by the weight of all these hustlers and their schemes...
I stood proud, and I stood tall, high above it all, I still believed in my dreams."
Those better days, when the world was wide open for us all.
These days, it's full of mortgage payments,doctor bills, and the uncertainty of what the next volley of bad news is going to be.
But even through all of that, I look for the brief moments of perfection.
The sun slipping down behind the mountain in the evening, the sky resonating in waves of orange and gold.
The wind dancing across the blades of wild grass in the fields, carrying with it, the dust of a million summer days.
The heartbeat of a 4 legged companion curled up next to you in your favorite chair.
The haunting chords of a song from the old days, emanating from speakers of an old stereo.
Those brief moments of perfection.
What am I driving at here, you ask? Maybe nothing.
Maybe I'm just moved by an old song.