The Carolina Adventure!!!

[Tpatner412]

As many of you have already read, my Dad and I went down to North and South Carolina to meet up with some of our GTA brothers and do some shooting.  My Dad drove down to get me from Chicago to Kentucky and from KY we went to NC.  The drive through the Appalachian mountains is always fun and very beautiful.  We made it down to Lexington, NC unscathed and got some BBQ then hit the sack.  

The next morning we met up with Ernie (ncpackrat) at his shop.  Now I apologize for not taking more pics of Ernie's place.  Ernie is a gun smith and a real pack rat (hence the name LOL).  Ernie has about everything you could ever want.  First we saw his bullet collection, I think he may have every round in production in his shop.  There were bullets everywhere just waiting to be shot.  Then we moved to his small motorized vehicle collection.  There were RC planes, motorcycles and boats.  Lots of fun stuff.  I took a pic of my favorite of Ernies planes for you guys.  After that we looked around at some of his homemade fishing rods, which were quite impressive.  

Then we moved to the GUNS.  I think Ernie may have more guns than Bass Pro keeps in stock, no joke.  He pulled out a dozen of them for us to check out.  I apologize for not taking pics but I was busy drooling all over myself.  Im pretty sure that was the first, and last time that my hands will be graced with firearms that are worth more than my entire AG collection.  Ernie's is the last place I would choose to break into but the first place I am going when zombies start popping up.  .  So after checking all of that out we got to the shooting.  Ernie helped my Dad with his R9 and learning to shoot it better.  By the time we were done my Dad had his R9 dialed in.  I was able to get some groups shot with my new BSA R10 and HW30.  Both did not fail to impress.  Then came the challenge...

Ernie has quite a bit of space to shoot, and I wanted to do some really long range shooting.  So we put up some paintballs at 100 yards, YES I SAID 100!  At first we tried to spot them through out scopes but it was just too hard with out measly 16x scopes.  We grabbed Ernie's spotting scope and still had trouble spotting them.  So we took some red tape and hung it over the targets and settled in behind Ernie's CZ 200s.  Ernie knew his hold over really well so after his suggestion I took my first shot, no luck.  After watching the tape in the light breeze for a second, I reloaded and got ready for my second try.  I took a breath and tapped the phenomenal trigger on the CZ.  After a second of flight I saw the paintball disappear.  A smile came over my face and I couldn't help but let out a small yell.  Then I handed the gun to my Dad and in a few shots of his own he knocked the other paintball of its tee.  Now here is the funny part....neither of the paintballs even broke because the CZ only puts out 12 FPE at the muzzle.  But even though it doesn't hit hard, it sure has proven to be darn accurate and impressive.  We concluded our shooting for the day and got some more BBQ at a different restraunt called Cook's.  It was the best BBQ that I can recall having, EVER.  If you're ever in Lexington definitely try it.  There is a pic of the gorgeous NC sunset as well that capped a great day of shooting.

We woke up on Saturday and got in the car and drove on down to SC.  We wound up at Gene's place about two hours later.  Gene came and greeted us and we set up shot on his deck for some more pellet pushing.  I showed Gene the BSA's and he tried to make off with the R10  .  I threatened to put one in his behind and he put it down and settled for taking a few shots with it  . After Gene showed me his new turkey gun obsession we got to some real nice pieces.  BTW, for those of you getting a Retay they are mighty nice.  Not my style but very nice guns.  Gene was kind enough to let me shoot his Prosport, HW97, CZ Slavia 634 and some others.  He showed me some projects he is working on and did some shooting of his own.  My Dad was using his new found knowledge from Ernie well and was nailing targets out to 75 yards with ease with his R9 .20.  I decided to use the extended range to film a shooting test with the BSA R10 and do group shooting with my Prod.  I will throw the results up here.  The Prod proved to be more accurate than I ever expected and is definitely a keeper.  I will do a more in depth review later and put it on youtube.  I will also do a review of the R10 to accompany the shooting video that will be up later tonight.  

Anyways, I want to thank Gene and Ernie for their hospitality and letting a couple yankees come and shoot with them.  My Dad and I will definitely be back to shoot with you guys again  .

The First group pics are of the R10 shooting at 50 yards with JSB 18 grainers.  Dime sized group with 5 shots at 50 yards.  The R10 has a nice LDC on it as you can see in the pic.

[amb5500c]

Must have been fun. When you got done there, you should have made a right and headed down to Louisiana. I'd have fed yall real good and I really wanna see that gun you been bragging on.
Richard

[Mark 611]

cool stuff TP and some good shootin too!

[Tpatner412]

Rich I would have loved to come visit buddy but I gotta be back at school tomorrow.  Maybe next break I head down there

[VINNY]

Sounds like a great time.

[island rat killer]

thats no fair ...now im home sick. time for more rum
stuck on a rock in the midlands of the ocean.

joey

[gene_sc]

One of Tylers new guns was a pistola. P-Rod. To say the least I was impressed with its accuracy and how quiet it was.. He had a skeleton stock on it but it sure would be a great small shooter for small game. Thanks again Tylers for sharing..

[uncle paulie]

Some guys just seem to have all the fun! Gonna have to block the entire month of May next spring just to be sure I get my buns down for the at Genes' place next year for the spring fun-shoot! Thanks for sharing Tyler, sounds like a great time was had by all!

pv

[redone1992]

Shure bet it was  a great time.

[Tpatner412]

These kinds of experiences are what I have come to expect of meeting up with my GTA buds.  Those of you who can make it to the fun shoot next year will be in for a real treat and a lot of good people and good shooting.