I was poking around the office looking at the mountain of work we have looming. The snub book galley proof, version 2.0 is waiting for proofing, four new monograph are wondering when they are heading out, the Halloween match prize collection is piling up, and the scores of e-mail and packages that have to go out every day are calling. On top of it I am forever looking to skip out of the daily, nightmarish House Husband / Honey-Do list I get saddled … I mean … cheerfully look forward to helping my darling wife with. Well this afternoon, Heather headed off to her mother’s (Isn’t that a cliché!) and I didn’t need any prompting. I raced off to the local range for testing a new training drill. I took a box of fifty dummy rounds and five live rounds and two mid-size bowls. After setting up the target, I poured the fifty dummy rounds into one large wood bowl along with a single live round. I scooped out a handful or rounds and loading them LFI/MAG cup-and-sauce fashion. Then as quickly as I could reasonably manage, I “fired” off all the round. Nothing! I then unloaded the revolver and spilled the dummies into the second bowl, and repeated the exercise. Eventually persistence paid off and my one round fired. I quickly poured the all the dummy rounds back into bowl number one, and repeated the exercise. It took well over twenty minutes to finally fire off all five rounds. The group were much poorer than I imagined they would be in my mind, but the day was a wonderful success. A lot was learned about loose round reloading, I spend next to nothing of ammo costs, and I have a new drill to practice while trying to reduce my reloading speed while also reducing my group size. And the best part is … Heather is at her mothers!
