OPERATION: BLACKJACK, JUNE 5TH, 2004

Above: Super Six with his trusty .303.

 As the weather gets warmer, and especially during graduation season, we have had the tendency to see fewer folks out at training. Assuming that this would be the case, we had planned on giving some bolt action rifles, especially the inexpensive military surplus ones, a thorough testing, and probably not much else for the day. Boy, were we wrong.

We almost had three "shifts" of folks show up, and ended up with a total of twenty-three humans on the range this day. (We initially had counted twenty-one, thus the name "BlackJack", but have since been informed that militia persons from Washtenaw and Lenawee Counties showed up later for some commo work.)

The temperature ranged from the mid 60's to about 74 during the day. The bugs were moderately bad, but Thumper brought some OFF for everyone, so we endured. It was sunny.
There was a handful of newer folks, and several people needed to qualify (or re-qualify), so the bolt-action evaluation was put on hold, unless you count the folks who qualified with bolt action rifles, such as Tin Man and BR. (Tin Man shot an M44 with a synthetic stock, scope, and bipod, and he also shot a nice Japanese Arisaka, I am not sure which type. BR shot an Enfield with a scope and "shooting sticks".) A hearty militia welcome to Vaughn, Brandon (and his Dad), and Terry from Lapeer County.

Above: Mak9, Scooby, and Animator

There were gear checks, as always with bonus commentary. A couple of folks were sighting in early, and some of the other people were helping them. This is always good to see, especially when newly introduced folks help each other try to get sighted in. New at the range were an AK with a spectacular scope, and a .22 magnum bolt action. I brought my new Mosin-Nagant 91/30 to try, and Bishop brought, well, I don't know if I can blaspheme this rifle by writing its name....

The One Rifle. Do not gaze too long...

Thumper bought along his complete low-budget ensemble, to show that it doesn't have to cost a lot of bucks to gear up. We will probably have a separate write up on this complete set-up. With just a small budget, some determination, and little bit of imagination, even the most budget conscious tight wad can be ready to secure the homeland.

The walk went well, with one dedicated, hard core member burning up the road and scoring a low 40 something minutes for his THREE mile walk. TJ mentioned that he has been speed walking to practice for this. Everyone should take note of this, and perhaps gain some inspiration. It's just walking, right? Most of us can do this, can't we?

Above: Crosshairs, Cpl Punishment, and Surefire.	Above: Scopemaster V

At the end of the walk, I took not of Surefire's nifty ankle mounted backup pistol. This might not be the best way to carry a small semi-auto pistol, though, as it got a little muddy.

Left, a muddy back up	Right, a shiny Arisaka

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On to more shooting for record. It is one of my favorite things to watch people's shooting improve over time, so if you haven't shot well yet, just remember, the best way to get tighter groups is to shoot a lot of them. Still, we need to reiterate our experience that AK types, while incredibly reliable, nearly indestructible, and cool as hell, are not terribly accurate. We don't want to disenchant anyone with these fine rifles, but it is not likely that they will hit the level one qualification. Don't let this stop you from trying, though, as we have seen the rare time when an AK type can qualify. We are still studying the ballistics of the .22 magnum, but it should be able to hit, with a little practice.

There was Level One weapon field stripping, 1st aid kit inspections, and timed walks. There were Level Two shelter building, 3-5 second rushes, applying a dressing to an extremity, and personal camouflage. A note on the camo is in order here: Super Six always does the hoo-rah face paint thing, and that is hard core. A lot of us have a veil for our face, and gloves for our hands, and these are certainly acceptable, but very few things scream HARD CORE as well as a green-painted militia face.

We had one new Level One person (Roadkill), a couple of Level One re-qualifiers (myself and BR), and a good chunk of valiant attempts. I am always worried that newer people will get discouraged about not hitting the target with their first few attempts. I hope that this will not be the case. Nobody starts out shooting "expert". This takes time and practice, and that is one of the most important things that we, as a unit, can do: get more people on the plate.

Left: Roadkill's beautiful Enfield	Right: BR with "shooting sticks".

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There were also several Level Two qualifications, Mak9, Tin Man, Cpl Punishment, and Bishop all qualified, or requalified Level 2. I think TJ did most of it, too, at least all the harder stuff like the walking and shooting parts. Mak9 also did a nice job as a spotter for folks still zeroing in.

Doc, Bishop, and a Flektar shelter	Cpl Punishment with shelter

In addition to shooting for record or zeroing, we finally got around to some bolt-action evaluations. My 91/30 shot on the plate at about 25 yards, so i was happy with that, but it was really wrecking my delicate AR15 shoulder, so I opted to wait until I got a pad for it before doing some further evaluation. Seems like a good shooter, though. Thumper was hitting pretty well with his 91/30, as well. But the day, as far as bolt action rifles go, truly belonged to the British Enfield. There were four or five of these out here, most in .303, but at least one in .308. The kicked and roared, but they knocked down some pins, and that's the point. Cpl Punishment from Bay County had a lovely Ruger M77 in .270. This was not exactly a milsurp bolt-action, but he shot well with it.
In my own, nonscientific observation, it seems like the Enfield outshot the Mosin-Nagant by a bit. One Ishapore manufactured Enfield in .308 experienced some mild integrity failure, but still functioned. We also saw another M77, in .223, and a seriously sporterized 6.5mm Swedish Mauser, which was the Original Militia Poor Man's Sniper Rifle from many a year ago. These last two came close to qualifying, but hadn't before I left. Both of these folks, Mr and Mrs Gerbil had qualified Level One before, but they did not live in Wayne County. Now that we include several other counties, it would be cool if they, and others, re-qualified.

Firing line. Note the absence of bolt-action rifles...	Gerbil with the venerated PMSR 6.5mm Swedish Mauser.

  
We had no Chuck Wagon, so Thumper heated up a mega can of Ravioli on the grill. It was not bad, and most of us had some other grub as well. We seriously miss the burgers, though.
There was even a brief chance for some pistol shooting. Most people can hit the Field Support Qualification of 8/10 shots at a paper plate at 50 feet, but some need to sharpen their skills. That's why we go out there, to get better, and to help each other get better.
There were several things going on at once, and it was not always easy to keep track of who was doing what. Since getting people qualified is one of our main focal points, we spend a lot of time at the range, especially with newer folks or people with newer weapons. If it looks like we are going to keep having larger turnouts, then we will start keeping secondary and tertiary training plans on hand, something akin to TBD's (Tactical Battle Drills) that some of us did in the Army. We will work on making up some "Battle Cards" to keep on hand to minimize the "down time" that we sometimes experience while some of us are working the range. We figure no more than seven or eight should be at the firing line at any given time, and we will now better prepare for the non-firing line people to be training.

I gotta say I was very pleasantly surprised at the 23 person turnout, I was happy to see the new folks, and really pleased to see some old friends (some with a new baby!). This was a really nice, unexpected "surge", and I hope we can keep this sort of thing going forward.
We were sad to find out about President Reagan's passing that day. He was my Commander-in-Chief, a damn good President, and according to the NRA, he also owned an Ar15. He will be missed, and I wish we had more like him.
Next time out will be July 3rd, and then August 7th. September 4th will be another shotgun day, but we might want to incorporate pistol shooting into that, as well, maybe some sort of "Home Defense" shooting day or something. Maybe we can work in a few IDPA or IPSC drills, too. That would be kind of neat.

Let's see this keep going, and let's get more of you out there!
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and God Bless Our Republic!

Mak9 is happy with his .308.

Thumper, standing, and Tin Man, prone. Both 7.62X54R.	Baby Scooby and his mom, Scrappy. Note Six's green face, far right.

Read Cpl Punishment's report on Operation Blackjack HERE.

-Lee
 

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