I’ve been wanting to post a bunch of pictures for a while now. So hey…. let’s just put them all up in a single big post.

All pictures can be clicked upon to see larger versions.

Ducks

A few shots of the various neighborhood ducks. The pictures of the ducklings are actually a few weeks old; the ducklings are all much bigger now, but still just have the downy yellow feathers.

Here’s the one mallard hen and her ducklings:

The mallard ducklings are presently going through an awkward phase, where their legs are much longer compared to the rest of their bodies. It’s rather amusing.

One of the muscovy duck hens and her badelynge:

Another muscovy and her group.

That particular one… when the USDA people came to thin the flock, they took 7 of her ducklings (she had 12, lost one somehow, and now only 4 remain). My understanding is they weren’t supposed to take ducklings….

Now with the muscovy population so drastically reduced, we’ve had more not-muscovy ducks coming around. Just yesterday a new couple showed up:

Unfortunately, that’s the best picture I could get of them. They’re very skittish and constantly moving around. We’re guessing by their behavior that the brown/white one is male and the black/white one is female, tho the black/white one is slightly larger. What gets me is I’ve never seen a duck like the black/white one. The picture does not do her justice. The feathers are gorgeous. Lots of subtle coloring. Likely some sort of mallard hybrid. I do wonder exactly what it is, but despite the beautiful plumage I know it’s not a Norwegian Blue.

Texas DPS Firearms Range

For the range qualification portion of the CHL Instructor course, they held it at the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Firearms Range in Florence, Texas. It was a pretty nice facility. Here’s some pictures of the pistol range that we used.

Here’s a shot of the left part of the range:

And here’s the right:

There are 60 firing positions, 6 groups of 10.  The first 10 yards or so have that rubbery surface, so it’s solid but there’s some cushion; very nice if you have to be there training all day. Then you can see it’s grass with concrete sidewalks that space out other ranges (e.g. 15 yards, 25 yards). All 60 positions have target frames that can be flipped sideways so you can’t see them, and exposed for set amounts of time. The chief range officer had a remote control and a headset with microphone for giving the range commands; the speakers were also remote speakers placed on the ground every so often behind us. That setup worked quite well.

Here’s a shot of the right side, from back at the parking lot:

There’s a small building to the left, the edge of which you can see. That’s the bathrooms, water fountains, etc..

There were other ranges too, for rifle. A skeet range was also there. One thing we got a kick out of? We saw a deer feeder, and when we first arrived in the morning numerous does came out to feed. I did see some BBQ pits up in the pavilion. I guess they have some fun during the winter. *grin*

Dawson Precision

After the CHL shooting test, I visited Dawson Precision.

Now if you really want to see some pictures of their facility, check out their Facebook page.

But one thing I thought was really cool? Their range/testing room.

You see, it’s a wonderful indoor room. It has a fully capable work bench:

This way when they test out a gun, if it needs a tweak they can tweak it right there. Very nice, well thought out. The shelves on the left hold a host of different ammunition, which is all reloaded on a bunch of Dillon Precision 1050’s that are in the room off to the right. Again, all for testing the guns.

See that chair in the bottom-left corner?

That chair lets you sit at this bench:

It’s a bench. There’s a good rest on it. That big contraption on the wall? It’s a brass catcher. There’s a bucket at the bottom of it. Simple enough, you make sure a fresh empty bucket is placed at the bottom before you test. You test, then once completed you empty the bucket. Makes recycling and sorting the cases really easy. It’s really well put together.

Now, you see that window to the left? Well, if you look closely you’ll see there’s a door and hinges along the top edge. Normally it’s closed. But with the press of a button it raises up and opens out to this:

And from your air-conditioned benchrest, you can shoot all that steel. All your brass is caught. If the gun needs work, you just visit the workbench right behind you. If the steel needs to be reset (some are LaRue resetting targets), then there’s a cord/handle just above you that makes it easy to do right from the comfort of the room.

Folks…. this is awesome. 🙂

Now remember I mentioned that the front sight they installed was different from the one I already had?

Take a look:

On the left is the sight that was installed by Springer Precision. I’m not 100% sure which one it is. On the Springer Precision website work order it just says “Dawson Precision Fixed Sight SET (.100 fiber optic front) target rear”.

On the right is the one that Dawson directly sold me and installed. It is the .205 tall x .100 wide Match (used with DP Fixed Rear), item number 021-019.

I pulled out the calipers and measured. Same width, same height, just different bases. I’ll have to ask about that. I ought to be able to shoot the gun with the new sights soon.