Well, I had a chance to make it to the LaRue Range Day 2011 this weekend, and I went.
I visited with my buddy Ted who lives in Temple and we made it to the range on Saturday. We had a great time.
I thought you might enjoy some pictures of the activities there.
As we went in, we could tell it was going to be a large crowd. There were many exhibits, but every booth had a long line of folks waiting to try the weapons on exhibit.
Here's the line for the first booth, a long range shoot with rifles.
The exhibits were well marked so that you could see what you were interested in, and it was obvious that Safety had been very important to those running the sessions.
More.
And more.
The LaRue Barbecue Trailer was going strong and the brisket and sausage sandwiches were great.
There was a tent with lots of exhibitors displaying their products.
We went in and struggled to see it all, as the crowd was so thick that you could hardly move.
I looked at a dummy that looked familiar...
and looked up to see my friend Tacberry.
He looked really busy, but took time to shoot the bull with me.
It was a dry, dusty and windy day, and the dust was blowing everywhere.
I wiped my eyes with a wet towel and this is what it looked like.
But at least it wasn't hot.
I met all kinds of celebrities.
I met Chris Costa, who let me get a picture with him.
He was a really great guy and was taking time to talk with anyone that wanted to meet him.
I also looked up at one time and saw this young man. He is Dustin Ellerman, this year's winner of Top Shot. He was a fine young man and just as nice as he seemed to be on television.
I gave him one of my cards and he looked at it and said, "Old Painless? Hey, I've looked at your site a bunch of times. It's a great site!"
He runs this website.
I ran into Ed Avila and TheRedGoat, but didn't get a picture. Of course all of you know how handsome TheRedGoat is. Just multiply that by 10 to imagine how handsome he is in real life.
I met Texas_mustang_01, dpmmn, and several others that I forget their names. All a great bunch of guys. It was nice to be able to put a face with a name.
I finally met my buddy Zhukov face to face. It was great to finally meet him and his son.
We looked at the ATK exhibit, where they were testing ammo in gelatin blocks.
They had been shooting all day and had piled up a lot of gelatin
I spoke with Hal Price, the East Coast Director of Sales for ATK, and he recognized me from our meetings in the past at the SHOT Show.
He assured Zhukov and me that the new Federal #1 Buckshot load in the Flight Control Wad would be coming out after the SHOT Show and assured me he would send me some for testing.
I can hardly wait.
I also met up with Mfingar (Mark Fingar), and he was a pleasure to meet.
He acted as Master of Ceremonies for the day and made the announcements on the drawings for the many great prizes that were given out several times throughout the day.
I also finally got to meet Mark LaRue.
He is a great guy and a put on a great Range Day.
He was awarded a plaque by the Wounded Warrior Association for his generous help with that organization.
We had a great day and met a bunch of great people.
Shooters tend to be like that.
We didn't do any shooting, but we watched a lot of folks shoot.
Conclusions:
Thanks LaRue Tactical for putting on such a fine day. If you missed it, be sure to make it next year if you possibly can. It was well worth the trip.
