Day 5 Decatur and guns

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Saturday. The night before Charlie had mentioned that he had arranged something special regarding an opportunity to do some shooting on a property out of town. What an understatement!! More a bit later.

We gathered at Macca's for a quick breakfast. Now that was a mistake!! After 10 minutes of waiting after giving our orders at the drive through Charlie went into the restaurant to give them a piece of his mind!! He was quickly served and we were on our way.

We traveled about 30 miles out of town to this innocuous looking property amongst the corn fields. We were greeted by mine host, Kurt, and invited into his cellar to see his strong room.

AND I MEAN STRONG ROOM!!

The door is a 7inch steel door and in side is the most amazing collection of firearms I have ever seen. I unfortunately am not able to list all of the various types of rifles, hand guns, shot guns, semi and fully automatic weaponry Kurt had, together with the necessary ammunition. There is even an underground firing range so he can keep his hand in during the cold winter months!!

One of his dry humor comments regarding his neighbor's also having guns etc was.

“We don't need neighborhood watch - we have overlapping fields of fire!!!”

We then went by 4x4 and ATVs to the outdoor 'range'. This was on the banks of a stream. The water was about 4 meters below the top of the bank. There were various targets from 50ft to 150 ft. But most of the fun was in shooting cans thrown into the stream!! The area was surrounded by trees and bushes.

But as the piece d'resistance Doug brought some home made bombs!! These were in plastic containers and thrown into the scrub or the stream and they had to be shot to set them off!! Amazing explosions! He had brought about 4x1lb (2.2kilo) bombs and one 4lb.

When he dropped the 4lb into the stream he suggested we stand back!! Well it went off and must have thrown mud and water 15 to 20 metres into the air and in a wide arc. I turned my back and got splatted with spray and mud . Some closer got wet and covered in mud!!

After exhausting all the available rounds we headed back to Kurt's house for lunch of deer stew. Yummy.

Charlie decided to round off the day that it might be good to ride out to Springfield, about 30 miles East to the short track races. So this was our first ride on bikes riding on the left!! Actually a lot easier than the car. There were 5 bikes.

Had a great night at the races and the bike park was absolutely choker with HD's must have been several hundred. Heading home was a spirited run and a bit chilly. Keeping a wary eye out for stray deer!!

What a day!! Truly an experience.
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Comments

[James]

Wow
Sounds like a great time to be had with Charlie and his mates! I should've skipped my trip to Europe and just come over to the US with you HAHA!

[Barbara]

OMG
Do they realise I won't even trust you with garden machinery!!!!

[Bringellian]

Sounds like your having fun mate. Enjoy the travels, I am glad someone is having fun as I have had to rebuild the ST. I did the motor in it. Will tell you more or you can read the thread in Sport Tourer when you return. Enjoy. Mike