Breath control, sight alignment, trigger squeeze, and Jim…

A tough day of sorts today was, but in a strange way it was a happy one.   My good friend and long-time shooting and riding buddy Jim Wile died 10 days ago, and today was his funeral.

Here’s a shot of Jim in the mountains south of Prescott when we were riding to the Moto Guzzi National Owners Club rally a few years back…

Jim was a fun guy.   He went through motorcycles at about the same frequency as I change underwear, and thinking back over the years I’ve known Jim it seems like he was on a new bike every time I saw him.   He had to leave the party earlier than most, but if our time here on this planet is measured by motorcycles and great rides, Jim will have outlived us all.   He was a great shooting buddy, too, and we spent a lot of hours sending lead downrange.

Funerals are no fun, but Jim’s funeral was more of a reunion than a time for mourning.  I met folks I had never met before (but I felt like I knew them from Jim’s stories) and I saw a lot of folks I haven’t seen in a long time.   Jim would have liked it.  It was an upbeat event and Jim was an upbeat guy.  I spoke to Jim just a few days before he passed (when he was in the hospital knowing that things were not going well) and he was still talking about a couple of handguns he was going to buy.

Speaking of guns, the latest is the mighty Springfield Armory M1A.  I bought it just before Jim went into the hospital and he was excited to hear about it.   I refinished the stock (a process that takes a couple of weeks).   I am pleased with how it turned out…

You might wonder why I wanted to refinish the furniture on a brand new rifle.   The stock was rough looking, even though it had nice horizontal streaks from front to rear.   I liked the wood.  I wasn’t crazy about the way it came from the factory.   The finish was crude, but it was a nice piece of walnut.

I wanted to keep the GI look on this rifle, and I think I succeeded.  10 coats of TruOil, 0000 steel wool to subdue the sheen (my preferred finish for gunstocks), and I was there.   That’s an old school approach…it’s what we used to do in the Army before the world went nuts for plastic rifles.   My M1A (the commercial version of the M-14 I carried before the Army went to the M-16) looks great.  The rifle went from a clunker to a thing of great beauty.   Hell, I’d probably still be in the Army if they issued rifles like this (and if I was 40 or 50 years younger).

I’m going to load some ammo tuned to the M1A’s needs tonight and get out to the range tomorrow.  I haven’t shot my new rifle yet, but when I do, I’ll be thinking about breath control, sight alignment, trigger squeeze, and my good buddy Jim Wile.