Shooting chips in the Rock Pit

FINALLY.... got to go shoot today!!

Winter Break at the University is OVER - I am among the retired again! So I packed things in the truck and headed to the Rock Pit...

Normally this time of year I would not be able to get to the pit, I would be snowed out! But this is one of those years and I was able to get in pretty easily.

I just need to shoot! I grabbed the ULite and decided to shoot the new Lehigh .451x230CF Copper bullet. For me this is my go to deer bullet... it has proven to be really accurate and deadly.

At the pit, I was really surprised, one of the groups before me had set up broken clay pigeon chips in the snow at 100 yards. I was going to setup a bunch of new birds but the chips were there and would serve as a better challenge.

When it come down to it really wasn't really much of a challenge - load and shoot. Really made me feel good to dispatch the various chips on the wall.

Took some pics of the outing - hope they are visible enough to make the point.

I was shooting 120 gr. (volume) of BH with the Lehigh from a Knight Ultra Lite with a Redfield Revenge with a ACCU Ranger Reticule.

Looks like fun! How many grains is the Lehigh bullet?


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Nice I bet it felt great to get out. I'm about to grow into my easy chair, need to do something.

I didn't get to shoot but I had a blast retrieving a pickup that went thru the ice.

Bones816 said:

Looks like fun! How many grains is the Lehigh bullet?


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It is a .451x230 grain bullet...

Great shooting buddy

sqezer said:

I didn't get to shoot but I had a blast retrieving a pickup that went thru the ice.

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I can not believe that picture - got to get it and put it up here...

Thanks Mike, that's me in the Orange jacket. I'm standing on 18" of ice, the right rear wheel is in open water. When I got there, water was flowing in the passenger door and out the drivers door. The driver drove onto the ice in the dark to fish with his buddies not knowing the lake at all. Everyone in the truck is ok.

Sabotloader , Have you compared the 230 cooper bullet to the 250 bloodline on deer size animals ?

sqezer said:

I didn't get to shoot but I had a blast retrieving a pickup that went thru the ice.

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I have seen that 2 times around here, the last 1 was a shiny Brand new 16, 17 Pickup, This guy and some buddies were drinking and decided it would be fun to Go out on the little lake and spin some Donuts, he made it out fine on the ice and they had their fun, But Coming back by the Dock amongst the Cat tails The truck Broke through up to about Mid doors, completely flooding the new truck. This kind of stuff NEVER ceases to amaze me! The big thing nowadays is Dirt bikes with tracks on them, i have seen them guy’s get out on some MIGHTY THIN ice! Makes no sense to me?

Sabotloader, That looks fun!! This spring/summer i would love to make it down and burn some powder with ya!!

Idaholewis said:

Sabotloader, That looks fun!! This spring/summer i would love to make it down and burn some powder with ya!!

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come on down! It is just pure recreation for me!

wesley396 said:

Sabotloader , Have you compared the 230 cooper bullet to the 250 bloodline on deer size animals ?

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Not officially... I have used the 250 a couple of times - it is really a good bullet and does exactly what it is suppose to do. The 230 while it is a little lighter knocks right on the door with the 250. I am not sure you could wrong with either..

Idaholewis said:

sqezer said:

I didn't get to shoot but I had a blast retrieving a pickup that went thru the ice.

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I have seen that 2 times around here, the last 1 was a shiny Brand new 16, 17 Pickup, This guy and some buddies were drinking and decided it would be fun to Go out on the little lake and spin some Donuts, he made it out fine on the ice and they had their fun, But Coming back by the Dock amongst the Cat tails The truck Broke through up to about Mid doors, completely flooding the new truck. This kind of stuff NEVER ceases to amaze me! The big thing nowadays is Dirt bikes with tracks on them, i have seen them guy’s get out on some MIGHTY THIN ice! Makes no sense to me?

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I fear ice! Back in the dark ages when I was doing a lot of snowmobiling - it used to be real common to run on the ice... I just could never get comfortable with it. Not saying I didn't do it but....

Even with snow, at least you're out shooting and having fun.. I'm inside.

Good you could get out. It was only 14* here this morning but the blasted Wind is blowing so it is just too cold for range time. All the water around us keeps the temps down for a while too. So I'm inside too. Cleaning and Restoring a Phelps Reloading machine.

52Bore said:

Even with snow, at least you're out shooting and having fun.. I'm inside.

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That is exacty why I need to get out!!! I never was to fond of the inside..

The picture of that truck draws a few memories. I have the chance to see several in that predicament over the years. One would think that here in Minnesota where ice and ice fishing run hand in hand, people would be aware of the hazards of driving on ice. Every year its the same thing early on, people driving thru the ice and drowning or sinking vehicles.

sqezer said:

Thanks Mike, that's me in the Orange jacket. I'm standing on 18" of ice, the right rear wheel is in open water. When I got there, water was flowing in the passenger door and out the drivers door. The driver drove onto the ice in the dark to fish with his buddies not knowing the lake at all. Everyone in the truck is ok.

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Sqezer...How can there be 18" ice where u are and the truck falls thru? And how in the heck did You guys get that out?
There was some idiot on the news in DC took a suburban on Potomac river two weeks ago and broke thru. It's been cold as crap here but I still ain't taking my truck out on the ice. 1* right now. Been a cold start to winter- burning a lot of wood! Good thing is it's supposed to get to mid 40's by end of week!

If you don't spend much time on the ice it's hard to wrap your arms around the way Mother Nature works, the lake is very large and is somewhat shallow and full of springs and also has a river that also feeds into and out of it. The driver drove onto the ice in the dark and got disoriented to where he was, where he went in there was a very active spring and another active spring about 400 yd. away. Where the truck went in and I must say he was very lucky, it was the transition from a very shallow area to deeper water. The front wheels were sitting on the bottom 3-4 feet of water, the area where I was standing had 18" of ice with 8-10 feet of water below the ice. ( The transition between shallow and deep water is cut by water flow, the same as sand bars are cut by water flow.) Now how do you get the vehicle out, first off I start cutting into ice with a chain saw to get the ice thickness, this take a lot of time because safety first. You cut hole every 50-75 yds. when you come across thinner ice then you move one way or another until you get good ice again. several times I ran into areas where I was down to 6-8 " of ice, so I hope this gives you some kind of insight of what we deal with. Blystone Towing has a custom built ice recovery sled that we use, once we have a safe path to drive the wrecker out to the recovery site then we start the recovery. If there is no safe way to get to the recovery site then this is where it gets very costly, first we cut a straight line from the recovery site to the wrecker to lay the cable to recover the vehicle. In Wisconsin the DNR gives us only a short time to get vehicles out of the water, I hope this helps. I need to thank sabotloader for posting the picture but I didn't mean to takeover his post. THANKS MIKE.