2012 Bullpup Shoot, Near Mammoth Cave, KY

[BarryinIN]

This is the third one of these, I think. I was honestly surprised there were enough bullpup nuts out there to hold one of these, but believe me, there are.

Anyway, it was held at a beautiful facility that has a range, lodge, golf course, and winery, called the Rock Castle Lodge (and Rock Castle Shooting Center, Rock Castle this, that, and the other). I talked to one of the brothers that started the place today, and I still can't picture what it took to get this facility going. I'm guessing they have five miles of paved roads there.

It is real close to one of the entrances to Mammoth Cave Park.

The entire event was geared toward raising money for Wounded Warriors. Most exhibitors had a raffle or some other fundraiser going for them.

Wounded Warriors had a nice Brownell's rifle case, and some other Brownell's donated items like AR mags, lubes, etc. $5 bought a ticket and went to Wounded Warriors.

Ratworx would sell you a loaded magazine for $20 that fit the full auto gun of your choice, which you took to the range and ran though the appropriate gun.

Red Jacket (yeah, the guys from Sons of Guns, which I've never seen) gave away a 10-22 bullpup conversion stock and several T-shirts.

Juggernaut Tactical sold raffle tickets to win some of thier products, including scope mounts, muzzle brakes, and the biggie: a $1300 bullpup conversion chassis for an M1A/M14.

And the big prize: Steyr raffled off a new AUG. $20 bought you a hat or T-shirt and a raffle ticket.

I won a Brownell's AR mag.

The ticket for the Steyr AUG was number 570279.

I kid you not- I had 570280.

Aside from the Ratworx full auto fundraising, the shooting was free. You could shoot your own bullpup, or most of the manufacturers were letting everyone shoot their stuff.

We used just two of the ranges there.

Each window, or port, had at least one shooting lane visible that ran back into the woods. Like this:

Juggernaut Tactical M1A/M14 chassis:

I ran 20 rounds through this. It was a beast. That brake works, let me tell ya. I had my muffs on tight, but the blast from the brake was skimming the top of my head and hit the headband of my muffs enough to loosen them within five rounds.

Red Jacket.

Their thing was a soon-to-be released conversion stock for the 10-22. It is a bit costly I thought, at $299, but I have to admit it was a well done looking rig, with a relocated charging handle and such, rather than just a shell to stick the gun in.

Ronnie Barrett's daughter:

Desert Tactical. Bolt actions running from .308-class cartridges, through the CheyTacs, up to .50 BMG. Barrel/bolt conversions within cartridge sizes. I'm not nuts over bullpup bolt actions, but these were really nicely made rifles. The company didn't exist four years ago.

The much anticipated Tavor, although I think this is the only one in the US yet. These are surrounded by stories. I'm not sure what is true anymore. The Israelis use them, and IWI makes them. I've heard two or three US companies did the actual design and testing, in addition to different branches of our military. Who knows. Who cares. Here it is. It is a little thing- smaller than an AUG. The importer (Michael Kassnar of Kassner, Charles Daly, KBI) said he had to add a longer flash hider to make 26".

Shotguns. This guy makes a conversion for the 870. He also had what amounted to a bullpup shotgun museum on hand, from the High Standard 10 and 10A, through the Mossberg 500 bullpup from about 25 years ago, to other conversions. And the KelTec.

KelTec was not there, by the way. A few exhibitors had KSGs, but no regular peoples. Something I realized later was that while there were several variations of the KelTec .308 RFB on display, I didn't see a single private owner with one. I know of two people around here with them, both happy owners, so I'm not sure what the deal was there.

Ronnie Barrett's daughter:

Does anyone remember the Bushmaster M17S? I don't know if they still make it or not. It was a bullpup cluster****. I had one for a year or so. It was crap, made of an AR-180 type action in a terrible square cross section aluminum stock...thing. The charging handle and scope base were plastic. It had two mag release buttons, neither of which worked very well. It really seemed to be a gun BM made from various bins of parts that were never intended to go together.

This guy takes them and fixes them. He chops the barrel, then cuts on the goofy stock a while, and adds a decent charging handle and optics mount. He said he doesn't remove much weight, but as I saw, he changed the feel a lot. It felt much better. It's pretty much what Bushmaster should have made.

Red Jacket guy shooting the Desert Tactical .50 BMG:

Split into two parts.

Continued...

[BarryinIN]

It was nice to donate to Wounded Warriors, but I could have stayed home and sent that. It was nice to shoot some unusual guns. But what really got me to drive down there was the free class Steyr was putting on. Sign me up.

Well, it didn't quite go as planned, but it was still good. It was done by Wes Doss (Army retired, LE retired, former Sigarms school instructor, now owner of Khyber Interactive). I've heard a lot about him, but have never seen him have anything scheduled around here. He likes the AUG and is now working with Steyr in what sounds like a consulting position.

There are few instructors out there who have worked with the AUG much. Some of the Gunsite guys have, because AUGs have been popular with AZ LE agencies and since US Customs issued them, they have a lot of time on them. Other that that, AUG trainers are scarce, so when I had a chance to get any instruction from one, I was going.

The best laid plans of mice and men....

Something was up. You could tell. The guys at the Steyr booth were a little vague about the class. Then the class turned into a "demo" when they were asked. It eventually became a brief talk followed by a Q&A session.

That's OK, it was all out of their control. Mr Doss flew in today, but both legs of his flight were delayed, plus his rental car died part way there. He arrived at the range about 3:30, looking a little worn.

He talked for about 45 minutes on the AUG, shot down some myths, then went to taking questions. That may sound crummy, but remember- This was free. The info he gave in that short talk was good stuff, and I would have paid for that much, so I have nothing to complain about. He made some points I had not thought about, and I got my main questions addressed.

Besides, my back was freaking killing me from the drive down. I could hardly stand, let alone shoot much, and shot less than 50 rounds all day. I would have gotten little from a real class.

[Tom]

Looks like a fun day. Interesting theme, I know there are bullpup enthusiasts, but I wouldn't have thought someone could make an event about them.

Did the Red Jacket guys say "Neva ben dun befo"?

[BarryinIN]

I've never seen the show, so wouldn't have caught any significance if they did say it. I know the big guy can shoot. He snapped that big 50BMG up and belted out around five rounds offhand and if he didn't hit he was close. I couldn't have held it there for a second.

I never would have thought of a bullpup shoot either. I can think of four bullpup owners that I know, including myself, and only by looking across a big area. I know more .32 H&R Mag aficionados. But they said they had around 250 people last tear, and I'd say that was about right for this one.

Most had AUGs, but there were quite a few conversions of shotguns and 10-22s.

Actually after having a couple of days to think about it, I'm kinda surprised at what was there and what wasn't there. There were several FNH FS2000 rifles, which I don't think I've seen before. No FNH PS90 (5.7mm) that I saw, and I though there would be. I didn't see any of the Barrett .50 bullpup bolt guns (M95?).

The Israeli Tavor was interesting. It made the AUG look big. I wish now I had look it over more and shot it.

I posted the pictures of Ronnie Barrett's daughter hoping someone would ask or comment on it, then I could tell my story.

I'm telling it anyway because I thought it was funny:

OK, everybody here knows that Ronnie Barrett is Mr Barrett .50 BMG rifles, right?

Well, this woman and another woman show up, walking through the exhibits. There are a few women there, but they are wives and family of the attendees. By the looks on their faces, few want to be there. When these two women come through by themselves they did stand out. They may not be Miss America types, but they were Miss America there. Still, they didn't get a lot of attention. Some turned to look, but went back to the guns.

They start down the booths, stopping and chatting. Next I see them at the firing line. Somebody there asks "Aren't you Ronnie Barret's daughter".

She smiles and says yes, but the other girl doubles over laughing, and says "See, I told you". (?)

Him asking that question was like throwing a switch.

I could hear about 100 voices in minds say "What was that?". Suddenly 20 people are talking to her and more are headed that way.

"Hey, my son is available! Good looking guy. About your age- 24".

"What? You're 32? I'm 33!".

"Are you, uh, staying around here?"

Cracking me up. The more I thought about it, the funnier it was. A pile of blonde hair and more curves than a hundred miles of bad road, but ".50 BMG" was like moths to a light. I didn't hear anyone ask if she owned a chain of liquor stores, but they could have.

[BarryinIN]

This event is ON again for this year. Sept 27-28. Same place- Rockcastle shooting range in Cave City, KY (near the Mammoth Cave entrance).

I missed last year's, but plan on making this one. I'm trying to act as middleman to maybe get some bullpup-centric training to be held at the same place.