tioned our friend Sharon. “You should go down to Ron and Sharon’s table. She lost her thumb at the Quigley match. I’ll bet Ron has photos.” But on the way to Ron’s eight tables of silhouette and Quigley shoot components was Kirk’s table. Shrapnel, to those who love him, had photos on his phone. No surprise. But he actu- ally knew how to send them to my cell phone. And did. There’s the dead turkey (in the field), all the trophy heads in his house, and a 22-inch Canyon Ferry rain- bow trout, and at least a folio of paper targets. As he was scrolling through the photos, he stopped. “You gotta see this one,” he said.
In the 1"x2" screen I could tell it
was something in a big frame, a little out of focus, but mostly just so full of stuff, on such a small screen, it was hard to sort out. (At this point, I have to ask why we are hanging 70-inch flat screen HDTVs in our living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens and RVs and walking around showing off our photos on a 2-inch screen?)
“I was in the bank at Big Timber, and there it is.” I didn’t have the heart to ask what “it is.” But I didn’t have to wait long.
he said.
“Every bullet they ever made,” I said, “Who?”
Kirk pointed at the photo: “UMC,” he said, assuming I was fluent in gun gak.
“United…?”
“Union Metallic Cartridge, and a letter of whacthamacall it.” “Provenance?” I asked.
“Provenance. Right there in the bank lobby. Gotta get a picture of that. I’ll send you that one.”
Three tables down was Todd Har-
rison’s Going Ballistic table, every pos- sible hand cast bullet you could think of. Stuart Bennett was scrolling through some photos on his iPhone. Showing him something.
“You gotta see that,” Kirk said, and
steered me to Todd’s table. “It’s a Marlin 1894 32-20, built in 1988 with conven- tional rifling – six grooves, six lands – and he’s shooting five-shot groups at 100 yards into 0.880, four into 0.45." Ah, more paper preserved digitally. I soon learned why he was show- ing Todd the photos. It was one of Todd’s 100-grain flatnose cast bullets
at 1,600 fps velocity that had made the group. And before you ask, Alliant Blue Dot, 9.5 grains. Stuart was scrolling through the photos – all paper targets – except one he’d taken of the rifle with the load and results printed on the paper target. Stuart knew how to send a photo, so I said, sure, send it to me. I have a little kindergarten phone that takes photos of the inside of my pocket all the time, so I figured I could down- load these when I got home. Ding, my phone rang, and there was the photo. Ding again, and Kirk’s UMC photo was staring me in the face. “She hasn’t seen the photos of Sharon, yet,” Kirk told the guys. “I heard she lost her hand,” one
said.
“No. Her thumb and index finger. But the rifle’s a total loss.”
Ron’s table was in sight, so I made
a beeline for him. “Sharon lost her thumb?”
“No. I’ve heard she lost her arm, but no. She didn’t ‘lose’ anything. Her left thumb was hanging off to one side, a ¾ inch gash in it, and her index finger is broken. The nerves in the third finger are damaged, too.”
cell phone?”
“Did you take a picture with your At this, Ron looked at me scornful-
ly. “Cell phones are for talking,” he said. “Cameras are for photos.” He paused. “But one of the guys took photos on his cell phone. They’re on the Internet.” “What happened?” “We were at the Quigley shoot in
Miles City. Sharon was shooting her 40- 65 Ballard. I gave it to her as a wedding present, 18 years ago. We both shoot it. I
Kirk’s prize: the Union Metallic Cartridge bullet board.
www.varminthunter.org Page 59
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