Cleaning Out The Augean Stables Of Shooting

by Hap Rocketto

I was trying to tidy up my smallbore shooting kit and came across some really interesting artifacts. A shooter’s carrying bag is a midden heap and an archeologist delight. So, besides the mat and jacket, I came across my small parts bag and my tackle box. At one time I used to drag a huge metal toolbox around but hernia surgery and advancing age has brought me to the Henry David Thoreau School of Packing. It is based upon his comment, “simplify, simplify”. Although I think that if he really meant it he would have just said, “Simplify”.

In this mood of simplification I ransacked my bag to see how I could rid myself of extra weight in the form of unnecessary items. In my small bag I found four sets of prescription glasses-one aviator style, one Knobloch, one Champions, and my spare set of reading glasses. I then found two towels, two bandanas, two slings, and believe it or not, two cheek pieces for my prone rifle! In my tackle box I have two hand stops, several of those little pins you get when you shoot a sectional or regional, and even half of a dozen different calibers of scoring plugs, some Newport Bridge tokens (needed to get to the matches in Tiverton at the Rhode Island Marksman’s range), a couple of bucks worth of loose change, some safety pins, a spare firing pin, some expended pieces of brass, a couple of addresses and phone numbers scribbled on the back of a fired target, and a piece of hard candy that Kent Lacey gave me back in 1987.

The broom swept clean; when I was done the pins found themselves on my daughters’ hats, the addresses were duly entered in my address book, and I ate the candy to restore the energy I expended in a futile attempt to find something I didn’t absolutely have to have with me.