Hunting the Perfect Group

This story was my first official rejection. I sent this to our company newsletter, expanded when the individual department newsletters were sucked into the central newsletter. Perhaps the departments were showing too much creativity in some instances...

The rejection reason was that alcohol was in the story. "Eh?" was my first reaction. A quick review of my story showed that I had mentioned a tavern a few times. This involves a certain irony in that back in the day the company grew up in the bars and taverns of our various locations. Many job interviews were informally held in not a few taverns. Perhaps that part didn't make the official company history DVD!

Hunting the Perfect Group

A late fall afternoon, just after a great football game brought out the competitive spirits in the crowd at Jimmy’s Tavern. One of the guys from work, it was said, knew everything about deer hunting. Now since work was Cabela’s, this is certainly possible even though the odds that the world’s best deer hunter would be watching a football game at Jimmy’s as opposed to being out hunting seemed a bit unlikely. The resident expert also worked in the computer department. The odds grew a little steeper. The master, his status now in question, held forth that the perfect group was the ultimate aim of every true sportsman. I was inclined to listen more closely. Everyone knew from reading the gun magazines that groups were very important, though the gun mags didn’t often divulge just how these miraculous groups were to be obtained from the stock rifles our little mob of hunters could afford.
The master began to expound upon his theories of the perfect group and its relationship to hunting deer.
“I once shot a group that you could put a dime over at 250 paces!” he exclaimed.
Some of the hunters drifted back towards the bar.
“Paces?” someone asked, “Which range measures their shooting lanes in paces?”
“I have my own range, you can’t trust those commercial ranges, they want to keep you coming back so they change the range just a little every time,” the master fired back.
I had been on a few ranges in my time and the benches and butts appeared to be fairly solid. Moving either end of the range seemed to me a bit cost prohibitive from an economic standpoint, but I let the “expert” continue. A few more of the hunters had moved over to the bar. I noticed some that went so far as to leave during the master’s discourse.
“Finally, using your own range isn’t quite enough, you must hand load each and every round,” the master proclaimed. This was actually true; I had read it in one of the loading manuals. Every good buyer of hand loading components knew this because all the loading manuals said so. Some of the drifters moseyed back over.
“I work up loads during the same afternoon, that way the barometric pressure is the same during my workup,” the master confided to us his own special secret, giving us the impression we were supplicants honored to learn at his feet.
One of the slightly less green supplicants humbly asked if the master had not meant humidity perhaps.
“No humidity don’t matter none to the loads, humidity only matters when it’s so bad the sweat runs down into your eyes! Then you know its time to quit and head to the tavern.” The master corrected. No one could argue with that bit of faultless logic. We moved a bit closer so as not to miss any more nuggets of wisdom from the master. Some of us looked askance at each other, not really believing the barometric pressure nugget; we probably were not worthy to be in the group.
“Let’s go to my range and I’ll show you what the perfect group looks like, then we can go get us a deer!” our master said. We all looked around at each other, had he actually meant what he said? We asked each other with our eyes. The tavern expert had left his throne and was headed towards the door. He really did mean to leave the peanuts and go to the field!
I had not purchased a deer permit that year, a sin at Cabela’s and one that would haunt me at the company Christmas party, so I volunteered to act as spotter for the great one’s hunt. A few of the tavern regulars, perhaps shamed by the master’s willingness to put his wisdom on paper, so to speak, got up and fired up their spotless 4x4 hunting rigs.
The trip to the range of the master took only 20 minutes, which was a good thing as some of the rig owners were beginning to glance nervously at their fuel gauges. We arrived to find a concrete shooting bench equipped with a Craftsman shop vice, sitting on a range that looked to be about 250 paces, if you took 3-4 paces to the yard. I thought from my cabling experience that 150 feet might be closer to the mark. One of the unworthy supplicants noticed the discrepancy also and casually mentioned it to the master.
“Oh no, my dime group was shot at a tournament, this here range measures almost 100 yards,” the master informed us.
Now I didn’t have my laser rangefinder out yet, but this ‘almost’ seemed kind of subjective, as in subject to the whims of the proclaimer. In my experience ‘almost’ changes to fit the intended usage. Most times almost meant something ‘really close’ or ‘not quite’, actual measurements were not needed in these cases. Once in a while you ran into the case where almost seemed more like ‘not even close’, measurements could be helpful in this case. Sometimes you ran into the ‘almost’ that you could port a small ocean liner between the ‘all’ and the ‘most’ with a little slip left over for your yacht. This looked to be one of those times. Measurements were completely unnecessary in these cases and would only serve to embarrass the almoster.
The master removed a fine target grade rifle from a plush case in the back of his new Wunderburban, a hunting rig large enough to hold a six person hunting party and a herd of deer. This rifle made all of the supplicants green with envy, we coveted so far as to try touching the master’s rifle, but he would have none of it, rudely slapping our hands away. He then pulled out a velvet lined ammo case with gleaming brass cartridges nestled inside; the crown jewels had never been kept so well. The master carefully clamped his rifle into the vice, with plenty of soft velvet padding on either side so as not to mar the finish of the rifle. Why didn’t we all have shooting rigs like that, how could we ever hold our heads up on the hunt again?
Still green, we settled in to take a grouping lesson from the master. Carefully blowing on each round, in case any of our western Nebraska dust had the gall to settle on his cartridges, the master loaded his rifle with the chosen 3 rounds for his group. The honored cartridges settled into the rifle, no doubt ready to give their best for the master.
“Blam!” the first round hit the target. Practicing my spotting for the hunt with the master, I noticed it was a bit out of the 10 ring, but didn’t have the courage to doubt the master. That would come later. The second round was close to the first, but was probably not world class. Perhaps the master didn’t want to show us up too badly on the first demonstration. The third round followed the other two into the target; the entire group wouldn’t fit under a quarter, but perhaps under a half-dollar.
“There, now that isn’t my best, but it should do for our deer hunt,” the master happily proclaimed. Some of us looked at each other, ashamed to admit our doubts relating to the master’s skill. Perhaps on a good day we would have seen his perfect group. Surely the thousands spent on his target rig were matched or even exceeded by his hunting rifle. We saw the case in the back of the Wunderburban, our anticipation mounted what kind of rifle sat in the fine leather case? We ran to our vehicles to continue on the trip with the master.
The line at Ernie’s Gasem and Fleecem moved slowly, every hunting rig requiring 30-40 gallons of precious fuel. You could tell it was precious by the expression on the rig owners faces. Inside Ernie’s the soft clatter of plastic leaves falling on the linoleum countertop made a musical soundtrack to the theatrical whining going on, with the occasional “pish” of a soda can to provide rhythm. No one faulted Ernie; the papers all said it wasn’t his fault that gas prices were so high.
Some of the hunting rig owners used the pit stop to make their escape; probably to save themselves the wrath of the wife at home. Some few of us were left, the master, two of his more promising supplicants, a couple of old codgers with nothing better to do, and me. The diminished group piled into the Wunderburban, each of us choosing a leather captain’s chair complete with personal DVD viewing station and satellite radio, and headed out with the master to learn again the art of deer hunting.
About an hour and 2 fuel stations later, the master turned off the highway and drove about 300 yards down a gravel road and stopped. Everyone threw on orange safety vests and caps, checked their deer permits – except for me, I would man the spotting scope – and tramped to the master’s favorite hunting spot. Along the way we had the opportunity to admire the master’s hunting rifle. It gleamed in the setting sun, the scope polished to a bright, nickel finish. Fully two feet long, the scope appeared capable of targeting the space shuttle. The first of many doubts to come snuck into my mind. I pushed it aside, confident in the master and firmly proving once again what my grade school teachers had said about me in the lounge.
The master stopped on a hilltop and unslung the cream of hunting rifles, still gleaming in self-satisfied magnificence, and pulled out a few rounds of ammo. He unfolded the bipod, locked it into place and flopped on the ground in a reasonable imitation of a prone position. Expecting a short dissertation on the art of field positions, not unlike my Marine marksmanship instructor, I was caught off guard. The two old codgers just sniggered a bit to each other. The supplicants were still awaiting the proof by fire of the master. Another small doubt moseyed through my mind, but I set up the spotting scope and tripod and prepared to be worthy of the master.
“Deer!” rang out through the afternoon stillness, I looked around, nothing. I looked at the master for guidance. He was glued to his riflescope and pointing frantically towards the east. Still nothing. I bent to the spotting scope and sure enough, highlighted in the setting sun was a herd of deer some six or seven hundred yards distant.
“Blam,” this followed by some muted moaning… mine. Not thinking the master would engage a target so far out; I had not pulled my hearing protection into place. Correcting my oversight, I bent again to the spotting scope, nothing, the deer continued placidly grazing. I turned to the ‘master’.
“Just a warm-up shot,” he said, “Now I’ll need a ranging round, look towards that big buck on the left.”
I looked again, sure enough there was a nice 6x6 buck on the left.
“Blam” the master fired his ranging round, and nothing… a twig fell near the buck, but I saw no evidence of a bullet. The doubts no longer moseyed by, they were marching in parade formation. I dialed the spotting scope out a few powers to get a wider field of view.
The master called me a few unkind names then fired again. This time I did indeed see the ranging round, about 10 feet above the buck it clipped a branch from a tree and went winging on its merry way.
“You’re about 10 feet high and 3 feet to the right,” I informed the ‘master’, now resolved to take any of the master’s wisdom with a little salt on the side.
The master spun the knobs on his scope, he must really know his scope to make such a large adjustment, I thought a little sarcastically. The two old codgers were beside themselves, making for a party of four furiously giggling old men behind us.
The master finished his adjustments and fired again. This time I was ready and knowing what to expect I saw the dirt fly up about 10 yards in front of the deer and just for good measure, about 6 feet to the left. One or two deer looked up from their grazing; perhaps wondering what the ruckus on the hill over yonder was all about.
I reported the results to the ‘master’ who called me a few more unkind names. The messenger picked his head up and set it firmly back in place. A few more adjustments and another shot rang out. This time a squirrel fell out of the tree. Dead? No upon closer examination through the spotting scope, it appeared to be rolling on the ground laughing. The ‘master’ did not take the news of this critique well.
The messenger replaced his head once again and bent to his assigned task. The ‘master’ loaded the rest of his ammo box into his magazine. Box? I looked again, thinking that I had seen “Federal” on the box, surely I had been mistaken. The master only used hand loaded ammunition, he had said so himself!
The ‘master’ had apparently finished his adjustments because this time he cut loose with a barrage. Bullets clipped twigs, mowed grass, trimmed hedges, and dug a few shallow trenches. Nothing the deer were worried about though, as not one bullet passed within ten feet of the happily browsing deer. The ‘master shooter’ began savagely cursing the rifle and scope, much to the relief of the messenger I might add. He waxed eloquent regarding the gunsmith, the scope technicians, barometric pressure and deer in general. Apparently forgetting his earlier ‘lessons’ the master even took the Federal Cartridge company to task, the bullets didn’t fly right, the powder was too this, the primers too that.
We moseyed on back to the Wunderburban, the master may not shoot worth a darn, but he was a master of something alright. Hunters everywhere could learn a bit about complaining and excuse making right at the feet of the master.