Disclaimer: If you don't want to read about my crappy time at the range, skip ahead to the 2nd part.

Part 1:
Well today turned out to be a beautiful day at the south shooting site. Too bad everything else didn't work out so well. I took the service road way down about .5 mile and found a good unoccupied place to shoot. I wanted to do some drills to practice quicker target acquisition and accuracy with my AR. I set up three cardboard cut-outs (hand-cut to mimic the USPSA targets) on some wooden stands that I made last weekend. I had them set at various ranges from approx 20-60 yds. Everything was looking great. I have a MOLLE vest that is configured to carry eight 30rd mags. I put this on and got ready to load up my mags. I grab the unopened shipping box that I had picked up earlier in the week and opened it up to find a .50cal ammo can filled with ammo just like I had ordered. Open the ammo can and I don't see 1000rds of M193 5.56 ammo like I expected. Instead, I am greeted with 1000rds of 7.62x39 (looks Russian - See pictures below.) So now I'm thinking "great, they sent me the wrong stuff". Luckily, I ordered 2000rds, so I went to the second box and opened it, only to find more 7.62x39.

Here's what I was expecting to find in my boxes:

Here is what I was surprised with:


So now I have 2000 rds of good AK ammo, and no ammo for my AR. I spent all that time driving out there and setting up for nothing... So I pack up all my gear, targets, and guns and get ready to leave.


Part 2:
 So I'm packed up and I pull away in my '01 Silverado that I just purchased 2 months ago. I got it in great condition with 70k miles for $10.5k Everything on the truck has worked beautifully up to this point. As I'm pulling out of the shooting area, I notice that my steering is getting a little clumsy and the wheel is getting harder to turn. By the time I make it out to the paved road (hwy 67) my arms are getting tired. I feel like I'm going to break off my steering wheel. I can turn the wheel about 10 degrees in either direction without any trouble, but any more than that is a feat of epic proportions. I managed to get back to the Springs and back home, but my truck is almost impossible to park because it takes superhuman strength to turn the wheel.
All my fluid levels are exactly where they should be, including my power steering fluid. I'm not leaking anything. To the best of my knowledge, I did not bottom out or hit anything while I was driving on the trail at the shooting site. My undercarriage has no noticeable damage and nothing looks out of the ordinary. No weird smells or anything. My belt system appears to be fine. The only weird noise is when I am cranking the wheel to turn and I hit a bump. The noise sounds like stress from something rubbing.


-Like I said, nothing looks abnormal. I'm not leaking any fluids. I don't think I hit anything or bottomed out (I have skidplates anyway). Belts look fine. Any ideas what might be wrong? My guess is a steering pump, but I'm not a greasemonkey.

-I'm pretty new to the Colorado Springs area, so if you have a trusted mechanic you'd like to recommend, I would really appreciate it. I'm pretty savvy with tools and working with my hands, so if this is something I can fix myself, I'd like to take that route.

Thanks for taking the time to listen to my crappy Saturday. I hope yours went better. Any advice or recommendations would really be helpful. Thanks guys.


Here's to better times -->