I managed to get out this weekend for a wonderful range trip. It was a last minute type of thing, but it worked out quite well.
For one, I was ready to rock-and-roll. I packed up the truck full of enough guns and ammo to keep 5 men busy for 3-4 hours on some remote land. When those plans were cancelled I dialed up a buddy, who hit up another buddy, and we decended on a local range.
Whoa boy.
I got there first and started plinking with my “new” Henry .22LR lever action rifle. Damn that’s fun. However, I had multiple failures to extract. I hadn’t cleaned it yet, so I presume it is a dirty chamber. I had trouble getting the spent rounds out with my pocket knife for crying out loud. I can’t really blame the gun. I think I just need to clean it up.
I didn’t have a single problem with my 1911, aside from the magazine release sticking. I need to take it in for that. The only other problem I had with that, and any other handgun I shot, is that I can’t hit diddly with it.
Oh, to be sure I can punch holes in a paper plate at 7 yards rapidly. Quite suitable for self defense purposes but I had to hit the range with a guy that’s got excellent fine motor control skills and it shows with his handgunning.
You see, I had to talk him down into using the 7 yard pistol range instead of the 25 yard range. At 25 yards I can’t hit a paper plate. He can — and quite well.
When I got him to the 7 yard range he started shooting out the staple holding up the paper plates. My pistol, his pistol — it didn’t matter.
Bastard.
Eventually a 3rd member of the group showed up with 4 of his fine pistols. I got to shoot 10mm for the first time and he got to shoot 7.62x25mm out of my CZ-52 for the first time.
Just like the previous bugger this guy put 6 rounds (of 7) in a 5″ vertical spread at 25 yards with the CZ-52.
I really wish I could do that. My hands just aren’t steady enough for that kind of shooting — my penmanship has also always suffered from this ailment.
Still, we had a good time, and we swapped guns and ammo for about 3 hours. Older gents would wander up to see what we had, curious because we were having so much fun. Par for the course we offered them a chance to take a test drive with anything we had but they usually declined.
I did get one older gent to take a spin on my Kel-Tec Sub 2000 in 9mm. He only dumped 2 rounds from it, but he seemed to approve. He wouldn’t shoot more because he had to remove his ear muffs to get a good weld on the stock.
Said gent showed up with a .22LR rifle and what I presume is one of his grand children. Without hearing protection. Given that we were dumping rounds of 10mm, .45ACP, and 7.62x25mm like they were candy right next to them we provided them with hearing protection.
Unfortunately the provided hearing muffs don’t work well with the Kel-Tec Sub 2000 — which is why he only took two shots. He had to remove it while firing. It was either that or shove my used plugs into his ears.
There’s a reason I carry ear plugs and extra muffs in my truck all the time. You never know when somebody will show up to the range without anything to protect their ears.
Oh well. It was a good afternoon. I had fun, got to fire a few new calibers, and I got to introduce a couple of other people to interesting calibers and guns.
