A few years ago, one of the best friends I ever had called me up to see if I wanted to go shooting.
I hadn't seen him in about three years, since I started working nights and he was doing days and had moved about 75 miles away for a better job.
We decided to both take a couple of days off to go to the range.
We shoot on a private outdoor range in one of the most rural areas in the state. The whole area is a pasture that a friend of ours uses to put cattle on once of twice a year when it's vaccination time.
We setup a pretty good albeit informal shooting range. It works well for us and we never see anyone out there, unless it's the owner who just stops by to say hello, if he isn't busy.
He doesn't care what we shoot, as long as we are safe and have fun.
My shooting buddy had been pretty busy since I last seen him. The better job equalled more money, which meant more guns for him. He had 15 or so new toys and a butt load of ammo.
We took in all, about 25 guns to shoot. He has a couple of full auto HK's, two or three AK's a couple of AR's and some other evil black stuff. I took most of my stuff, a couple of bolt guns, the DE50, the 10/22 and other fun, but much cheaper stuff.
We shot from about 7:30 am until near dark, stopping only for lunch. We chronoed a bunch of stuff, lit up a few Tannerites, ran a few belts thru his 21E and in general had a hell of a day.
We are picking up brass and cleaning the place up when a couple of guys roll up in a beat up pickup. We threw the tarp we used for catching brass over the guns in the bed of the truck. We're far from out of ammo, and both had handguns concealed when they got out. We didn't know who these guys were, so we figured out of sight, out of mind was probably better.
Well out of the truck comes the worlds most knowledgeable gunsmith (he can turn a Mini 14 into an M16 with a paper clip) . He is also a war hero, a martial arts expert and one of the few people in the world who has 'international security clearance'. His buddy is just Superman with overalls.
He wanted to know who we were, if we were black ops (they train in rural America you know), if we owned a gunshop, if we were cops, if we were merc's (he knows one when he see's one
) where we got all the guns we were shooting, why nobody told him we were going to be there, where we got the grenades (recognized them too it seems). We didn't have any grenades, just Tannerites - DUH !
I was about to just get moving and head out for dinner, and my buddy starts this BS diatribe with the guy. Where are your credentials ? your code name ? Your CO ? Why he approached us directly, instead of doing a thorough recon first ?
I'm about to lose it and start ROFL, when my buddy pops open the truck door and kicks on the AOR scanner. He has it set to listen to an aviation traffic channel, (he was learning to become a pilot and taking flying lessons). A couple of conversations came across the scanner, and my buddy's BS starts looking and sounding pretty official to Jethro and his backup.
I looked over at him and he was having a ball with it. He looked at me and told me to 'set off a beacon, and get someones ass in here now'. I didn't know what to do exactly or how to 'set off a beacon'
, so I did the next best thing, I lied my ass off. I told him I set one off the second the merc got out of the truck, I thought for certain I had seen a bulletin on this guy, something about Panama in '91 or so.
Mr stealth/ninja/miracle 'smith started double talking, and stammering all over himself. My buddy has a .22 rimfire pistol with a can for it, and as mr amazing is stuttering all over himself, I pulled it out from under the tarp and started screwing the can on the end (making certain I didn't sweep anyone). I told him he knew damned well the way these things were handled and what we had to do now.
I have never seen two guys move so fast in my life. Junior and Bubba were in that old truck in a blur. The last thing I remember hearing him saying is 'we're all on the same side man'
We heard his tires squeal when he hit blacktop about 3/4's of a mile away.
We have been out there shooting a few times since but never had the pleasure of meeting those two fellows again.
You DO meet some of the most interesting people at the range
BigSlick
