Control Group
Member
(alternate title: Area Man Acts Like He's the Only Person To Ever Discover the Joy Of Shooting. Or possibly: Novice Tells Experts, "Hey, You Might Be On To Something, Here")
Yesterday was the big day. I went to The Shooter's Shop for sort of a "Handguns 101" and some range time. The instruction portion was fantastic; taking my theoretical knowledge of handgun function and seeing how it applied to a couple real guns was both informative and satisfying. But it's also not the fun part, so I won't dwell on it.
Hit the range with a Ruger Mk II (I throw these terms around like I knew a Ruger from a Roto-Rooter before yesterday...ah, well) and a silhouette at 25'. Pete (my instructor) stuck a pair of Shoot-N-C targets (if I recall correctly...green stickers with a black coating that comes off when shot) on it, one high sternum, one about navel-height.
I'll be honest: stepping up and grabbing a loaded & cocked gun for the first time had me pretty nervous. Not because I was afraid it was going to hurt, or blow up, or go off by itself, or anything, but because I didn't have the first clue what I was doing. There was a very high "I want to get this right" factor. To anyone who's played a lot of video games, it was pretty much exactly the same tension you get when you're this close to finally beating that long jumping puzzle, or that impossible boss that you've tried to beat two dozen times already.
Anyway, raised the gun; pointed downrange; got a small lecture from Pete because I had my finger inside the trigger guard before I was on target - I could feel myself turn bright red - tried to squeeze, not jerk, the trigger; and put my first round pretty close to where I wanted to. Inside the circle, certainly, though a little low-and-left of dead center. Went through two magazines of aimed shots at the upper target, and did pretty unimpressively. Out of 20 rounds, I put eight through the target. All eight of them were left of aim, and the remaining twelve all missed low and left to varying degrees (one of them, embarassingly enough, was shot with my eyes closed). None of them missed the silhouette, at least, but I clearly need a lot of work.
Then Pete told me to just unload one magazine downrange as fast as I could. I believe the exact phrase was "you have to do it once." So, being a good student, I did as told. Yeah. I found out real fast how quickly your aim falls apart when you don't take the time to bring the gun back down. After my tenth round blew out a light ($3), I slowed down a tick. Not to the full "stop, aim, breathe, squeeze" sequence, but enough to make sure I brought the muzzle back down after every shot.
He reassured me after I was empty that I hadn't actually come so far off target that I shot at the light - he pointed out the ding on the target-hanger-device (since I don't know the actual term), and the perforated silhouette, and gave me a quick primer on bullet fragmentation and the unfortunate effects of tiny pieces of lead hitting thin pieces of glass at high velocity. Anyway, my first reaction is that rapid fire isn't my thing. Single aimed shots were vastly more satisfying to me. Of course, I don't exactly have a wide sample size to base judgements on, so don't hold me to that.
For the second target, he had me turn on the laser, which meant I got to see exactly how much I was shaking the muzzle. Next time I go to the range, I'm going to make sure I don't have any caffeine that day (which is gonna make my morning kind of suck if it's a weekday...but will be worth it if it steadies me down). Needless to say, I was completely underwhelmed with my ability to stay on target. Now, this is not to say that my group wasn't much, much better. Still firing left (in retrospect, I think I had too much finger on the trigger), but all 20 stayed in the black.
And that concluded our little lesson. Pete actually gave me more time than he should have; what was supposed to be an hour-long session ended up being more like an hour and a half. On the other hand, he essentially guaranteed I'd be back: that was the most fun I've had since the last time I did something Art's grammaw wouldn't want me talking about on here. I am now the inordinately proud owner of one poorly-shot paper target and forty rounds of .22LR. Now I have to buy a gun...wouldn't want those rounds to go to waste, now, would I?
Which means I have no choice but to go back to the range so I can do enough research to make a good purchasing decision. Guess I'll just have to suck it up.
Yesterday was the big day. I went to The Shooter's Shop for sort of a "Handguns 101" and some range time. The instruction portion was fantastic; taking my theoretical knowledge of handgun function and seeing how it applied to a couple real guns was both informative and satisfying. But it's also not the fun part, so I won't dwell on it.
Hit the range with a Ruger Mk II (I throw these terms around like I knew a Ruger from a Roto-Rooter before yesterday...ah, well) and a silhouette at 25'. Pete (my instructor) stuck a pair of Shoot-N-C targets (if I recall correctly...green stickers with a black coating that comes off when shot) on it, one high sternum, one about navel-height.
I'll be honest: stepping up and grabbing a loaded & cocked gun for the first time had me pretty nervous. Not because I was afraid it was going to hurt, or blow up, or go off by itself, or anything, but because I didn't have the first clue what I was doing. There was a very high "I want to get this right" factor. To anyone who's played a lot of video games, it was pretty much exactly the same tension you get when you're this close to finally beating that long jumping puzzle, or that impossible boss that you've tried to beat two dozen times already.
Anyway, raised the gun; pointed downrange; got a small lecture from Pete because I had my finger inside the trigger guard before I was on target - I could feel myself turn bright red - tried to squeeze, not jerk, the trigger; and put my first round pretty close to where I wanted to. Inside the circle, certainly, though a little low-and-left of dead center. Went through two magazines of aimed shots at the upper target, and did pretty unimpressively. Out of 20 rounds, I put eight through the target. All eight of them were left of aim, and the remaining twelve all missed low and left to varying degrees (one of them, embarassingly enough, was shot with my eyes closed). None of them missed the silhouette, at least, but I clearly need a lot of work.
Then Pete told me to just unload one magazine downrange as fast as I could. I believe the exact phrase was "you have to do it once." So, being a good student, I did as told. Yeah. I found out real fast how quickly your aim falls apart when you don't take the time to bring the gun back down. After my tenth round blew out a light ($3), I slowed down a tick. Not to the full "stop, aim, breathe, squeeze" sequence, but enough to make sure I brought the muzzle back down after every shot.
He reassured me after I was empty that I hadn't actually come so far off target that I shot at the light - he pointed out the ding on the target-hanger-device (since I don't know the actual term), and the perforated silhouette, and gave me a quick primer on bullet fragmentation and the unfortunate effects of tiny pieces of lead hitting thin pieces of glass at high velocity. Anyway, my first reaction is that rapid fire isn't my thing. Single aimed shots were vastly more satisfying to me. Of course, I don't exactly have a wide sample size to base judgements on, so don't hold me to that.
For the second target, he had me turn on the laser, which meant I got to see exactly how much I was shaking the muzzle. Next time I go to the range, I'm going to make sure I don't have any caffeine that day (which is gonna make my morning kind of suck if it's a weekday...but will be worth it if it steadies me down). Needless to say, I was completely underwhelmed with my ability to stay on target. Now, this is not to say that my group wasn't much, much better. Still firing left (in retrospect, I think I had too much finger on the trigger), but all 20 stayed in the black.
And that concluded our little lesson. Pete actually gave me more time than he should have; what was supposed to be an hour-long session ended up being more like an hour and a half. On the other hand, he essentially guaranteed I'd be back: that was the most fun I've had since the last time I did something Art's grammaw wouldn't want me talking about on here
. I am now the inordinately proud owner of one poorly-shot paper target and forty rounds of .22LR. Now I have to buy a gun...wouldn't want those rounds to go to waste, now, would I?Which means I have no choice but to go back to the range so I can do enough research to make a good purchasing decision. Guess I'll just have to suck it up.
Start saving money, because once you master that .22, you'll need a centerfire pistol, then a revolver, then maybe a .22 rifle, then.....
