heypete
Member
Brief background: After a few years in the US Army, I returned to college to complete my bachelors degree in physics at the University of Arizona. I figured that since I'm now back in college and interacting with the current up-and-coming generation, I might as well do what I can to promote fun, safe, and responsible use of firearms with other students, particularly those who have no experience with shooting.
Back in April, I took a group of fellow physics students out to the Tucson Rifle Club for a day of "projectile motion hands-on field experiments"...or as most people here call it, "Saturday at the Range".
Here's a few quick pictures of that event. As always, you can click to enlarge. The whole album is available here.
That event was a smashing success and everyone had a grand time.
However, that's merely a background to the event described below.
[fast forward to the present day]
Rita, the red-haired girl in the above pictures, so enjoyed the experience that she approached me last week and inquired if I could arrange for another such shooty-goodness event on Saturday. She said she had talked with her good friend Teresa, who had never been shooting before, and Teresa wanted to come along too. Proper etiquette requires that I cannot refuse an invitation to go shooting, particularly when offered by a lady.
Coincidentally, my friend Diego was in Tucson after failing to complete his journey from San Francisco to Mexico City in less than 24 hours by motorcycle (he grossly underestimated the distance and made it to border at Nogales after a full day of travel and decided to abandon his journey and come visit me in Tucson). Diego is one of my good friends and shooting buddies from when I lived in the San Francisco region, and needed no convincing to come along.
As winter time is fast approaching, temperatures were pleasant and there was moderate cloud cover. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, though we were limited to only about two hours of shooting due to limited daylight. We decided to shoot at the National Forest, as it doesn't close, is free, and generally a bit more fun than an ordinary range.
My supplies of ammo have been getting depleted recently (I have tons of .22LR, a few hundred rounds of .45 ACP and .30-06, but only two cartridges of .223, no .30-30, etc.) due to my saving for a trip to Europe with the girlfriend and another couple, so we brought only the suppressed Ruger 10/22, Ruger MkIII, and Springfield XD-45.
(Aside: The suppressed 10/22 is fantastic, as one can hear bullet flight/impact noise which is otherwise muffled with earmuffs, avoid uncomfortable earmuffs, and speak with a normal volume of voice. It also removes pretty much all the intimidating factors of guns for new shooters: there's effectively no recoil and no noise.)
As they say, "a picture is worth a kiloword"...so here's 1.20*10^4 words worth of pictures:
The remainder of the album is here.
Forgive the awkward stances used by some -- I made sure everyone understood the safety rules (including Pete's Zeroth Rule of Gun Safety: "Do not shoot Pete or Pete's car."
) and principles of basic marksmanship. I'm of the belief that if something is stupid and works, it's not stupid...and Rita and Teresa were knocking down empty 12ga hulls at 30 yards, offhand, so I figured they were doing something well enough. 
Again, much fun was had by all. Teresa and Rita mentioned the shooty goodness event to our mutual friend Rachelle (who had attended the event in April), and she was annoyed that she had other commitments on Saturday and so couldn't attend this one. We all decided to rectify this by having another event on Saturday the 17th, this time including Rachelle. As there's a bit more planning this time, the girls will be bringing various reactive targets like oranges, watermelons, and water-filled containers of various types (no glass, of course).
While my primary goal is getting more people involved in fun, safe, and responsible shooting activities, it appears that I may have created some sort of critical mass here...not only are people enjoying themselves while shooting, but they're telling their friends who then want to come. This has worked out far better than my greatest expectations.
Now I just need to convince them to start buying their own guns and ammo so they don't have to keep mooching mine!
Back in April, I took a group of fellow physics students out to the Tucson Rifle Club for a day of "projectile motion hands-on field experiments"...or as most people here call it, "Saturday at the Range".
Here's a few quick pictures of that event. As always, you can click to enlarge. The whole album is available here.
That event was a smashing success and everyone had a grand time.
However, that's merely a background to the event described below.
[fast forward to the present day]
Rita, the red-haired girl in the above pictures, so enjoyed the experience that she approached me last week and inquired if I could arrange for another such shooty-goodness event on Saturday. She said she had talked with her good friend Teresa, who had never been shooting before, and Teresa wanted to come along too. Proper etiquette requires that I cannot refuse an invitation to go shooting, particularly when offered by a lady.
Coincidentally, my friend Diego was in Tucson after failing to complete his journey from San Francisco to Mexico City in less than 24 hours by motorcycle (he grossly underestimated the distance and made it to border at Nogales after a full day of travel and decided to abandon his journey and come visit me in Tucson). Diego is one of my good friends and shooting buddies from when I lived in the San Francisco region, and needed no convincing to come along.
As winter time is fast approaching, temperatures were pleasant and there was moderate cloud cover. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, though we were limited to only about two hours of shooting due to limited daylight. We decided to shoot at the National Forest, as it doesn't close, is free, and generally a bit more fun than an ordinary range.
My supplies of ammo have been getting depleted recently (I have tons of .22LR, a few hundred rounds of .45 ACP and .30-06, but only two cartridges of .223, no .30-30, etc.) due to my saving for a trip to Europe with the girlfriend and another couple, so we brought only the suppressed Ruger 10/22, Ruger MkIII, and Springfield XD-45.
(Aside: The suppressed 10/22 is fantastic, as one can hear bullet flight/impact noise which is otherwise muffled with earmuffs, avoid uncomfortable earmuffs, and speak with a normal volume of voice. It also removes pretty much all the intimidating factors of guns for new shooters: there's effectively no recoil and no noise.)
As they say, "a picture is worth a kiloword"...so here's 1.20*10^4 words worth of pictures:
The remainder of the album is here.
Forgive the awkward stances used by some -- I made sure everyone understood the safety rules (including Pete's Zeroth Rule of Gun Safety: "Do not shoot Pete or Pete's car."
) and principles of basic marksmanship. I'm of the belief that if something is stupid and works, it's not stupid...and Rita and Teresa were knocking down empty 12ga hulls at 30 yards, offhand, so I figured they were doing something well enough. Again, much fun was had by all. Teresa and Rita mentioned the shooty goodness event to our mutual friend Rachelle (who had attended the event in April), and she was annoyed that she had other commitments on Saturday and so couldn't attend this one. We all decided to rectify this by having another event on Saturday the 17th, this time including Rachelle. As there's a bit more planning this time, the girls will be bringing various reactive targets like oranges, watermelons, and water-filled containers of various types (no glass, of course).
While my primary goal is getting more people involved in fun, safe, and responsible shooting activities, it appears that I may have created some sort of critical mass here...not only are people enjoying themselves while shooting, but they're telling their friends who then want to come. This has worked out far better than my greatest expectations.
Now I just need to convince them to start buying their own guns and ammo so they don't have to keep mooching mine!
... that's about all I can say about it. That sucker looks scary.