J-Bar
Member
Yesterday I spent a late afternoon hour at an indoor range operated by a full service gun store. This was mainly to kill time, having completed my urgent honey-do chores for the day. I was kind of ambivalent about going to the range, not expecting much, no shooting issues in particular to work on. Just going to get out of the house, you know. To improve my chances for fun, I took two of my favorites, a S&W Model 14-4 .38 Special, and its kid brother, a Model 17-2 .22 LR (on top in the photo).
The 8-lane range was nearly empty. Two young men, twentyish, were clipping a fresh target to the cable operated target holder on Lane 4 as I went to Lane 8. I went through my usual routine of 20 rounds of .22 LR at 30 feet, Bullseye style, right handed, then another 20 rounds left handed. Which is always humbling but at least none hit the paper outside the scoring rings. My range companions were shooting 9 mm semi autos at a reasonable pace, not spraying as fast as possible, and making decent groups on targets 15 feet away. I repeated my right-handed/left-handed one-handed single action drill with the Model 14. Again, my groups proved I am right handed, but the left-handed group was not terribly embarrassing.
As I started to pack up, one of the young men came up and said he had noticed me shooting with both hands and wondered why. I said it made me really focus on trigger control. Then he asked what revolver I was using. I took both guns out of my range bag and laid them side by side like in the photo (because I'm proud of them you know!) and we started talking about them. His companion joined us quickly. Neither had ever shot a revolver. "Would you like to shoot one," I asked. All 4 eyes brightened above their Covid masks (optional on the range-I was barefaced-such a rebel!). So I gave an orientation in how to open the crane properly, how to close the crane properly, how to avoid the barrel/cylinder gap, and then let them dry fire the Model 17 in both double and single action. All 4 eyebrows went up when they felt the Smith and Wesson single action trigger for the first time.
Then, live fire. Each shot 3 rounds double action and three rounds single action, and geez I wish I had the eyes and nerves of a twenty-year old. Their groups could be covered by a nickel. Even at 15 feet, the distance they chose, I think that is pretty decent for handling a strange gun.
They asked questions about where to find such revolvers, cost, etc. And then returned to finish shooting their bottom feeding semi autos as I left the range.
As I left, I realized it had been a much better range session than I expected, and I was grinning as I went to my car. Their enthusiasm for my revolvers was more infectious than the Coronavirus. I expect there will be revolvers in a couple of new gun safes before very long.
The 8-lane range was nearly empty. Two young men, twentyish, were clipping a fresh target to the cable operated target holder on Lane 4 as I went to Lane 8. I went through my usual routine of 20 rounds of .22 LR at 30 feet, Bullseye style, right handed, then another 20 rounds left handed. Which is always humbling but at least none hit the paper outside the scoring rings. My range companions were shooting 9 mm semi autos at a reasonable pace, not spraying as fast as possible, and making decent groups on targets 15 feet away. I repeated my right-handed/left-handed one-handed single action drill with the Model 14. Again, my groups proved I am right handed, but the left-handed group was not terribly embarrassing.
As I started to pack up, one of the young men came up and said he had noticed me shooting with both hands and wondered why. I said it made me really focus on trigger control. Then he asked what revolver I was using. I took both guns out of my range bag and laid them side by side like in the photo (because I'm proud of them you know!) and we started talking about them. His companion joined us quickly. Neither had ever shot a revolver. "Would you like to shoot one," I asked. All 4 eyes brightened above their Covid masks (optional on the range-I was barefaced-such a rebel!). So I gave an orientation in how to open the crane properly, how to close the crane properly, how to avoid the barrel/cylinder gap, and then let them dry fire the Model 17 in both double and single action. All 4 eyebrows went up when they felt the Smith and Wesson single action trigger for the first time.
Then, live fire. Each shot 3 rounds double action and three rounds single action, and geez I wish I had the eyes and nerves of a twenty-year old. Their groups could be covered by a nickel. Even at 15 feet, the distance they chose, I think that is pretty decent for handling a strange gun.
They asked questions about where to find such revolvers, cost, etc. And then returned to finish shooting their bottom feeding semi autos as I left the range.
As I left, I realized it had been a much better range session than I expected, and I was grinning as I went to my car. Their enthusiasm for my revolvers was more infectious than the Coronavirus. I expect there will be revolvers in a couple of new gun safes before very long.
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