Tallball
Member
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2014
- Messages
- 7,826
Yesterday I went shooting with my friend. He's 50 and I'm 57. We haven't been shooting in a while because he had foot surgery and I had abdominal surgery. We both limped out to the range, got our handguns spread out on the table, and started shooting at our usual seven yards. His targets were black and I couldn't really see how well he was shooting.
It turned out he'd been shooting poorly and was getting frustrated. He'd gone to a lot of effort to arrange the trip, and then he couldn't shoot worth squat. I pointed out that having one foot in a walking boot was not giving him a firm base, so maybe he was being hard on himself. He showed me what he'd been shooting: his Glock 43, S&W EZ, and Ruger P85.
I told him, "Brother, you have strayed from the path." Then I handed him a 3" K-frame 38 special and a handful of shells. He couldn't help smiling. He shot his first six DA and they were all touching. The second group was SA and they all went into one hole.
He shot his 9mm pistols okay after that. Pretty good for a tired guy with a wobbly foot. He had his confidence back and knew he could do it. He didn't shoot them as well as he shot the 38, but he did fine.
The lesson I learned from this is that if you grew up shooting revolvers, as he and I both did, you are just going to shoot them better and be more confident with them in general. This probably doesn't apply to very many people much younger than we are. Most younger shooters are exposed to semiautomatic pistols a lot more than we were. We grew up in a barbaric region (Texas) where we shot 22 single-action revolvers as young men, and our dads had 38's or 357's, and that's what there was. Even though we've both been shooting semiautos for ages now, I don't think they're hardwired into our nervous systems like revolvers are.
So if younger people sometimes wonder why older people "irrationally" stick to revolvers, that's one reason. I don't think I have enough time left to train my semiauto muscle memory up to where my revolver muscle memory already is. I know for sure that I can't afford that much ammo.
This was the revolver. Nothing fancy. A police surplus 3" Taurus Model 82 with fixed sights. I got it for $300 OTD or something like that, within the past year or so.
It turned out he'd been shooting poorly and was getting frustrated. He'd gone to a lot of effort to arrange the trip, and then he couldn't shoot worth squat. I pointed out that having one foot in a walking boot was not giving him a firm base, so maybe he was being hard on himself. He showed me what he'd been shooting: his Glock 43, S&W EZ, and Ruger P85.
I told him, "Brother, you have strayed from the path." Then I handed him a 3" K-frame 38 special and a handful of shells. He couldn't help smiling. He shot his first six DA and they were all touching. The second group was SA and they all went into one hole.
He shot his 9mm pistols okay after that. Pretty good for a tired guy with a wobbly foot. He had his confidence back and knew he could do it. He didn't shoot them as well as he shot the 38, but he did fine.
The lesson I learned from this is that if you grew up shooting revolvers, as he and I both did, you are just going to shoot them better and be more confident with them in general. This probably doesn't apply to very many people much younger than we are. Most younger shooters are exposed to semiautomatic pistols a lot more than we were. We grew up in a barbaric region (Texas) where we shot 22 single-action revolvers as young men, and our dads had 38's or 357's, and that's what there was. Even though we've both been shooting semiautos for ages now, I don't think they're hardwired into our nervous systems like revolvers are.
So if younger people sometimes wonder why older people "irrationally" stick to revolvers, that's one reason. I don't think I have enough time left to train my semiauto muscle memory up to where my revolver muscle memory already is. I know for sure that I can't afford that much ammo.
This was the revolver. Nothing fancy. A police surplus 3" Taurus Model 82 with fixed sights. I got it for $300 OTD or something like that, within the past year or so.