StuntDouble
Gold Member
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2004
- Messages
- 2,458
A friend of mine from work and I drove out to the Chickahominy shooting range yesterday. For me, it's sort of a therapy, for him, it was his first time going shooting. We set up and started shooting, going through a few mags before taking a break. My buddy Jake walked over to check out the revolver a guy was shooting a couple of lanes down from us. Jake came back, all giddy because the guy was shooing a Ruger Redhawk .44 magnum. I walked off to throw some trash away, and when I came back, the guy was handing my friend the Ruger to try out. He turned and looked at me and said "Here you go guys. Three shots each" I kind of stood there with a slack jawed look on my face while Jake tried the gun out. He actually did very well for his first time shooting. I learned that day that a .44 isn't nearly as punishing as some have made it out to be, and in the Ruger, I'd almost go as far as saying it's pleasant to shoot.
Anyway, we went back to shooting, when an older guy comes up and shows me his muzzle-loading pistol. He tells me to give it a shot, and shows me how to work it. Everything was going fine until the primer fell off the nipple. A quick scramble recovered it, and I was ready to go. After fighting a very heavy trigger, I touched off what is destined to become an addiction down the road. A very satisfying "whump" and I sent the very large chunk of lead downrange into the sand. The gentleman kind of chuckled, took the gun back, and asked Jake if he wanted to have a go. Of course he did, so he walked off and started getting the pistol ready for him. Jake ended up getting closest to actually hitting a paper target with that gun.
I struck up a conversation with another gentleman beside us, turns out it was the same guy that had let me fire his suppressed Walther P22 the last time I was at the range. We talked about guns for a bit, and I went back over to my side. A couple minutes later, the gentleman comes walking up and hands me a Kahr MK40, and tells me to try it out. It was a snappy little bugger, but man it was fun to shoot. After we were done shooting, we just kind of hung around talking to the people around the lanes. At one point, Jake was looking at someone's Sig 232, when they told him, "Don't just look at it, shoot it". This seemed to be the general attitude of everyone around there. I was just standing around at one point when another guy handed me a Glock 21 and told me to have at it. I must admit I changed my opinion about Glocks after that one.
I imagine I must have been standing around with a dumbfounded look on my face most of the time, because I was surprised at how generous everyone was. No one seemed to really care about lending their guns out to other people, and all turned down offers to shoot my Walther. I actually felt a bit guilty because I didn't have something more interesting to share with everyone else, but that will be remedied as soon as possible. It's just nice to witness firsthand that just because you don't know someone, doesn't always mean that you're strangers.
Anyway, we went back to shooting, when an older guy comes up and shows me his muzzle-loading pistol. He tells me to give it a shot, and shows me how to work it. Everything was going fine until the primer fell off the nipple. A quick scramble recovered it, and I was ready to go. After fighting a very heavy trigger, I touched off what is destined to become an addiction down the road. A very satisfying "whump" and I sent the very large chunk of lead downrange into the sand. The gentleman kind of chuckled, took the gun back, and asked Jake if he wanted to have a go. Of course he did, so he walked off and started getting the pistol ready for him. Jake ended up getting closest to actually hitting a paper target with that gun.
I struck up a conversation with another gentleman beside us, turns out it was the same guy that had let me fire his suppressed Walther P22 the last time I was at the range. We talked about guns for a bit, and I went back over to my side. A couple minutes later, the gentleman comes walking up and hands me a Kahr MK40, and tells me to try it out. It was a snappy little bugger, but man it was fun to shoot. After we were done shooting, we just kind of hung around talking to the people around the lanes. At one point, Jake was looking at someone's Sig 232, when they told him, "Don't just look at it, shoot it". This seemed to be the general attitude of everyone around there. I was just standing around at one point when another guy handed me a Glock 21 and told me to have at it. I must admit I changed my opinion about Glocks after that one.
I imagine I must have been standing around with a dumbfounded look on my face most of the time, because I was surprised at how generous everyone was. No one seemed to really care about lending their guns out to other people, and all turned down offers to shoot my Walther. I actually felt a bit guilty because I didn't have something more interesting to share with everyone else, but that will be remedied as soon as possible. It's just nice to witness firsthand that just because you don't know someone, doesn't always mean that you're strangers.
