| New Shooter Report |
[Jun. 7th, 2006|11:44 pm]
Sebastian
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This past Memorial Day Weekend, I got the opportunity to introduce  anemoneofpeace to the world of shooting real guns. Previously, she only had experience with BB guns, being Boy Scout certified to teach youngsters the ins and outs of pneumatically driven bits of copper. We made some last minute plans to go camping in Cook Forest State Park, just outside of Clarion in Western Pennsylvania. Since she lives in Michigan, it's about halfway for both of us. I wasn't going to head out into rural Pennsylvania without doing some shooting, so I brought two rifles and two pistols along.
Now, I had an idea of seeing if I could get anemoneofpeace to go along with shooting, but I mostly planned to shoot on my own late monday afternoon. Since we had some leftover daylight on Sunday, enough for a little shooting, but not enough for anything else, really, I decided to see if I could get her to come along. She decided to tag along, and a few minutes into shooting, I thought I'd offer to let her try it. I will admit, it's a big step for someone who's mildly afraid of guns to have their first shooting experience be an AR-15 and an AK-47. I managed to convince her that the recoil wouldn't be all that bad, and on most modern military arms, it isn't. Assault rifles fire cartridges of intermediate power. Most deer rifles will have more punishing recoil.
She did exceptionally well with the AR on her first shots, with grouping of about 3 inches at 25 yards, and lethal chest area shots at 100 yards. Not bad for someone who had only ever shot a BB gun. Of course, some would argue the AR-15 is a BB gun, and real men (or women) shoot M1A1s.
I managed to convince her the recoil on the AK-47 wasn't that bad. The truth is it's not that bad compared to, say a 12 gauge shotgun. Compared to the AR-15, it's a bit more. She didn't find it that bad, and managed to group about 6 inches at 25 yards, and at least hit the paper at 100 yards. Not bad.
In for a penny, in for a pound. Might as well try my Glock 19 9mm automatic. With a carefully aimed shot, she can hit the paper reliably at 25 yards. Very good for someone who's never shot pistol before. Accuracy should come first. Speed should come later.
Once I got her started, I couldn't feed her enough ammo. Here she is loading an AR-15 magazine with the maximum PA-game-commission-allowed 3 rounds of 5.56x45mm.
The next day we went back and shot some more. I really enjoy introducing new shooters to the hobby. If any other LJ friends would like to go shooting, feel free to sign up. You don't necessarily have to visit. Have gun, will travel (within the legal limits, if you live in an anti-gun cesspool like CA, NJ, MA, or NY, forget it, you'll have to travel to a jurisdiction more sympathetic to the cause). No word yet on whether anemoneofpeace will be changing her username to anemoneofpoliticallyincorrectblackrifles. |
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