Hi fellow Hiveians,
Today I wanted to appreciate ending the hiatus that's been my time at the range!
I have enjoyed shooting guns like my own for several years now. Sadly though, through various commitments and things like that, I haven't been to the range or shot a gun in wayyyyy too long. Thankfully the other day I ended my dry spell!
I don't have many guns, but I do want to get some additional ones in the coming bit of time. I took this opportunity to give it a bit of a test to see what ones I liked and what ones I didn't!
A .45 caliber is one that I've been eyeing for a while. I like to go on hikes with my son in the autumn a fair bit and one of the things that we have to do is be aware of bears and shit around. With the current ones I've got, it's not feasible to try and take down a bear, if anything it would just piss it off lol. So I've been trying to get myself familiar with .45 and was able to rent one at the range!
It's not too bad, I've shot one before but it's been a long time. The kick to it is stronger than the 9mm I normally shoot but it's not like a .357 or anything. I went to the range with someone many years ago, a pretty lightweight girl and she wanted to rent a .357, one of the biggest guns they had at the place. She shot it once, then I had to finish the box of bullets lol I think it was 20 or 24. My wrist was pretty sore after that one!
Overall I liked the .45 and the interesting thing about this place is that they had one that I seemed to have liked, it was a metal Smith and Wesson, though I didn't get to shoot that one in particular. The range was in a town that was pretty far away though, so it didn't make sense to buy it from them but I do know what I like at least!
Then the other gun I shot that day, because I didn't have crazy amounts of time, was a .22LR pistol. I've shot .22 many times as a kid as that's a popular round for kids to enjoy but I never shot a .22 pistol. It was really enjoyable, let me tell you!
I needed to work on muscle memory and getting more rounds out of the barrel than anything, so I only used 2 boxes of .45 ammo before I returned that gun and went with the .22, because the ammo was also half the price per box, and way more per box as well!
I ended up sending 200 rounds of .22LR down range, and 100 of .45. It was a really good day of shooting that's for sure!
The above photo was the target I was using for the .45. I was mainly shooting from 10 feet away I think it was, though I'm not 100% sure on that. The machine they use to send the targets down wasn't really the easiest to understand. I would press a button for 3.4 meters or something and it would send it out a bit, I pressed it again and it moved it back a bit more. I really don't know what I was shooting at lol but it wasn't too far. That's certainly after it was done and I brought the target back!
I was satisfied with the relative accuracy I had. I obliterated the center of the target and everything seemed to be lower, I guess that means I am anticipating the recoil and nudging the gun down a little bit to compensate? Also, I was trying to hit the sides intentionally, not just firing wildly around lol. I didn't get many directly on what I wanted for the sides but that's okay!
The above target is from the .22LR and I was shooting it from what seems like 20 or 30 feet away. I wanted to see what I could do to it from a much greater distance! It was pretty cool to send a bunch of rounds down range and see what my accuracy was with that gun for the first time. Granted with the .22 there is a lot less recoil, I was still trying to just get better at keeping myself on target as close to the center as I could.
I used two of the 3 targets that I had for the .22 and I did some compare of the ability I had with making it hit close to target. The middle target was the 2nd box of the .22 ammo and as you can see, I was a lot more frequently on center than I was with the first box!
This was the big reason I went with the .22 so I could shoot a lot of rounds at it. I almost grabbed a third box of 100 but I didn't have time to really do that so I did just enjoy the 200 I had there.
It was a really enjoyable time at the range! I have plans to go with an older friend of ours who is getting her license for various reasons, and I'm going to help show her and get her accustomed to the various calibers. .22 is certainly going to be a contender for her to send a bunch of rounds down range, but for her personal purchase she is likely going to go with a 9mm.
-CmplXty. Real human written content, never AI. All pictures are mine unless otherwise stated
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