Some time ago I was offered the opportunity of a lifetime for someone like me. My environment and the area in which I live, generally don’t put guns and girls together. Guns full stop are not commonplace and rarely become the topic of conversation. The subject is as rare as an albino buck, so of course I jumped at the opportunity.
Leading up to the day, the prospect of finally being able to experience the power and mechanics of a firearm had me too excited to really focus on anything else. In the back of my mind there was a little sprout of worry about how excited I was and I was very careful not to express the planned future events due to the stigmas attached to such a subject. First time I ever saw a pistol was on a Naval ground open day. I watched with a jealous tinged awe as the group of guys became familiar with the arsenal. I was fairly young and just accepted that it’s not a girl thing and moved on with girl life, drawing guns instead!
You get the picture.
Shooting day arrives with a bang! I love early starts and this one was no exception. If I’d set my alarm, I would have beat it anyway out of sheer anticipation, I was well and truly ready before I was meant to be. My friend who had mentioned that he shoots at a club and offered to teach me one day, organised to meet at a mutual point and drive to the club together. We talked about types of bullets, how to make them, how a gun's internal mechanics operate, what it takes to keep firearms including licensing, club membership, practice, training and event participation, plus the cost of all such things; financially and socially. Wow this has already turned into a day I’ll never forget.
We check out the clubs armoury, sign in, grab a log book and head out to the range. There are some indoor shooting areas whose targets looked much smaller to me, but we were headed for the big targets, outside. First stop was the safe zone where all firearms must be empty. Here my friend dismantled the pistol we were to shoot and showed me the simplistic internal pieces and what makes a gun fire. We went over the basic and logical safety rules like don’t point the gun at anyone or at yourself. Then we went through more club rules which mostly focuses again on safety, such as, never point the gun straight up or straight down, never past 45 degrees in the air and always always down range.
Once we were confident of the rules we moved to the shooting range bench to load the magazines. I had a go at a manual load and it becomes hard work as those little bullets are stacked into their departure point. Luckily, there is a nifty little loading tool that takes the load off, very useful when loading a stack of mags. The pistol was loaded and we went through some basic commands one would hear on a shooting event "load and make ready", "shooter ready" and off you go. Ear muffs on! My friend took me through a live shoot first then it was my turn. I gripped the pistol in proper form, took stance and steadied my aim... steadied my aim... steady, and eventually pulled the trigger. "Ding!" on the steel plate was a clear indicator that the target was hit. From here it became a day of understanding how to hit the target and it’s not as easy or straight forward as point and shoot, which is something I appreciate.
A couple hours later we were running a tame course which requires a sharp double tap on each target and to aim and fire around and through obstacles. Aim of the game here is time and accuracy. I felt I went well, missed a few, bullseyed a couple and generally got a good shot. We had a spare few moments to try single hand shooting, which to me felt much more natural and walking towards the target while firing. "Show clear" and it was shell collection and cleanup time. I was curious to see the aftermath of a spent bullet and so we scavenged around for some shrapnel and I collected some lead flower souvenirs. They’re strangely beautiful and fragile. The ones in tact missed their target and hit the dirt across the other side of the range, evidence of the need to continually practice.
We took some videos which was a great way to see exactly what we were doing right or wrong. Here’s an example of good technique and one that needs work:
I think you can see where I need to do some work.
There is so much happening in that moment the hammer hits the firing pin, it all moves by so fast and in a few seconds your magazine is spent, so it's very important to pay attention to what you're doing. The steel was dinging here, the dirt was also flying. You may just catch a glimpse of it.
Let me clarify that my natural interest in firearms has nothing to do with killing, I am not an advocate for anything like that. It’s the subtle and not so subtle combination of a simple design that harbours an intense amount of power. The potential sitting behind such a small amount of lead, always ready always waiting for that split second when the slight pull of a finger conducts its freedom flight. It’s the extreme physics, the focus, the discipline, the calm understanding of how the gun works and needs to become an extension of you in order to allow the gun to perform the way it was designed.
I don’t talk about shooting in light of ridicule and I simply cannot express the difference between the sport of it and the more unforgiving brutal aspect of it once someone has already made their mind up, that window of explanation is gone. Anyway, on a high note, thank you to my friend and skilled marksman @galenkp for helping me write another chapter in the book of life experience.
