Annie Oakley Rides Again

For some time, it has been on my bucket list to learn to shoot a gun.  Not that I want to actually own one, mind you--with three curious kids in the house, that would be a recipe for disaster, but I really did want to see what kind of damage I could do on a target.  Out here in the sticks, lots of people have guns for home protection, range use and/or hunting, including three of my better geocaching buddies.  One of them offered to take me to the range with him this past Friday; I grabbed my courage in both hands and took him up on the offer.

Bill is a retired shop teacher, which means that his geocache containers are just about impossible to find.  The trick generally lies in figuring out what he took apart and put back together again with a container in the middle!  Pieces of wood and plastic, train track parts--on abandoned lines of course--etc, etc.  The operative word in this particular case, though, turned out to be "teacher."  Knowing that I was an utter novice, he sent me two long emails of diagrams and explanations and videos to look at ahead of time.  (I joked that it was my pre-reading before the lecture.)  He has four or five pistols, and wanted me to try shooting three of them: a .22, a 9mm, and a .45.  The first hour of the lesson was spent at his kitchen table learning how the different kinds of sights work, how to load and unload the three guns and how to use them safely.  Once he was fully satisfied that I wouldn't inadvertently kill either myself or him (my husband's only request!) he handed me ear protection and a pair of goggles and we drove over to an indoor range.        

We started with the .22, which was the only one that did not have a laser sight.  Took me a while to figure out how to aim it using an iron sight, but I eventually sorta got the hang of it.  This is the .22 target.  Bullet holes all over the place, but at least all on the paper!  The paper targets are taped to a piece of stiff cardboard hanging from a pulley, which you can set at any distance you want from the shooting booth using a rope.  I was shooting at a range of 15-20 feet, far enough for a beginner.  At this stage of the game I was happy just to be hitting the paper, since I was still trying to figure out how to hold the gun comfortably and sight it properly.  By the second magazine I was hitting inside the larger red square, at least.  This was a great pistol to start with because it has virtually no 'kick' when you shoot it.

We moved on from there to the 9mm, which was a scary-looking piece of work and had a serious kick to it.  The laser sight helped a lot with aiming, at least.  I felt pretty badass standing there with that Steyer in my hand!!  This one was my target (of course, Bill's looked a lot better.)  Not too bad for a novice, if I do say so myself.  :)

Bill's .45 is a Colt 1911, the standard Army sidepiece from 1911 until sometime in the 1980s.  It is heavy as hell and those things kick like an Arkansas mule, so I was pretty dubious about even trying it after the 9mm.  He's nearly 70 though, so I figured if he could hold it, I could.  Famous last words, right???  I picked it up, lined up the sight dot, squeezed the trigger...

     
...and blasted my first ever .45 shot straight into the middle of the target!!  Couldn't have worked out better if I actually knew what I was doing.  I turned around, handed the gun back to Bill and called it a day on the spot.  I needed to head home anyway to get the kids off the bus and sure as hell, my next shot would have been into the floor or ceiling or something.  That was the shot to end the day on without any doubt at all!  

So much fun.  I was lucky to have such a patient, thorough and safe teacher.  And look at what he sneaked into a pocket of my purse while I was sweeping up my spent casings!

        
Now I have a few souvenirs of the day for my kitchen windowsill as well.  The small ones are the ejected .22 casings, the silver are the 9mm, and the larger brass the .45s.  Definitely a good day.  :)