Descreet38
02-08-2009, 11:26 AM
I hit the range yesterday at 7 am. I brought donuts for the owners with who I am great friends with. I brought 11 firearms and went onto my Lane at 8 sharp.
Took a one hr lunch with two ladies who came in about 11:15 to shoot one of their friends pistols. He didn't even come along and neither of them had ever held a gun before. Not a very smart friend! Their lack of knowledge was very evident when they didn't know where to put the magazine. Anyway the owner Bob asked me to give them some instruction. Come to find out they are mother and daughter but looked more like sisters.
Daughter wanted to shoot first. Her first shot took out one of the range lights. Too funny yet not funny at the same time. I had her comfortable holding and sighting. I took off safety and said, now squeeze the trigger while holding that sight picture.
She instantly closed her eyes leaned way back arching her back and pulled the trigger. Sarah - 1, Range light - 0. The mom - Kathy wasn't bad - out to about 30 feet she could manage to hit the target.
After lunch they left - and according to Bob - hopefully to not return together but he would let Kathy in again.
I go back to business at hand and from 1 pm to 4:30 pm I went through 3,770 rounds of mixed calibers.
A tremendous amount of that was through my 1985 Colt M-16, a vintage 60's AK-47, and one of my favorites - the MP-5 in .40 S&W. All are full auto so they can put some lead down range very quickly. Friday night I had pre-loaded over 50 mags for the M16 and 33 for the 47 and 25 for the MP-5. Thank goodness I reload!
The topper of the day came just before I left the range. Standing at the counter just BSing with two shooters - we all turned our head when the sound of a very large bore gun went off. Only problem - no one on the range had a large bore at the moment.
Ladies and Gentlemen - wear the eye protection. We went out to lane eight where all the excitement (crowd) was to discover a shooter had just blown up a relatively brand new Glock. Both hands were bleeding and his shooting glasses had a huge gouge in the left lens. Without those safety glasses that would have been the end of his left eye and maybe worse.
And - No it wasn't the Glock’s fault. In discussion he told us that his good friend had given him a box of reloads and said they were a "little" on the hot side.
"LITTLE" - Just received an email from the buddy who owns the range. They pulled apart 10 of the rounds at the range and discovered every one of them were compressed loads using what appears to be WIN 231. That would be somewhere between 2.5 and 3 times the powder listed for a 9mm max load for +P+ much less a standard load.
Anyway – what a mixed emotions for a range day.
But remember – the bad day at the range still beats a good day at work.
Took a one hr lunch with two ladies who came in about 11:15 to shoot one of their friends pistols. He didn't even come along and neither of them had ever held a gun before. Not a very smart friend! Their lack of knowledge was very evident when they didn't know where to put the magazine. Anyway the owner Bob asked me to give them some instruction. Come to find out they are mother and daughter but looked more like sisters.
Daughter wanted to shoot first. Her first shot took out one of the range lights. Too funny yet not funny at the same time. I had her comfortable holding and sighting. I took off safety and said, now squeeze the trigger while holding that sight picture.
She instantly closed her eyes leaned way back arching her back and pulled the trigger. Sarah - 1, Range light - 0. The mom - Kathy wasn't bad - out to about 30 feet she could manage to hit the target.
After lunch they left - and according to Bob - hopefully to not return together but he would let Kathy in again.
I go back to business at hand and from 1 pm to 4:30 pm I went through 3,770 rounds of mixed calibers.
A tremendous amount of that was through my 1985 Colt M-16, a vintage 60's AK-47, and one of my favorites - the MP-5 in .40 S&W. All are full auto so they can put some lead down range very quickly. Friday night I had pre-loaded over 50 mags for the M16 and 33 for the 47 and 25 for the MP-5. Thank goodness I reload!
The topper of the day came just before I left the range. Standing at the counter just BSing with two shooters - we all turned our head when the sound of a very large bore gun went off. Only problem - no one on the range had a large bore at the moment.
Ladies and Gentlemen - wear the eye protection. We went out to lane eight where all the excitement (crowd) was to discover a shooter had just blown up a relatively brand new Glock. Both hands were bleeding and his shooting glasses had a huge gouge in the left lens. Without those safety glasses that would have been the end of his left eye and maybe worse.
And - No it wasn't the Glock’s fault. In discussion he told us that his good friend had given him a box of reloads and said they were a "little" on the hot side.
"LITTLE" - Just received an email from the buddy who owns the range. They pulled apart 10 of the rounds at the range and discovered every one of them were compressed loads using what appears to be WIN 231. That would be somewhere between 2.5 and 3 times the powder listed for a 9mm max load for +P+ much less a standard load.
Anyway – what a mixed emotions for a range day.
But remember – the bad day at the range still beats a good day at work.