Not many pictures yet, but check back to see what has developed..
On Saturday December 4, the last December of this century, some of the Friday night crew went back to Westlance Arms in West Virginia for a day of shooting, chili, birthday cake, ice cream, and a lot of fun. Westlance has a pistol range, which includes bowling pins, "poppers," and other reactive targets, plus a 100 yard rifle range with target stands at 50 and 100 yards, and a trap range. Today we had a chance to shoot at all three locations with a variety of guns. This is something we don't do very often (about once a year now that I think of it). The occasion was a birthday celebration for Nan Sanders, an NRA instructor and future Training Counselor.
The first firing session was on the rifle range. I brought the Ruger Mini-14 to see if our Y2K magazines were all ready. The Ramline plastic magazine and one of the generic metal 20 round magazines worked as long as I got them seated in the gun in the right way. The .223 cartridge doesn't have a lot of recoil, but you can tell from the effect on the targets that this is a serious round.
We switched off to the pistol range, where the SIG 226 and 239, both in 9 mm, got a workout. There is an "El Presidente" setup at Westlance with three metal plates a few yards apart. It's good practice to fire two shots at each plate as fast as possible while getting hits each time. The 226 is very accurate, but big. The 239 is very accurate, but much smaller. I like the heavier caliber (.357 SIG) Model 239, but the 9 mm is good for practice. The .357 SIG 239 is going to have Ashley Express sights very soon. That should be interesting, and worth another trip to the Westlance reactive targets (rain or shine). Today the 9 mm was hitting just about every shot, and lots of bowling pins bit the dust.
The real treat of the day was shooting shotguns on the trap range. Mark Ewing, who owns Westlance, is a former national champion trap shooter and knows an awful lot about shotguns. He warned me that my New England Firearms $80 single shot break open wasn't going to be idea because it does not have a recoil pad, and the stock was too short for me. I was determined to see if I could hit moving targets with this gun, because it's a beginner's gun, affordable, and I like it. Mark was right about the recoil pad. It needs one. He showed me how to watch the target and bring the barrel up and shoot and follow through and I broke 17 out of 25 targets. That was astounding. Later, I switched to a Remington Model 1100 trap model with a 30" barrel and full choke and broke 20 out of 25 birds. Mark told me a lot of tricks that aren't covered in the basic NRA shotgun course. An example: don't say "pull" when you want a target. The movement of your jaw when saying this is not good for the "mount" of the stock against your cheek. Instead say "hut," which comes from the throat, and is easier for the person who triggers the target machine to understand. The word "pull" can be stretched out and can be confusing to the trap operator.
Before I get too excited about hitting 20 out of 25 targets, I know that Mark has a special setup for beginners. You stand on the trap house and the targets come up right in front of you. All you have to do is watch the target and not watch the sights, and fire when the gun come across the target, and FOLLOW THROUGH. If you stop after firing, or if you lift your cheek off the stock, you'll miss. One big surprise today was that every time I hit the target, I never saw the hit because the barrel was moving over the target and blocking the view. If I moved my head, or looked for the target after the shot, I'd miss. I know that skeet, sporting clays, and other shotgun sports (like hunting) all call for different skills and often a different gun, but for now I'm going to concentrate on getting a Remington 1100 that fits and learn to shoot that well. Oh, one other thing, I still can't keep both eyes open when I shoot. I wish I could. I know I'm doing it wrong. Maybe some day. I forced myself to learn to see random dot stereograms (those three dimensional pictures that used to be popular) so there's hope.
One reason I did ok, for a beginning, is that I listened to Mark. When I teach people to shoot pistols, I stand there thinking, "If you would just do the simple things I'm suggesting, you'll be a great shot." The students who listen, get small groups in the middle of the target. By doing what Mark said, I got 20 out of 25.
Since we had a lot of people there today, we had a lot of different guns. I fired a Ruger Vaquero .45 Colt (sometimes called a ".45 Long Colt"), a Thompson Contender .50 caliber black powder rifle (nice flash to bang ratio...), an M-1 carbine and a match grade M-1 Garand (got a small group at 100 yards!). There was a sense of history inherent in the carbine and Garand from World War II. The Ruger Mini-14 action is patterned after the Garand's, by the way.
We took some pictures today. I'll try to get the film digitized and add those to this narrative.