denverpilot
Tied Down
We've been talking about joining a new shooting club near home, but Karen hasn't ever fired anything...
So tonight, after pizza, we headed over to check the place out.
I realized I haven't shot in a few YEARS. Crap. That needs to change. Maybe plinking with dad a couple times, but certainly not in any sort of real practice.
Rented her a stock Glock 19 and a single lane so we could chat and she wouldn't feel alone, hung up a single target for us both to plink at and most of my attention was on doing a good intro to firearms safety (we've been going over the rules for a couple of weeks at home and watching various videos for the basics, but that first range trip is always a little nervous for someone new and a little apprehensive).
Watching her sweep the guy at the counter with the unloaded pistol twice and both of us calmly pointing out the error, she "got it" after that. (Sigh, everyone does it at first... "Honey, where's the barrel pointed?" Guy behind the counter was great... Cracking appropriate jokes, asked the right questions of our familiarity, etc. Patient. No rushing. Appropriate lack of humor at the right times...)
Okay... Into the range and they have the rangemaster put the weapon on the shelf unloaded and open for rentals. Good start. Show Karen how to make sure the weapon is unloaded, show her all features and how to rack it, how much force it takes to do it, etc. pointing downrange, etc. I grab the range guy for a quick tutorial on their electronics for the target distance, etc. okey dokey... Punch number of feet, enter, and F1. Look over the other features... Turning targets, timed targets... Nifty gadget. That'll be fun to play with later.
Finish off showing the weapon... How to drop it closed with the lever, how to rack it without, how the trigger safety works, have her dry fire it a couple of times downrange to get a feel for the trigger pull and where it goes click...
Okay, now the un-fun stuff... Ha. Show Karen how to stuff rounds in the magazine... Then finish loading one up for her. Leave it short of a full mag, in case she wants to stop. Ten rounds. Easy to count. Share old family rule... You shoot it, you load it. (And you clean it, but we'll get to that later when it's not a rental gun... Haha.)
Let her go first. She plinks off ten rounds slowly, and like all new shooters, realizes the gun isn't going to do anything weird or crazy. Good trigger discipline, looks like we covered that one well enough. Your Safety is between your ears. Don't put anything inside the trigger guard and the gun won't fire. Finger on the side when not shooting, Etc.
She's grinning. Good sign. Stuff all over the target.
I load up about 12 and shoot a round. Not super accurate, but seven inside the K-10 and three in the X.
Ok... Now have paper with holes punched near the middle to show her... "Cool eh? That's not even great shooting, but see how you can group them like that with careful aiming?"
She's doing fine so talk about the stock sights and how to use them. Load her up with a full mag and away she goes. Getting closer. She's a natural... Nice. She's consistently off to one side, so discuss how to correct...
She's loading now, and range guy comes over and jokes a bit with her. Makes her laugh. Shows her how to shove those last couple in the mag. I show her how to use the bench to stabilize the mag if its being a pain. My big paws, I can just stuff the rounds in, she'll need some more practice. But doing great.
We staple a playing card over the guy's heart or thereabouts and she goes after it. Cuts little moon shaped pieces out all around the playing card. Nice grouping for her third magazine ever... All around the thing and a number of shots right below it.
Okay, my turn... I load only 10 and put four through the playing card... Starting to like this Glock... Not quite used to the long trigger pull though... Too much plinking with 1911s and the like.
Anyway, go through two boxes of crappy range ammo. She had two misfires, which I was pretty much expecting with a rented gun and range ammo, and we'd already talked about Tap, Rack, Bang... So now it was a chance to do it... Sounds weird but a hang fire being so damn rare in a Glock, I was almost glad the ammo sucked... She also may have been limp-wristing it a bit. Chatted a bit about that. Range guy and another employee look at the misfires and point out their primers are too low. Crappy loads. Nice striker mark in the primers, just didn't go bang.
Dude in the lane next to her is shooting his AR now... She's curious what is making all of that noise... Another guy is playing with a hand cannon four lanes over... Loud. Haha.
Anyway, a bunch more shooting later, we've plowed through an hour and a couple of boxes of ammo. She has one other misfeed that tosses the cartridge right up the ramp and halfway out the ejector port... yeah, limp-wristing a bit. A good instructor can help her with that. This is just "go plink and get used to it going bang" night anyway. She clears it without help but it sounds a bit odd when it closes, so I have her stop and check the weapon... Show her how to remove mag with rounds still in it, stay pointed downrange, and rack out the other round so we can look. All looks normal, so reload the two and hand her back her mag...
Anyway. Two rounds left and now I'm getting used to the Glock, so I load the last two rounds and put them on top of each other in the top-right scoring box of the target.
She was grinning from ear to ear... Looks like we may be joining the new gun club as a Christmas present. probably take some classes.
She also says now that she's fired the 9mm, she's definitely willing to try the .40 or .45 - said she wasn't sure exactly what to expect at first.
This range allows holster draw with a holster qualification, so maybe I will take that class... They have a number of classes throughout the year, and their 2013 calendar isn't up yet.
I could get used to the Glock. Like how light it is compared to all the steel stuff I've always shot. I was putting rounds generally where I wanted them to go after less than a box of ammo (tonight was Karen's shooting night, I kept loading me light and letting her have more shots), so that doesn't suck. Most of the bullseyes and the two top-right are mine. I also put four holes in the playing card. Need practice, but it was fun.
So tonight, after pizza, we headed over to check the place out.
I realized I haven't shot in a few YEARS. Crap. That needs to change. Maybe plinking with dad a couple times, but certainly not in any sort of real practice.
Rented her a stock Glock 19 and a single lane so we could chat and she wouldn't feel alone, hung up a single target for us both to plink at and most of my attention was on doing a good intro to firearms safety (we've been going over the rules for a couple of weeks at home and watching various videos for the basics, but that first range trip is always a little nervous for someone new and a little apprehensive).
Watching her sweep the guy at the counter with the unloaded pistol twice and both of us calmly pointing out the error, she "got it" after that. (Sigh, everyone does it at first... "Honey, where's the barrel pointed?" Guy behind the counter was great... Cracking appropriate jokes, asked the right questions of our familiarity, etc. Patient. No rushing. Appropriate lack of humor at the right times...)
Okay... Into the range and they have the rangemaster put the weapon on the shelf unloaded and open for rentals. Good start. Show Karen how to make sure the weapon is unloaded, show her all features and how to rack it, how much force it takes to do it, etc. pointing downrange, etc. I grab the range guy for a quick tutorial on their electronics for the target distance, etc. okey dokey... Punch number of feet, enter, and F1. Look over the other features... Turning targets, timed targets... Nifty gadget. That'll be fun to play with later.
Finish off showing the weapon... How to drop it closed with the lever, how to rack it without, how the trigger safety works, have her dry fire it a couple of times downrange to get a feel for the trigger pull and where it goes click...
Okay, now the un-fun stuff... Ha. Show Karen how to stuff rounds in the magazine... Then finish loading one up for her. Leave it short of a full mag, in case she wants to stop. Ten rounds. Easy to count. Share old family rule... You shoot it, you load it. (And you clean it, but we'll get to that later when it's not a rental gun... Haha.)
Let her go first. She plinks off ten rounds slowly, and like all new shooters, realizes the gun isn't going to do anything weird or crazy. Good trigger discipline, looks like we covered that one well enough. Your Safety is between your ears. Don't put anything inside the trigger guard and the gun won't fire. Finger on the side when not shooting, Etc.
She's grinning. Good sign. Stuff all over the target.
I load up about 12 and shoot a round. Not super accurate, but seven inside the K-10 and three in the X.
Ok... Now have paper with holes punched near the middle to show her... "Cool eh? That's not even great shooting, but see how you can group them like that with careful aiming?"
She's doing fine so talk about the stock sights and how to use them. Load her up with a full mag and away she goes. Getting closer. She's a natural... Nice. She's consistently off to one side, so discuss how to correct...
She's loading now, and range guy comes over and jokes a bit with her. Makes her laugh. Shows her how to shove those last couple in the mag. I show her how to use the bench to stabilize the mag if its being a pain. My big paws, I can just stuff the rounds in, she'll need some more practice. But doing great.
We staple a playing card over the guy's heart or thereabouts and she goes after it. Cuts little moon shaped pieces out all around the playing card. Nice grouping for her third magazine ever... All around the thing and a number of shots right below it.
Okay, my turn... I load only 10 and put four through the playing card... Starting to like this Glock... Not quite used to the long trigger pull though... Too much plinking with 1911s and the like.
Anyway, go through two boxes of crappy range ammo. She had two misfires, which I was pretty much expecting with a rented gun and range ammo, and we'd already talked about Tap, Rack, Bang... So now it was a chance to do it... Sounds weird but a hang fire being so damn rare in a Glock, I was almost glad the ammo sucked... She also may have been limp-wristing it a bit. Chatted a bit about that. Range guy and another employee look at the misfires and point out their primers are too low. Crappy loads. Nice striker mark in the primers, just didn't go bang.
Dude in the lane next to her is shooting his AR now... She's curious what is making all of that noise... Another guy is playing with a hand cannon four lanes over... Loud. Haha.
Anyway, a bunch more shooting later, we've plowed through an hour and a couple of boxes of ammo. She has one other misfeed that tosses the cartridge right up the ramp and halfway out the ejector port... yeah, limp-wristing a bit. A good instructor can help her with that. This is just "go plink and get used to it going bang" night anyway. She clears it without help but it sounds a bit odd when it closes, so I have her stop and check the weapon... Show her how to remove mag with rounds still in it, stay pointed downrange, and rack out the other round so we can look. All looks normal, so reload the two and hand her back her mag...
Anyway. Two rounds left and now I'm getting used to the Glock, so I load the last two rounds and put them on top of each other in the top-right scoring box of the target.
She was grinning from ear to ear... Looks like we may be joining the new gun club as a Christmas present. probably take some classes.
She also says now that she's fired the 9mm, she's definitely willing to try the .40 or .45 - said she wasn't sure exactly what to expect at first.
This range allows holster draw with a holster qualification, so maybe I will take that class... They have a number of classes throughout the year, and their 2013 calendar isn't up yet.
I could get used to the Glock. Like how light it is compared to all the steel stuff I've always shot. I was putting rounds generally where I wanted them to go after less than a box of ammo (tonight was Karen's shooting night, I kept loading me light and letting her have more shots), so that doesn't suck. Most of the bullseyes and the two top-right are mine. I also put four holes in the playing card. Need practice, but it was fun.
