Range Report: 07 Sep. 2009

JF, one of the 3 students who said they would be there, and of the six who said they might, showed up for a gun class on labor(-free) day. GB came out also and brought his arsenal with him. Between GB's and mine, there were over a dozen guns for JF to choose from, and his choice was: most of them. Once again my SKS was a male student's favorite. Once again, nobody got shot, despite JF's tendency to point a loaded rifle at his feet. There were the usual couple of hours of instruction, couple hours of shooting, lunch, then more shooting, cleanup; about a 6-hour day all told. I got a sunburn where a sling rubbed the sunscreen off my left arm, and I got a little bite from the stubborn bolt on a Mosin-Nagant, but no other injuries were reported.

JF had never held or shot a gun before, so after class I had him observe the shooting of a .22LR. He was duly unimpressed by the recoil and blast, as I had hoped. He started off with a .38Spl revolver and was slightly more impressed. By lunchtime, at his pace and election, he had moved up the perceived-recoil ladder all the way to 7.62x54R out of a carbine. He declined to shoot a 12ga. shotty, but I showed him how it was done* and he did enjoy watching that. He also got a kick out of recovering bullets from the berm, including one nearly-reloadable .380ACP round, which he kept for a souvenir.

Highlights:

Once again, I got to see the creeping grin when a new shooter realizes how much fun he is having.

I was pleased as punch to get several 9s, 10s, and an X, from offhand with a revolver I had never shot before. Also I chased an empty can with it, most shots in double-action, from offhand one-handed.

For fun, we kept the shooting down to <35 yards. That means rifle sights are off vertically, for everybody, a source of minor good-natured ribbing when we figured it out.

*Shooting dry cowpies with birdshot is not such a great idea if you are standing upwind. Unless you like breathing cow poo dust, of which there will be plenty.

The rifle sights on my newest shotgun are niiiiiice to shoot with.

The grandson of our host came down and got some quality time with full-power Glocks, which were new to him. 2 students, 2 RO's, perfect ratio.

Malfunctions:

Beware listening to other people! One of the men didn't hear a firing pin strike and thought he had seen the last round out of my .22 hit the berm . . . he saw the last one that went downrange. The last one was a dud and he didn't know it. Check for yourself if you have a malfunction, if there is any question. The life you save may be your own.

GB's Glock 9mm surprised the heck out of me, with repeated failures to feed. He blamed the cheap Soviet steel-cased ammunition.

GB's brand-spanking-new DPMS AR chambered in .308 wouldn't go into battery more often than it would. There is no forward assist, so pulling and releasing the charging handle was the only workaround. I was sighting in the scope for him, and the last shot was in the X ring, so close enough. It was also the last shot for the day for that rifle, because of what happened next. It was a double-feed, because of a failure to extract. The extractor ripped the rim off the case and the case was jammed pretty good, requiring disassembly and a cleaning rod to reduce the malfunction. It turns out there is a pretty nasty burr in the chamber, and he'll probably be getting a repair under warranty.


Dig the double-fed cartridge. It was a good teaching moment for JF and a sobering thing for GB, who has n Cases of these in his stores.


If you don't notice one of your cartridges has a bullet set this far back into the case, you might just have the rifle's action explode in your hands, a few inches from your face. This is not good. The next cartridge in the magazine was smashed also, and visibly wobbled when it was rolled on a flat surface. 2 rounds discarded (not fired) due to hazardous physical condition.

Shooting with friends and teaching the newbies: Good Times.