OT Gunsmoke for charity

Today was a *LOT* of fun.

Bonnie, the CEO of the company where shootin' buds Todd and Brian work, gets involved in a charity auction in her upscale community each year. Since colleagues Todd and Brian are shooters, Bonnie's offering to the auction is "An indoor range experience shooting real handguns with two experienced gunslingers. No experience required. Guns, ammo, safety instruction, coaching if desired and lunch are provided". I think winning bids are several hundred dollars.

Lit and his wife Anne were this year's winners. I was invited at the last minute (yesterday), possibly because I add variety to the selection of handguns to try. But I'm also fairly good at helping new shooters have a safe and enjoyable range experience and I greatly enjoy seeing when they do have fun and are pleased with their shooting.

I'd guess Lit is in his early to mid 50's, Anne late 40's. He was wearing a sport coat so I think he works in an office somewhere. I think I heard the word "insurance" used. They were not at all familiar with handguns so we had a brief familiarization and safety talk in a conference room first. Todd has a "blue gun", one of those anatomically correct training models that everyone can see is inert plastic. Bill's doesn't allow uncased or unholstered guns anywhere but at the firing points on the range, which isn't surprising, but they were OK with a blue gun in the conference room. Todd is a good instructor, particularly about showing people how to grip and hold a semiauto. He'd said that guns would be moved to and from the points only by Brian, me or himself. I don't know if I would have thought of that but it's a very good idea. I mentioned that if a misfire or jam happens, to gently place the gun on the bench with the muzzle downrange and call for assistance from one of us. I figured stovepipes or not-quite-closing-to-battery were quite possible if they limpwrist. Bonnie bought a bunch of .380, .40, .45 and 9mm ammo and the party was on. I supplied .357 ammo.

Lit and Anne turned out to be very pleasant and enjoyable people, open and friendly, wellspoken, good sense of humor. I don't think Bonnie shot much today; she was mostly stoking magazines for others. I worked with Anne for part of the time. Brian got her started with his Walther P22 (.22 rimfire) shooting at a big silhouette at 15 feet. She did well with it, very well for a first -timer. Then she tried my Sig P226 9mm. She did well with that too. Enough with the wallpaper at arms' length for her awready, we changed to a sheet of five 6" bullseye targets at 25 feet. She wasn't just on the paper, she was in the 4" dia black of her chosen target about half the time. Her focus and concentration were total and her shooting was very deliberate, but what amazed me was her steadiness. The P226 has a laser on it and that red dot looked almost like it was an LED on the target.

Then somehow I was working with Lit for a while, maybe Anne was shooting an XD .40 with Brian on the other lane. He did OK too, not quite as well as Anne but very good for a first-timer. He had such a loose grip he wasn't switching on the grip-activated laser so we worked on that for a bit. He was twitching a bit with anticipation of each shot, but not badly. He was grouping fairly well, albeit off-center, but I could see the twitch when he tried to fire another when he was in fact empty. I introduced him to the 1911 and told him a bit of the history. He seemed interested. He had a couple of failures to completely close to battery, and he was shooting factory ammo so I'm sure that was limpwrist-induced. That pistol has been as reliable as gravity for me. Once I got him tightened up a bit the problems ceased. I suggested that he watch my muzzle while I fired three quick (accurate) rounds bambambam and then try to keep his muzzle as steady as mine had been. It doesn't really matter if the muzzle flips a bit, but the firm grip required for accuracy and proper function of a semiauto does tend to minimize muzzle flip. That did it! Seeing an old fart do it was all the incentive he needed.

Then back to Anne. I figured she'd shoot the 1911 .45 well but wasn't sure if she'd like it. She fired one round. Her mouth made a little O and she said "oh!". I said, "what?" She said "oh! I LIKE it! The trigger doesn't pull as far or as hard as the others." Correctamundo! Dayum, this gal is a natural! She shot 3 or 4 mags of that. Then I figured she was ready to have a go with Doc, the big stainless Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver, should that appeal to her. I brought Doc to the point in a rug, then slowly unzipped it and folded the rug open. She looked at that big gleaming revolver and broke out into a grin. Hm, I guess it appealed to her...

I discovered that I'd forgotten to pack the powderpuff loads and I didn't want to send Bonnie out to the store to get a box of .38's because I don't really want .38's fired from my .357's (cruds up the cylinder) so I thought maybe we'd just try a magnum and see how that went. I think my handload magnums are slightly milder than factory loads, but not much. I showed her how the cylinder works, how to load ammo and eject brass and had her dry-fire a couple of times both in double-action and single-action so she'd know what to expect. I loaded one round, clocked it so it'd be under the pin when she cocked the hammer or pulled the trigger. She aimed it downrange and said, "oh, this one is heavy!". I said, " it is, and I think you'll find that helps you shoot well." She aimed for a while and squeezed for a while and then BOOM. Thunder, lightning, cloud of gunsmoke... and bulls eye. The orange bull is less than an inch in diameter. Her eyes were like saucers. "OH, I LIKE THAT ONE A LOT!!!" When I saw her deliberately aiming I'd muttered to whomever was next to me, "oh, this is gonna be good!" They thought I meant that she'd be rattled by the blast, flash, recoil and smoke. Nope, when I saw how steady that laser dot was on target I thought she just might punch orange with her very first round with that revolver -- and so she did.

Some other guys were on the lane between ours and the one Todd and Lit were using. These guys noted the boom when Ann started with the .357, a "what the hell was that?" reaction, and then they saw that unwavering laser dot on the target downrange and they stopped shooting just to watch with amazed grins. She was drawing a crowd!

She shot several cylinders of .357 Magnum and essentially shredded the middle of the target. At 25 feet. At one point she reeled in the target to get a closer look, found a pen and wrote "Anne" under the target. She said she wanted Lit to see it. When she wasn't looking, I wrote "Don't mess with" in front of "Anne". She loved it.

Toward the end, Brian always wants a little competition. I think he likes to show off a little. He got a surprise today. The deal today was 5 rounds at each of 15 and 25 feet at the same bull, each shooter having his or her own target. Brian shot Mary's little Sig P232 .380. He's quite good with it. Todd shot either an XD40 or XD45, I'm not sure which. Lit shot my P226 9mm, Anne shot the .357 revolver. I was going to shoot my 1911 .45 because Todd always gives me such crap about using a revolver, but Anne said "no, I want to see him shoot the .357." I didn't pay her to say that, honest! Todd said "oh, all right" ... and while I was loading up he ran the target out to about 40 feet. I didn't see him do it, didn't notice until I looked downrange after loading. I laughed, figured what the hell I'll shoot it where it is and raised the revolver. Todd said, "hold it, hold it" and brought the target back to 15 feet. I looked at it down that 6" barrel and said, "this is ridiculous", ran it back out to 25 feet and shot all of my 10 at that range.

Brian actually scored the targets this time. And the winnah was .... Anne! How cool is that? I was second.

I didn't shoot nearly as much as I usually do because the idea was for Lit and Anne to get as much as they wanted and I was enjoying the heck out of seeing how much fun they were having. Anne definitely saved her targets and took them home with her.

We then adjourned for lunch at the mex joint which was also very enjoyable. As we parted after lunch, they were saying "oh, yeah, we'll definitely be doing this again next year!" I hope Bonnie invites me again because I'm looking forward to it.

Reply to
Don Foreman
Loading thread data ...

Fun to read about too. Thanks.

Reply to
Steve Ackman

Fun to read about too. Thanks.

Reply to
Robert Swinney

Don Not sure that this one is really OT. Lots of metal being 'worked with' and 'moved arround'. (well. . . that last one assumes you were using metal slugs ;-) ). Thanks for sharing. I always look forward to a "Foreman Tale". Bob rgentry at oz dot net

Reply to
Bob Gentry

Great story, don. thanks for sharing

Reply to
RBnDFW

You're right about that, several pounds of lead went downrange and there was a LOT of brass on the floor before we were done.

Reply to
Don Foreman

There is a lot of metalworking involved in reloading. Loved the story!

Wes

Reply to
Wes

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.