Bill and Tom Go To the Gun Range

I had lunch with my old friend Tom from Claremore today. After a more than ample meal out our usual hole in the wall Mexican place up on Admiral, I asked Tom what he was doing for the next hour or so. He replied that he had a little time. So, we we down the street to the new 2A Shooting Center.

The 2a Shooting Center is a brand new, state of the art, indoor range that is attracting a lot of business. Every time I go, the lanes are busy. The prices are moderate, the service is excellent and the facilities as safe as you can make a gun range.

I had my new .22 rifle/carbine in the trunk of my car. It is a Mossberg 702. This gun is made in Brazil for Mossberg International and at a hundred bucks it is a steal. It has a fiberglass composite stock and an aluminum receiver so it weighs nearly nothing. But, the barrel and action are steel and it is quite accurate.

I had intended to go the range after lunch and zero the scope on it. So, I did just that and Tom and I took turns going through a couple of hundred rounds with it. Here are some pics. The first is me at fifty yards shooting offhand. The next is Tom shooting at fifty yards offhand. The next is Tom showing off shooting at the numbers under the targets from bench rest at 50 yds. The last is me firing offhand, rapid fire at 50 yds.

Tom tells me that he hadn't fired a long gun in years before today. I had fired exactly 200 rounds in the past week and that was all that I had fired for years. But, after putting a clip or two through the little carbine, we were both firing about as well we did in the military forty years ago, bad eyes, aching joints and all.

I guess we are from a different age. My dad taught me how to shoot. He used to stand me at attention in front of him and make me go through manual of arms until I could toss my Daisey around like a member of the Old Guard. He started me on cork pop guns, brought me up through BB guns and when I was old enough bought me a .22. He made me go through the same safety and marksmanship rituals that he had learned in the Army. I'll bet Tom's dad taught him to shoot too. And, back then just about everybody in our generation did some time in the military. And, I guess that was our post grad training in marksmanship.

At any rate, learning to shoot, owning a gun and being proficient with it was a rite of passage for our generation. Something every boy expected to do as he grew into manhood. And, it was pleasant to sit around with an old friend, punch a couple of hundred holes in a piece of paper and prove that we still had one of the skills of our youth.

And yes, there are some larger holes there that obviously could not have been made with a .22. They are 9mm holes made with my little "pocket" pistol. The best I can say about that is that I still can't hit squat with a gun that small.




July 2, 2012 - The Nazi Zombies had a bad day at the gun range today. 100 shots fired at medium combat range, either 95 or 96 hits. Started out using laser sights and when I figured out where I was aiming wrong, just used the iron sights. Only lost a small piece of my thumbnail to the vicious recoil on my teeny tiny little 9mm.