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New Shooter Report: Armando |
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Gregory Morris, 10/26/08 8:51:06 pm |
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First of all I didn't take pictures. After we left the house, Beth said "Oh, you forgot the camera". I went back home and got the camera... then totally forgot to take any pictures. That's what happens when you are having such a good time I suppose.
Score points for me.
Anyway. Beth's friend Armando (whom we met through the last newbie) spent all day Sunday with us... first clinging to some religion in the morning then clinging to guns at the trap range.
He's Catholic, so celebrating the Divine Liturgy at an Orthodox Church wasn't particularly shocking for him, unlike some non-religious or protestants folks who have attended with us. Anyway, he had a good time both at church, and at the range.
Since it was his first time handling guns, we did the requisite rundown of the four rules. I gave him the rundown of how things work on a trap range (keep your action open, don't load until it is your turn, etc.) I paid for all of us (my policy with newbies) and got him a rental gun (we need another shotgun for this reason, dang it!) This was my first time taking a complete newbie to the trap range. Usually I start out shooting .22 rifles and little handguns... I wasn't quite sure how starting out with a 12ga would work.
Ear-to-ear grin. He is already begging us to do it again.
He lost 24 birds in both of the rounds we shot, but had a great time regardless. We tried lots of things to try and get him on target, but I think he was so happy just to blast away at air that hitting the clay pigeons would have been nothing more than a bonus. He seemed to be having some vision problems, which may require either different glasses, or adjusting his technique. He did say he found it easier to track the bird with one eye closed. I just told him we need to figure out what works best and go with it. We'll try again for sure.
That's one of the reasons I like to start newbies out with a rifle and stationary targets, because you can make it easier by moving the target closer. You can't really make trap easier. It is gratifying for a lot of people to have that nice looking target with lots of holes in the black. It is also good to use reactive targets where you can, but where we are there's no good place to shoot at stationary targets other than paper. I'm glad he had a good time though, even without hitting anything. Some less-laid-back, and more competitive folks would not have left in such high spirits.
I also promised I'd take him down to the indoor range to shoot a variety of handguns and rifles. Hopefully we can do that sometime this week (I have a few new guns that I need try out anyway.) He's excited about that too. When I told him he could shoot a commie gun that made a 3-foot fireball, he was giddy as a schoolgirl. I totally understand, because I get that way too sometimes.
A quick semi-related note... the rental guns at Silver Dollar are kinda disgusting. I held it as
we walked away from the counter, and my hands turned red with rust stains. I know in Florida the high humidity will do that to un-oiled guns over time, but these were amazingly bad. It looked as though it hadn't been cleaned in years. I guess they do all the required maintenance to keep them running because the gun, as nasty as it was, ran perfectly. They only have semi-autos to rent, which seems like the most complex type of gun to keep running... whatever. I'm gonna find another cheap-as-dirt single-shot, slap a limb-saver on it, and use it exclusively for trap-newbies. |
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