It was a sunny day today and I chiseled myself out of bed and pried myself out of the house. I've been in the hole lately and finally remembered that climbing out sometimes has to be done one toenail and one clawed hand at a time.
I haven't been to the range in too long so that was my first stop in the light fog of the post-coffee dawn. Of late I have been reconnecting with my love of shotgun shooting but decided to have a leisurely morning with the sweet rifle after a little bit of drilling with the pistol. I like to hit the range early on a weekday morning because it means I almost always get the place to myself, which means fewer distractions. Frankly, I also do it to avoid bothering the locals. This is not a place unfriendly to guns or shooting sports. It is, however, a place where very few people are familiar with the kind of shooting I like to do, and some of them are indeed hostile to it. I'm not really looking to make anyone uncomfortable or to stink the place up, so I try to have my fun without getting in the way of others who have different ideas.
Despite my efforts, I've had a few chance encounters at the range with locals. Some of them were fucking scary, like the folks who walked right past the firing line to get closer to their target stands while the range was still hot and I was 25 feet down the line and still shooting. They were perplexed and then sheepish when I hollered a belated CEASE FIRE, grounded my gun, and walked over to remind them of how much it would suck to catch a bullet.
Some of my encounters, I'll be honest, have been a little bit fun, like the Methusalite old-timer with the muzzleloader that took me up on my offer to swing at my gongs, and proceeded to absolutely drill them at 100 yards with a bead sight just as fast as he could load the damn thing.
To start with this morning I had my plates set out at 25 yards and was doing some fast drills with the pistol. There are three distinct firing lines at this range, and I was all alone in the far bay of the far line while two gentlemen had the middle line to themselves. There are tall berms between the lines, so the shooters at one line can safely be downrange while others continue to shoot.
I put two boxes through the pistol and was fairly pleased with my work. As I was packing my stuff to move to the long distance line, I realized the two gentlemen had stopped shooting at some point and backed way up from their line, and were watching me across the hypotenuse between us. I said nothing, nor did they, as I walked past them to the 200 yard range. After I got set up and put my first tenner through the sweet rifle, I saw them walking over out of the corner of my eye and decided to pretend to not notice.
They stood about ten feet away and politely waited for me to finish my second tenner, and then introduced themselves. Hi there/come here often/nice day for it and the usual small talk that passes among strangers searching for an opening. Some people go to the range to see and be seen, to socialize. I go to the range to shoot, but I did my best to be unrude.
The older was treating his eldest to a range day with his shiny new man-stopper pistola and diamond-coated black rifle with all of the gewgaws. I unrudely listened to the many virtues of each feature and gewgaw of the rifle, which was a veritable smorgasbord of capabilities compared to my own spraypainted and un-bedecked lump.
Ammo's a bitch these days/suppose the shortage will end soon/saw some in stock the other day.
I was thinking I would finally be getting back to my meditation when the younger asked, "Where did you learn to shoot?"
I told him the truth, or at least the part of it that I was going to unrudely share - that my father taught me when I was a boy. And so, seizing on this as an invitation, I was interrogated about my rifle.
What brand is it (Frankenstein special)/why don't you have an ambidextrous magazine release(I don't like them)/What length is that barrel(18 inches)/Isn't that kind of a weird length(It works for me)/Why don't you have a vertical foregrip(I don't like them)/What twist rate is that barrel(1:7)/What kind of reticule does your scope have(Mildot)/I would have got the ACSS, it works better for longer ranges(Personal preference).
Do you know that scene from the movie Uncle Buck? Imagine if Miles (Culkin's character) was a middle aged man and his adult son.
The older told me that the younger was having all kinds of problems due to the crap ammo they were forced to use on account of the shortage. The younger informed me that it was a shame he couldn't get any M855 with the 62 grain bullets and the twist rate (1:7) of his match grade barrel was all wrong for this crap ammo. He told me about how his rifle was exactly the same one that was issued to Navy Seals, and was meant to shoot the same bullets.
I quietly pulled a box of the shittiest ammo in my stash - steel cased, Bulgarian made bulk garbage with bare minimum powder charge and cheap bimetallic 55 grain ball ammo. I loaded a tenner from the box while they talked at me, and I could feel the heat of their eyes on my hands.
Then I pulled my Mk12 up to my shoulder, rolled my elbows up, and drilled the 3 and 4" gongs and danglers I had hanging at the far back edge of the range with a single string.
CRACK(plink)/CRACK(plink)/CRACK(plink), the impact on the steel as the answer to the question from the muzzle, a string of ten that went up and down the line of targets, second pass hitting them still a-swing from the first.
"Your dad must have been one hell of a shot."