Be Excellent To Each Other

I toddled down to my friendly local rifle club yesterday evening ( which is odd - it's just off a road I've walked past a hundred times but I've never noticed it ) and, as a probationary member, shot some guns. 22LR bolt-action thingymy at 20 yards, and scored a respectable average of 70 over my few goes. It was quite fun, and not too expense ( bullets are about 6p each even when you buy in the smallest quantity ). I think I'm going to go again and do more.

Any one else do anything like this? I know Grim... has ( or had, at least ) a shotgun, as does someone else who I've forgotten, and Kern does his civil war musketry ( although whether there's any live shooting in that I don;t know ). It seemed a thoroughly pleasant and polite way to spend a Tuesday evening, with tea and biscuits and someone bought there dog.

It's pretty fun, when I went to the states years ago I took the chance to go to a range and shoot some big handguns. I was mostly just getting a thrill from blamming away with MASSIVE GUNS rather than worrying about whether or not I was actually hitting anything.

I've been clay pigeon shooting a few times and throughly enjoyed it, been fox hunting on the back of a quad with a shotgun (pissed as a fart on christmas eve, obviously ), shot rabbits with a 22 at a friends house, and had a couple of BB handguns that I used to play around with.

I was recently tempted to do something similar to you and hunt out the local rifle club to do some target shooting, as it's something I think I could actually be pretty good at and maybe want to compete in at a local level, but my local good club isn't that local (30 minute drive I think) so doing it on a regular basis would be a faff.

In Vegas I shot some big guns. I had an M16 w/ Red Dot Sight, a G3 (which was awesome) and a Desert Eagle. It was amazing fun.

I've also done clays a bunch of times. That's fun too.

I only like guns in strictly controlled areas though. They scare me otherwise.

Also, kendo and now guns? Are you preparing for the zombie apocalypse?

I'm more going for the "guy at work you suspect to be a serial killer" vibe.

The guns I was using were very much not "MASSIVE GUNS", sadly. The recoil was barely noticeable, and they're pretty light ( and the cartridges are soooo weeeeee ) but I imagine they'd still make a decent hole in you if you screwed up.

He's preparing to defend his moussaka !

Well, I was shooting at cardboard silhouettes of myp with a knife, fork and glass of retsina.

Yup, clay pigeon shooting, air rifle shooting, .22LR, the occasional bit of full-bore rifle (7.62mm over 600 yards and 1,200 yards - frankly, I'm crap at those)

Air rifle is what I do most, a 6 yard bell target pub league every year, and 10 metre competition shooting (same as wot they do in the Olympics)

I love it, and it continually pisses me off to see how the media treat guns and those that enjoy shooting them at things that don't bleed.

Also went to New York a few years ago, took a trip down to Philly while I was there to see friends and fired a few nice handguns and a fully-automatic MP5, which they rented to me for $20 and production of my UK driving licence. It was chained to the table in the range so I couldn't have nicked it or even turned it around to face up-range, but I was surprised they rented it when my ID was essentially invalid for the States.

Gaz, is there a clay centre in Shropshire both Mrs Kov and I fancy a go...

That's just an image problem. Call it a .22, and everyone things you're a hick out shooting squirrels. Call it a 5.56mm NATO, and everyone thinks you're special forces!

http://www.wmsg.co.uk/ have open evenings every Tuesday I think, although whether you can hire a shotgun or not I'm not sure, I use my brother's.

Give 'em a shout.

//edit: Scratch that, you need a shotgun certificate to go to that nowadays apparently. Give 'em a ring anyway though, they may be able to advise.

Will do, Cheers...

I don't think they're the same at all are they. 5.56mm cartridges are pretty big even though the projectile is small, .22 cartridges are pretty tiny. I guess the 5.56mm ones go a lot quicker or something

FTFY.

Random wannabe-forces type lurk in the woods around Ft William.
One has a snatch landrover type thing with a "patrol boat" lashed to the roof. Apparently he is the only line of defence against sea-born Terrorists on the west coast. Fortunately he is not thought to actually have any guns.

They're the same calibre, because .22 means .22 of an inch, which is 5.56mm. But no, they're not interchangable (unless you're playing Fallout:NV) - I was being funny.

I think you'll find that 5.56mm rounds are .223 calibre. And .22LR is entirely different, and rimfire. And are archaic heeled bullets. Which are the reason that .357 an .38 are exactly the same calibre. Heeled bullets, I mean.

May have told this story before, but when I was about 11 I found a box of 0.22 rifle bullets in the back of the shed. Having no rifle, I decided to make one out of some thick walled hydraulic pipe, clamped in a vice. The first test went well - the bullet made a neat hole in the end of the shed and buried itself in the hillside. The second one I decided to be "safer" and aimed it at the ground instead. The bullet ricocheted off the concrete floor, then the roof of the shed, and landed, flattened, back on the ground a few inches infront of me.

At this point I buried the home made gun in the garden, along with the remaining bullets, and decided not to mess with them ever again.

That must have been the best game of "A-Team" ever. Most of us just pretended to run around with a gun and there you were blowing your way out of a shed that some rednecks had locked you in.

Heh, I found a box of .22 blanks, we used to line them up on the tram tracks so that it sounded like a machine gun going off when a tram went by.

When I was a lad I used to do some plinking, but haven't done any shooting for years.

Tempted to take up a friend's offer to accompany him on a shooting trip, though.

A few of the people at the club were talking about the shooting they do - bagging the odd rabbit and squirrel. God knows if they eat them afterwards though. They also do a full on air rifle plinking session all Saturday afternoons - people bring all the cans from their recycling and they set them up outside.

Some of my colleagues were out in the States last month, they went on a shooting range for the afternoon on one day. Shooting M16s, an LMG, hand pistols, and a Barrett 50cal at $12/bullet! They have a video of the one guy shooting, and you can hear the pop of the other guns going off in the background, then the 50cal fires, "boom" and everyone goes, "woah" and piles over to watch.

Now I know how computer illiterate people feel when I talk to them.

Well, if you need to shoot someone who's standing the other side of a brick wall, you expect to pay the big bucks.

Wait! Was it the silhoutte of Myp that had the knife, fork and glass of retsina, or was it you shooting at it with a knife, fork and a glass of retsina?

'Cos I'm no expert on this, but if it was the latter then I'm pretty sure you were doing it wrong.

It was a H&K 9mm semi-automatic glass of retsina, with an integral suppressor and a folding stock. The knife and fork was just being silly though.

Horray! Did this again and managed to up my personal best to a fabbo 82. 10 shots, all in the black! At this rate I'll be shooting at an Olympic Gold standard in 3 weeks.

I'm going to set up some clever graphy statistical thingy so I can accurately measure just how awesome I am.

Indoor or outdoor? 82's good, you're dropping quite a few points per shot though. How are you breathing? Before you put your eye to the rearsight, you should breathe in and out a few times to steady yourself, then go to the rearsight, breathe a couple more times (not forced breathing though, just relaxed) and then inhale, hold your breath, aim and try and get the shot off before you have to exhale - but if you can't, don't rush the shot.

Also, don't snatch the trigger. Whether you can avoid it depends on how heavy the trigger pull is, but if it doesn't need much pressure to fire the shot, pull the trigger gently and then keep your finger there. Don't release the trigger as soon as the shot's gone - in fact, don't move. Wait a couple of seconds and then move. A lot of novice shooters begin moving away from the gun as soon as the shot's gone, and it can have quite a dramatic effect on the path of the bullet.

And I assume you're prone? Prone's bloody easy, all that lying down. Prone's for lazy people.



That's proper shooting Although my hand position and shoulders are all to cock in that photo.

Not prone ( although they do that there ), standing, like you are in the pic. Although with a far, far less fancy gun. Indoors, at 20 yards distance, I think.

I'm definitely guilty of moving as soon as I've fired, and I have no idea what my breathing is doing. I'll try to correct these next time.

Presumably you've got a shooting jacket on like the fetching number in my photo? If not, and you're seriously considering taking it up as a hobby/sport, invest in one. They make an incredible difference to your steadiness. You can also get trousers as well (and boots to keep your feet perfectly flat) but just a jacket is a good starting point as it can get quite expensive quite quickly

How does the jacket keep you steady?

It's made of concrete.

It's very rigid, so it helps to reduce the movement in your upper body that comes from just standing still. It also has a very effective "grip pad" (for lack of a better phrase) in the shoulder area for bracing the rifle against, which helps keep the rifle still too.

Ahh, there are some jackets hanging up in a corner, I was wondering what they're for. They have elbow pads and stuff too, so they're probably also for prone firing.

That rifle is very snazzy gazchap - is that a proper competition rifle? The club ones I've been using are much more normal and boringly rifle shaped. They also have different sights.

Prone shooting jackets generally are fairly... normal, fabric-wise. They don't need to be as rigid because you're lying prone so movement is kept to a minimum anyway.

You'll know if it's a jacket designed for standing-shooting because you won't be able to bend the fabric as easily

It's a Feinwerkbau Model 700 air rifle, a proper competition one, yeah. Same sort of class that gets used in the Olympics for the 10m air-rifle events. You can get .22LR rifles of similar looks and feel, but most clubs will stick to "normal" guns as they're significantly cheaper.

Had my first go at prone shooting last night - 25 yards with iron sights. Like it a lot more than the standing, telescopic sights shooting I've done so far - think I'll stick to that. Was getting bulls as well, on my first go, but was cheating a fair chunk by using the bipod. I'm amazed that you can be so accurate with a sight that is basically a disc with a hole in it.

Used to do target shooting with the army cadets in my youf, absolutely loved the shooting part but all the assemble and disassemble bullshit that came with it was a pain in the arse. Used to go out hunting with shotguns and my grandfather as well, he has bad eyes so can't aim well and was worried about me dislocating my shoulder so I used to call out where he should be aiming and he would pull the trigger. :yorkshirefarmers:

Wow, did you ever hit anything? That can't be the most efficient method!

We absolutely positively did not go on to the border of his families land and the estate it bordered on and aim at the trees, I was not small enough to fit under the fence. No Grouse or Pheasants were ever harmed. They were not delicious.

Boo-urns. Prone shooting is fucking cheating

But I'm soooo lazy - the extra effort of standing up was ruining it for me!

A guy I know was on holiday in some backwards country and you could, for not much money, shoot a bazooka at a cow from a helicopter!

I dont think it was Cambodia, or how true this article is http://www.ballofdirt.com/entries/3571/37850.html but its pretty scary if it is

"cambodia is still very screwed up after the khmer rouge regime,you can blow up a cow with a bazooka for $300 dollers or for $800 dollers you can shoot a person,as weird as this seams,it appears to be perfectly legal in cambodia and it is openly offered"