Rifle shooting at the range

I had an exciting day today.

A while back fordprfct and I made a bargain - I'd teach him to knit, and have him join in on Sock Wars, and he'd teach me to shoot. I'd shot a pistol once before, when an ex-b/f had one in his apartment and wanted me to know how to use it safely. We had one trip to the indoor range in California. fordprfct has two rifles, a .22 and the big .308 that he's told stories of his great-aunt hunting bear with it, despite its massive kick. I wanted to learn to shoot them.

(selenite sent me this link yesterday to amuse me - we assured him yes, we would certainly avoid any such stupidity!)

I've heard stories about my mother and my uncle both being accomplished shots, although I don't know if bkseiver has done any since I was born. I never got to be out on the farm enough for any such thing. But hey, I'm Texan now!

So this afternoon we went out to a range south of Fort Worth. He had both guns, we'd gotten more ammo for the .22, targets, and hearing protection for both. It'd been a bit nervous and intimidating for me to do that - going into the sports section felt so much like there was an invisible psychic "men only" sign! (Yes, I know women shoot - I know women who do - but nonetheless it felt that way.)

I felt reasonably okay at the range, a bit intimidated, but doing okay. It was fairly busy, and I had the hearing protection on before I even got out of the car. I did see a few other women - although I never actually saw any other women firing. I did see one young girl going into the range's store, wearing hearing protection, and with a man I presumed was her father, hopefully teaching her.

( Picture. As Maggie said, 'look! It's Mama killing somebody!' Um, no, dear )

We started with the .22 rifle, at the 30 yard range. fordprfct went over with me again how to load it, how to get the next round in, how to hold it, etc. He shot some, and then I did. It was fine. Quieter than I expected, kick neglible. The frustrating thing was the sight - I had a terrible time looking through it, had to get my head at exactly the right angle or it was all dark. It was difficult finding the spot. I kept my targets, and wrote the details on them, the date and what order they were in and such.

The first one, I didn't count how many I'd shot. There's one shot near the bottom at the 6" line, three within the 3" line, 5 within 2", one at 1". So 9 shots in an area I can cover with my hand without spreading it out. I felt pretty good about that.

We switched to a different type of target, where you can more easily see where you've shot - although really I couldn't see much from the end of the range. That one I fired 11 shots at - one within the 4" line, one in the 3" circle and another at the line of 2", 3 within 2", and 5 within the 1" circle. So again, about 9 that I could cover with my hand. This one I was deliberately trying to shoot a bit faster.

Switched to another target, shot longer this time - fired 26 shots, and as best as I can tell - some shots were close enough to each other to just tear the paper and make me unsure how many went there - but as best as I can tell, all 26 were within the 2" line, and more than half of them within the 1" circle. That really had me feeling pretty good.

So then we put away the .22 and went down to the range for the big rifles, 100 yards, and fordprfct got out the .308. He only had 10 rounds for that one, and wanted to use them up, as the ammo was getting a bit old. I had decided that yes, I did want to try that one, even though the stories of the kick were a bit intimidating. It was nice to see that the big range had a guy in charge, who told people when the range was hot, 'one more shot before we clear the range', and when the range was clear. I came by him when we were getting set up, and he looked at me and said "you should be smiling!" Huh? "When a woman comes by here, she should be smiling, show she's having a good time!" he said. Odd statement, but he looked and sounded as if he meant to be welcoming and encouraging. So I told him, "I am having a good time! I'm just concentrating." It was LOUD on that range.

fordprfct did the first couple of shots to get the sights adjusted. I checked that it was okay with him to have my hand on his shoulder for the 2nd shot, to sorta feel through him how bad the kick was. That... was pretty intimidating. Still, I wanted to try it. He explained to me where to put the gun against my shoulder, told me about holding it tight against the shoulder to minimize how hard it hit. Showed me how to load it, get the last shell out, etc. We had a delay, because when I tried to load the next one, the previous shell was not coming out, but finally got me ready. I was thinking hey, this sight is way better than the 22. I aimed, got ready, fired. Ow. It wasn't so much the shoulder - I'd gotten my face too close to the sight without realizing it, and the sight smacked into my glasses and whacked them back into my cheekbone. No damage done, fortunately. I did tell fordprfct that might be a good thing to warn people about. Although it may only be a newbie error. I ended up firing that one three times, much more careful about my face the rest of the times, once more immediately and another later. It did kick pretty hard into the shoulder. We'll see if I bruise or not. But I could do it. It's not a gun I'd choose, it is a bit heavy for me, but I can do it. I felt pretty good about that. Miles used the rest of the ammo. When we checked the targets, I had one on the six-inch ring, one a bit farther off the grid but on the paper - and one on the 2" ring.

Ideally I'd want to be shooting a gun between the .22 and the .308. But I could handle both of those. I feel... bigger. More confident. I'm glad I did it. I'd like to do it again sometime.