Short Report - I'm a newbie, it shows, I stink.
Now for the longer report:
Made it to the range last night as the last two people out there were packing up and leaving. Wow, it was awesome to have an entire shooting club to myself. Of course, this was a very good thing because no one could see how badly I shot.
It also reinforced the need for safety, because I was all alone. I exercised extreme caution and forced myself to follow all the rules. End result a completely safe and injury free session of recoil therapy.
Unfortunately for all 3 of my readers, my laptop is down and that has the only xD card reader in the house, so no pictures. (notes to self, fix laptop, buy USB card reader).
Started off with the Taurus Millennium Pro PT-145, new gun, new sights, new shooter and I was lucky to be able to stay on the 8.5"x14" Target at 7 yards.
Started getting the hang of it at the end, but I'll need to put many many rounds down range. Oh Darn :)
After that switched to the Ruger, GP-100, using .38 specials. Did better, much better with the traditional and familiar sights on this revolver. Shooting double action, I had about an 8" group after 36 rounds. Shooting 12 rounds single action, approximately 4" groups, both at 7 yards.
I really noticed how bad my eye sight is and how my glasses affected my shooting. I wear bi-focals and to get the sights clear I was tilting my head back. I think this was why I was shooting low.
So, back to dry firing at home. Need to investigate what I can do with my glasses to make a difference. Any other advice for a newbie?
Deloge
1 day ago
13 comments:
Don't worry about that first trip to the range. Me personally I ALWAYS shoot a new gun like total shit on the first day, often the first few, as I'm not used to the gun.
Consistancy is the #1 trick for accuracy, and with a new gun you're still figguring out the best stance, best grip, as well as getting used to the sights.
Not sure how to fix the bifocal problem. What sights does the Taurus have? I know their 1911s have Henie Stright-eights. Can you see the dot on the front post through your distance lenses?
As a carry gun a coarse sight picture might be the best idea.
When I do serious combat sighting I always use two eyes, making the frong sight a ghost image anyway. So maybe you should find a reasonable corse focus and work from there. Best thing, you can do that sort of work at home with a snap-cap in the chamber and a safe backstop for safety sake.
My Dad has prescription, non-bifocal, shooting glasses (dialed in for seeing the front sight a bit more than the target, of course because that is what you're supposed to be looking at as I hope you know). It has helped a lot.
With rifles he uses scopes so bifocals are a non-issue hunting.
The best thing you could do for yourself as a "new shooter" living where you do and before you develop any bad habits that will be hard to unlearn, is to take a trip to Tiger Valley for their Level One Course.
It would be well worth your time and the couple of coins and it's a hop skip and a jump away from you. Bad habits die really hard but so do good habits, so it's best to get the good ones in first.
Blundered over from JayG's. Look into a stick-on aperture for your glasses - even a homemade version will work fine. Index card, turn it black with magic marker, cut out a shape approximating the lens of your glasses, punch a small hole (1mm or so) in the right spot, and tape it over your glasses on the shooting side.
Or cough up $60 and get a Merit:
http://www.eabco.com/css_sts2.html
Thanks everyone
Zercool, Thanks I'll look into that for some applications.
My primary goal is self defense and practical shooting so I'm trying to find ways of shooting using what I normally have.
Tom, I plan on taking some training classes before I develop too many bad habits. I'll check out Tiger Valley, I've heard them mentioned before.
Do you know anything about the folks that run North Texas Tactical? They gave a presentation at a range meeting. It's budget conscious training but I've never heard of them before.
Weer'd, the PT-145 has the Heinie Straight Eight sights also. Learning the proper sight picture will help greatly. I think that I was stacking the dots too much on top of each other. Most of my hits were low.
Going to have to find a firearm friendly optometrist/lens maker in the area, see if I can't get my prescription set up so I can see the sights better.
I also think that no lines bifocals might make a difference. More transition stages, less moving my head trying to see everything.
Even with the "bad shooting" it was great. The PT-145 is running like a charm. Might even have to look into a shoulder rig to carry the GP-100.
Bob, I talked to T.J. Today out at Tiger Valley, they have some loaner 9mm guns in case the required round count would be too spendy for you to do in .45ACP with the kids and all.
Met some of the folks you speak of but have not watched them instruct. When I see my friend Mark at church on Sunday I can ask him about them, he knows EVERYBODY because before he went back to gunsmithing full time he was a internationally known Practical shooter and trainer for a couple different outfits over the years.
I've noted my Calendar to ask him for ya.
Oh Guidon is run up the pole for another B&BS post. Hope you like my photo essay on the proper way to go shooting around these here parts on a good day. :-) I had fun making it.
Finally sat down and organized the photos and such into a post over the last hour or so after I finished the "real" work for the day I needed to get done.
Oh, because I'm sure MikeBXXX will look in on my post, I'd be interested if he might try to estimate the Peace Officer and Fire Department response times out around where I live on the planet compared to his basement apartment in New Jersey...of course, ours might actually be faster than urban NJ response times if the yankee cop slackers I often read about are as slow as they always seem, which would be even funnier. :-)
Tom,
Thanks for checking up on that for me.
I'll definitely keep Tiger Valley in mind. I don't mind spending the bucks for rounds down range.
It's convincing the wife to let me eat for the next couple of weeks that is the problem. Just joking, she is very supportive.
Wow, nice range. Are you familiar with the Arlington Sportsman Club in Mansfield? ( I know, I know but they started in Arlington).
1600 rounds is 1600 rounds, though.
Not familiar with that facility. Most of my North Texas endeavouring is related to either shooting or hunting, or both, on private lands.
I prefer to stop in Stephenville or head East to Cass County friends than go into the Metroplex. Used to have a good friend in White Settlement, near you, but he moved to Florida.
If the new business tangents take off, you'll see a lot more of me in the region because it'll be needed to make it work. As is, I like the places that are as pictured in that post I linked above a lot better than towns in your neck of the woods.
Oh, we've been working away at making THIS a reality, so you might have occasion to come down this way to shoot sometime if things keep progressing as they have. I very barely live in Hays county and that'd be a bit of a drive for me but not like my current Gillespie County, McClellan County, and Kimble county options if I want to toss lead further than 100 yards.
Church friend Mark had a long private range but it's by invite only. If he asks me to come over and shoot it's cool as hell and close. I hinted once about asking to "borrow his range" without a specific invite for a specific occasion and he made it clear without saying it that that wasn't something he'd be keen on. He didn't say "NO EFFIN WAY" but he made it apparent I was barking up a tree with no squirrels in it for me.
"snap cap" note I forgot to add yesterday.
If you don't feel like spending money for a pile of snap caps for various things and you aren't going to do drills that involve anything other than dry-fire practiceTake an expended case with dead primer in place and put a dab of RTV silicone on the dead primer. You don't need much, just a dab.
Most gun people also work on their cars and such and have a tube or three of RTV around, I've found the orange variety holds up longer and doesn't break off and fall into the works of your gun...or buy the spendy commercial ones. Either option works. I'm an odd duck, I'll buy/build 4k firearms and then make my own "snap caps" but then I don't think they make snap caps in .577BPE. :-)
Re North Texas Tactical, Mark called me about a double rifle that may be for sale and I asked if he knew any of those people and he said he didn't know a one of them, so the Central Texas vote on North Texas Tactical is currently:
I just talked to their lead man (Hany Mahmoud, who remembers Mark but doesn't expect Mark to remember him) and we know and have known a lot of the same people and probably have been on the same ranges at the same times when he lived in the Austin area when his wife was in grad school at UT.
I questioned him about how his one day pistol course looked to involve more things than a normal person could learn in a day and properly absorb. He said, he'd changed some of that and needs to go change his website to remove some of the stuff that was overkill for a one day course.
Not having met him in person, he seems sharp and competent and his resume looks OK.
For what it's worth, his one day range count is 400 rounds. That was the first question I asked him. Second question was about shooting low light etc on a one day beginner course and that's where he explained that he needed to adjust his website and had forgotten about that, but you won't do low-light shooting. Be a FULL EIGHT HOUR DAY and likely 300 rounds but bring 400.
I said I was calling on behalf of an acquaintance who needed a starting point/basics and I said your name was "Bob" and he asked your last name as I said "Smith" being as we don't know each other from anything but gun blogs and your last name is none of my business.
Oddly enough, his boss is good friends with my brother-in-law who is a good shot but an anti-gun elected Constable. Don't bring that up ever please but it's funny how small of a world it is at times. He used to do practical pistol matches about 4 miles from my place so I'm sure I met him and the fact that I don't remember his name means he didn't seem an asshole to me :-)Seems OK and the price might be right.
It would work perfectly well for me if you didn't tell them some guy named Thomas vetted him for your benefit. Back to the small world thing.
Happy Learning,
Tom
Tom,
Appreciate your efforts. I'll keep you out of it.
Smith always works well as an alias, Jones is another one that I use often but I remember the old T.V. show. I wonder how many other people remember it?
I may be prickly at times or even prickish on the intertubes, but I have a firm and determined constitution related to keeping the world full of happy, safe, competent, intelligent shooters. It's selfish on my part on a level, as the more of us there are, the merrier, as Obama and Hillary are finding out politically at the moment. The pleasure in life is in giving not taking (except for the exceeding pleasure proffered by hippies that put themselves in a position to beat up on them intellectually or physically...)
You're one of the good guys and if you're a good guy anyway, no sense in not getting even better, is there?
The future of our country depends on people like you that are willing to step up to the plate and be responsible adult humans.
I was in Rhodesia not long ago. I have a pretty good idea of what it looks like when you have tyrants in power and people who have no idea how to fend for themselves. Burned into my brain.
Post a Comment