Day #5. We shot!

This day we went shooting. It was me, Aaron (aka: Shekel-boy), my Old Man, Marty (a guy who my Old Man knows from work) and Scott, the blogger who owns the Providentia blog. We went out to a gravel pit near Lapeer and unlimbered the toys. We started out with the Uzi submachine guns. Both Aaron and I have one of these handy and reliable 9mm firearms. (Mine's cooler because it has a wooden stock on it in lieu of the plain old stamped metal folding one.) My Pops has shot mine once and Marty'd never shot one before, nor had the Owl. Here's the old guy with the Uzi, tearing up some targets downrange.

After some fun time with the Uzis, it was time for me to officially introduce Baby to the world. This was the most recent acquisition to the Lair's arsenal, one that required the sale of many lesser firearms to finance.

This gun, shown here with Lagniappe during his operator's training, is a Browning 1919A4 .30 caliber air-cooled heavy machine gun. Made for and used by the US military in World War Two and Korea, this was one of the guns that was eventually transferred to Israel, eventually returning here and re-sold without the right side plate as a "parts kit". It was rebuilt on a new side plate by the fine folks at Ohio Ordnance Works and I took possession of it a few months ago after getting a sweetheart deal on it from a cop buddy down in Florida. Set up to run in caliber .30-06, it can be switched over to fire both the 7.62x51 NATO round(.308) or the venerable 8mm cartridge in about 5 minutes. This was only the second time that I had it out, and it was definitely a hit with all the manly-men who were present.

Here's Marty shooting the 1919 on the left, and Scott on the right. Note Scott's happy grin and Marty's open cell phone as he calls people and has them listen to the gun firing.



Yeah, that Browning sure piles up the empty cartridges and the metallic links that it feeds from. It operates at a cyclic rate of 550 rounds per minute and even though we shot it much slower, it's barrel and jacket were still too hot to touch half an hour later. Instead of the quick-change barrels seen on many of it's contemporaries like the German MG34 and MG-42 and the M-60 that replaced it in US service, the 1919 relies on a barrel made up of almost 8lbs of steel. (I have whole rifles that weigh less.)

The gun itself weighs 28 lbs and with it's tripod it tips the scales at about 41 lbs without ammunition. But this gun has the power, and if you can see a target you can probably destroy it with this beauty. Here's my Pops burning up another belt of Taiwan military surplus .30-06 ammo. Get some! Get some!



Finally, here's the only shot I got of Aaron with his Uzi. WTF?! His eyes are closed! (Well that would explain his "marksmanship".) And on the right is my Pops with that million-dollar grin that a guy gets after doing guy stuff with other guys.




A good time was had by all!