Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Shooting

As expected, Aaron over at The Shekel and I got out and did some shooting. The fact that it was about forty degrees with high winds didn't stop us, although it did cancel out our plan to work on precision pistol drills because it was blowing so hard that Aaron's most excellent target stand kept blowing over. Such is life. But a little wind wasn't sufficient to keep us from having some fun with the M60.
Here's adorable me, firing from the prone position.

And here's Aaron, shooting from a kneeling position.

Aaron has some better video, at least of him shooting the gun, and he'd better post it to his blog ASAP or else I'll tell the story about how he told his wife and kids that we had a pig in his Jeep, making them run out to see...the M60. She called him a few bad-sounding things in Russian when he explained the joke.

Whoops. I guess I told it. But he'd still better post that clip.

Aaron also had his Uzi out, and I managed to find an M1 Garand in my M1 locker that I've apparently never fired before. It was a World War two-dated Springfield Armory (June, 1945) with a correct barrel date but later birch wood. Moving the rear sight up seven clicks from park put it dead on at 100 yards and we had some fun nailing coffee cans and my old worn-out Midway brass tumbler with that one. I also got to shoot my S&W 642 and a new (to me) S&W-produced Walther PPK that Aaron found for me. Unfortunately it was plagued with malfunctions, and a detailed examination this afternoon shows that it's missing the ejector spring, something the apparently less-than-honest seller had to have known about had he shot it or even closely inspected it even one time. At least it'll be a quick and easy fix, and then I can go and be like James Bond--he's been making one-shot, three-hundred-yard kills with his PPK for decades so you just know that it's truly an awesome weapon.The big and the small. M1 Garand and Walther PPK. I can't believe that I've never shot this Garand before...

I started out the day using my crutches because the leg just wasn't cooperating, yet by the evening, not only was I back off of them, but I was able to go out with Aaron and The Spud for a few rounds of Lazer Tag. Much fun and the adventure-deprived Spud lives for stuff like that. It actually went well until the last game, when a collision with some long-haired college kid put my down pretty hard on that leg. I paid for that the rest of the night. At least the kid was polite and helped me get back to an upright position again, and I promptly zapped him as soon as I could shake off a few of the pain warning alarms going off in my head. (Hey, he was on the other team, after all.)

Meanwhile, my mother was learning the hard way that you cannot leave food on the counter when the Murphinator is on the prowl. Fortunately casualties were limited to a bag of rolls and most of a pack of cheese slices.

6 comments:

  1. Sounds like a grand day out to me.

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  2. I was thinking 40 degrees was a balmy and lovely day for shooting

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  3. I've tried shooting while on crutches,I was stove up at the time from a pursuit crash involving my car and had a bad case of cabin fever. In the end I just used one crutch and kept my injured leg slightly off the ground.

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  4. So you had a M1 you never shot?

    How did THAT happen. I sure have shot every gun in my safe, that is for sure.

    As for the PPK, I never trust a gun I just bought from a pawn shop (and I've bought alot of 'em) so you are right to test fire it.

    I wonder if the previous owner had it jam alot and dumped it off at the pawn shop. Lots of those shops don't clean them, don't test them, don't do nothing, and that is why they sell them 'AS IS'.

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  5. @ Paul: Not sure as to the Garand. I got it back when I was heavily into collecting and shooting them, and I'm guessing that it somehow made it's way onto the rack and into the gun safe without ever getting anything more than the routine cleaning that all of my firearms get from time to time. But according to my logbook, it's got no range time on it and the rear sight had no zero on it, so I tend to believe that the book's right.

    As to the PPK, it was a Gunbroker deal.

    @ Ten 80: be patient. You'll get up to 40 degrees eventually...like around sometime in June. Heh.

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  6. Did Aaron try the "Rambo" technique, cradling it under the right arm while keeping the belt feeding straight with his left? (Screaming at the top of your lungs optional)

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