![[TASF]Overkill](/d1/avatars/m/2/2505.jpg?1156032827){kind=avatar}
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http://www.rrpc.org/
(If you're interested in the actual shooting experience, scroll down to the bold)
I was in Charlottesville on business... and wanted to see if any of the C-villains were interested in meeting up and goin' shooting.
In swept Snake-Eater! Who had previously told me of the NRA Safety instructor courses in C-ville, but who I for the most part didn't know other than as one of the "wise men" on the forum.
I pulled into the Rivanna Rifle and Pistol Club around 3:30. Had to use my expert electrical engineering skills to sneak in the gate as someone was leaving, but I got in. I was gonna take some pictures and do a "range review", but I felt really shady. And it was kind of cold. So I watched the guys on the skeet and clay pigeon ranges do their work... marvelling at the "clay shooter's safety"... We as handgun owners treat the pistols as always loaded... if they're not on the shooting line... who cares where the muzzle goes! Bastards.
The outside area seemed really nice. I didn't get to go check out the outdoor pistol and rifle ranges, but no big deal. The only other skeet/clay range I can compare it to is the one up at the Homestead... the big resort here in Bath. They seemed pretty on par with each other to me, though nothing can quite compare to the flurries that they can unleash up at the Homestead....
Anyway!
Snake Eater rolled up.... I had no idea what he looked like or what he was driving... but he made just enough eye contact to where it was like "AHHA! This must be my man." And it was.
Got out, shook hands... briefly talked about the ride down... grabbed our gear, and headed into the clubhouse. There was a big kind of meeting room... exactly the place I remember having medium sized boy scout meetings in... bathrooms tucked away in the corner... big fireplace... was apparently their old pistol range, but converted when they put their new one in.
And their new range... wow...
Two sets of lanes seperated by a concrete wall... apparently the target shooters shoot from far off on the right side, and the guys interested in up-close work and moving around shoot on the left side. Standard automatic target carriers... A lot of lighting options... It had a nice bowling alley feel to it. Each of the lane benches were very wide too, and folded out of the way, leaving enough room to shoot prone or whatever you wanted. We had the whole range to ourselves. Which was real nice. We rolled out 3 target carriers (One, I savagely bashed my head on.)
Now... lemme set the stage here... I usually shoot with people less... seasoned than myself. I've not had the chance to shoot with someone who really knows what they're doing, for one. On top of that... I'm usually shooting bowling pins and pretending they're small evil people (As most small people tend to be), or those fancy cut up Kroger bags that just have the shape of a person. In both cases, I have to use my imagination. This... is a person. This... is the head. This... is the chest... These... are the shoulders. These things end up with generic bad guy faces when I shoot at them. So my imagination is in full effect, filling in the blanks.
Dave brought with him a selection of those fun line-art targets... Like, the ones that look fairly realistic, but aren't printed in color. The first two targets were no big deal. They were what I expected a soon-to-be-dead BG to look like. One had a scowel and a thick coat on, with his sawed off shotgun hanging down at his waist, aimed vaguely in my direction. The other was a dude in a ski mask, with his Tek-9 roughly pointed at me, once again aiming from the hip. I like when bad guys shoot from the hip. It gives me a chance to shine.
My first shots were, well, horrible. I haven't actually been to the range to work on anything in a LONG time. That, coupled with Dave showing me a proper Modified Isocseleselelsess stance and drawing technique, firing from retention, etc... I had a lot to digest. But make no mistakes... I SUCKED.
There was a lot of chit-chatting intermixed, but between that and me stinking up the place with my shooting... Dave showed me how it's supposed to be done. Wow. I mean really. Wow. His movements were so mechanical and so CLEARLY well practiced and ingrained into his mind... He put his M6 laser on his XD and shuffled around while keeping the dot centered right in the tiny, tiny box on the Tek-9 dude's chest... and then pretty much shot like that... without the laser of course.
So I worked and worked and worked on just being able to pull off some semi accurate shots with the new tools I had... But before I got too comfortable... we changed the targets. My life would never be the same.
The first target. And the one that caused me the most psychological discomfort... a woman properly aiming her pistol right at my dome. The gun is drawn, she has the stance I'm supposed to have, and she's aiming right down the slide. Dave wanted me to draw (Slowly, since his type of draw was still foreign to me) and shoot, while moving towards this psychotic killer bitch... who knew her guns. I couldn't do it. My over-active imagination was making this situation real. I could NOT draw on this woman who was just a twitch of the finger away from ending my life. Ok, so it was a PAPER woman who just appeared that way. But in any case... it really had me frozen up.
So what does Dave do? "Here's how it's done." He cowers down in front of the woman, begging for his life... please don't kill me, please don't kill me... quite a performance... huge distraction. Of course, I knew where he was going with this. Suddenly, out of this ball of complete un-manliness wimpering on the floor comes a flurry of very well placed shots. It happened so quickly. Where once there sobbed a helpless, desperate man... now stood... someone who needed another magazine. I thought this was a riot. Hilarious! But no, he had to take it a step further... "You should see my fake heart attack."
So, my fears of that target were mostly quelled. Who could fear a woman with 10 bullet holes COM? Not me. I proceeded to do the drill he wanted me to do, and, well, I didn't fair all that badly. But it was nothing stellar.
Then... the fourth target. It was your standard... bad guy in shades with a female hostage, his gun pointed at you. This caused me another problem... I don't much value my life at this point. I think its value is in helping others, whether that means saving their lives, making them happy, or getting rid of bad guys. So, there was this conundrum... The woman didn't appear to be in any danger... I mean, the guy was aiming his gun at me. Maybe he'd be happy to just drop me and he'd let her go. I could not shoot at him. There was just no way I'd hit him and miss her. No way. No where in my life code does it say shooting a hostage is ok. In real life, this is definitely a shot I would not take. I would be hiding somewhere until a better opportunity presented itself. Like, if a rafter fell from the ceiling, knocked the guy unconscious, the woman disappeared, a huge thing of sandbags suddenly formed around him, and I had a grenade. That would have been a plus. Well, once again, Dave had something to do about the situation. And he fixed it up real good. No hits on the hostage, but a disabled bad guy. The one hit that ended up on the hostage was my hit... sadly. But damn, it was a BEAUTIFUL headshot.
So, the range is nice.
But... what I really liked? Dave taking the time to show me how to get things done. I really learned a lot about proper technique, what I should be practicing if I ever make it up to the range alone again, and how I would react in certain real life situations. I'd definitely be ok with that retarded gunman walking through the mall... he's what I think of when I think "BAD GUY!" But if my gun's in the holster and he's already taken aim at me... things change. I have to tactically wet my pants, cry like a baby, and pull a miraculous grouping out of my ass somehow.
Thanks Dave. It was a blast.
P.S. The ported XD40 definitely has noticeably less muzzle flip than an unported XD40. But with DGR, a good firm grip, and ESPECIALLY with some custom loads, it's impossible to tell the difference.
P.P.S. At the end of the day, I put a real nice slow fire group in the head of the hostage taker using the IScosocoscles stance. I had to shake the weaver influence out of my shoulders for every shot, but it got pretty in a hurry.
(If you're interested in the actual shooting experience, scroll down to the bold)
I was in Charlottesville on business... and wanted to see if any of the C-villains were interested in meeting up and goin' shooting.
In swept Snake-Eater! Who had previously told me of the NRA Safety instructor courses in C-ville, but who I for the most part didn't know other than as one of the "wise men" on the forum.
I pulled into the Rivanna Rifle and Pistol Club around 3:30. Had to use my expert electrical engineering skills to sneak in the gate as someone was leaving, but I got in. I was gonna take some pictures and do a "range review", but I felt really shady. And it was kind of cold. So I watched the guys on the skeet and clay pigeon ranges do their work... marvelling at the "clay shooter's safety"... We as handgun owners treat the pistols as always loaded... if they're not on the shooting line... who cares where the muzzle goes! Bastards.
The outside area seemed really nice. I didn't get to go check out the outdoor pistol and rifle ranges, but no big deal. The only other skeet/clay range I can compare it to is the one up at the Homestead... the big resort here in Bath. They seemed pretty on par with each other to me, though nothing can quite compare to the flurries that they can unleash up at the Homestead....Anyway!
Snake Eater rolled up.... I had no idea what he looked like or what he was driving... but he made just enough eye contact to where it was like "AHHA! This must be my man." And it was.
Got out, shook hands... briefly talked about the ride down... grabbed our gear, and headed into the clubhouse. There was a big kind of meeting room... exactly the place I remember having medium sized boy scout meetings in... bathrooms tucked away in the corner... big fireplace... was apparently their old pistol range, but converted when they put their new one in.
And their new range... wow...
Two sets of lanes seperated by a concrete wall... apparently the target shooters shoot from far off on the right side, and the guys interested in up-close work and moving around shoot on the left side. Standard automatic target carriers... A lot of lighting options... It had a nice bowling alley feel to it. Each of the lane benches were very wide too, and folded out of the way, leaving enough room to shoot prone or whatever you wanted. We had the whole range to ourselves. Which was real nice. We rolled out 3 target carriers (One, I savagely bashed my head on.)
Now... lemme set the stage here... I usually shoot with people less... seasoned than myself. I've not had the chance to shoot with someone who really knows what they're doing, for one. On top of that... I'm usually shooting bowling pins and pretending they're small evil people (As most small people tend to be), or those fancy cut up Kroger bags that just have the shape of a person. In both cases, I have to use my imagination. This... is a person. This... is the head. This... is the chest... These... are the shoulders. These things end up with generic bad guy faces when I shoot at them. So my imagination is in full effect, filling in the blanks.
Dave brought with him a selection of those fun line-art targets... Like, the ones that look fairly realistic, but aren't printed in color. The first two targets were no big deal. They were what I expected a soon-to-be-dead BG to look like. One had a scowel and a thick coat on, with his sawed off shotgun hanging down at his waist, aimed vaguely in my direction. The other was a dude in a ski mask, with his Tek-9 roughly pointed at me, once again aiming from the hip. I like when bad guys shoot from the hip. It gives me a chance to shine.
My first shots were, well, horrible. I haven't actually been to the range to work on anything in a LONG time. That, coupled with Dave showing me a proper Modified Isocseleselelsess stance and drawing technique, firing from retention, etc... I had a lot to digest. But make no mistakes... I SUCKED.
There was a lot of chit-chatting intermixed, but between that and me stinking up the place with my shooting... Dave showed me how it's supposed to be done. Wow. I mean really. Wow. His movements were so mechanical and so CLEARLY well practiced and ingrained into his mind... He put his M6 laser on his XD and shuffled around while keeping the dot centered right in the tiny, tiny box on the Tek-9 dude's chest... and then pretty much shot like that... without the laser of course.
So I worked and worked and worked on just being able to pull off some semi accurate shots with the new tools I had... But before I got too comfortable... we changed the targets. My life would never be the same.
The first target. And the one that caused me the most psychological discomfort... a woman properly aiming her pistol right at my dome. The gun is drawn, she has the stance I'm supposed to have, and she's aiming right down the slide. Dave wanted me to draw (Slowly, since his type of draw was still foreign to me) and shoot, while moving towards this psychotic killer bitch... who knew her guns. I couldn't do it. My over-active imagination was making this situation real. I could NOT draw on this woman who was just a twitch of the finger away from ending my life. Ok, so it was a PAPER woman who just appeared that way. But in any case... it really had me frozen up.
So what does Dave do? "Here's how it's done." He cowers down in front of the woman, begging for his life... please don't kill me, please don't kill me... quite a performance... huge distraction. Of course, I knew where he was going with this. Suddenly, out of this ball of complete un-manliness wimpering on the floor comes a flurry of very well placed shots. It happened so quickly. Where once there sobbed a helpless, desperate man... now stood... someone who needed another magazine. I thought this was a riot. Hilarious! But no, he had to take it a step further... "You should see my fake heart attack."
So, my fears of that target were mostly quelled. Who could fear a woman with 10 bullet holes COM? Not me. I proceeded to do the drill he wanted me to do, and, well, I didn't fair all that badly. But it was nothing stellar.
Then... the fourth target. It was your standard... bad guy in shades with a female hostage, his gun pointed at you. This caused me another problem... I don't much value my life at this point. I think its value is in helping others, whether that means saving their lives, making them happy, or getting rid of bad guys. So, there was this conundrum... The woman didn't appear to be in any danger... I mean, the guy was aiming his gun at me. Maybe he'd be happy to just drop me and he'd let her go. I could not shoot at him. There was just no way I'd hit him and miss her. No way. No where in my life code does it say shooting a hostage is ok. In real life, this is definitely a shot I would not take. I would be hiding somewhere until a better opportunity presented itself. Like, if a rafter fell from the ceiling, knocked the guy unconscious, the woman disappeared, a huge thing of sandbags suddenly formed around him, and I had a grenade. That would have been a plus. Well, once again, Dave had something to do about the situation. And he fixed it up real good. No hits on the hostage, but a disabled bad guy. The one hit that ended up on the hostage was my hit... sadly. But damn, it was a BEAUTIFUL headshot.
So, the range is nice.
But... what I really liked? Dave taking the time to show me how to get things done. I really learned a lot about proper technique, what I should be practicing if I ever make it up to the range alone again, and how I would react in certain real life situations. I'd definitely be ok with that retarded gunman walking through the mall... he's what I think of when I think "BAD GUY!" But if my gun's in the holster and he's already taken aim at me... things change. I have to tactically wet my pants, cry like a baby, and pull a miraculous grouping out of my ass somehow.
Thanks Dave. It was a blast.
P.S. The ported XD40 definitely has noticeably less muzzle flip than an unported XD40. But with DGR, a good firm grip, and ESPECIALLY with some custom loads, it's impossible to tell the difference.
P.P.S. At the end of the day, I put a real nice slow fire group in the head of the hostage taker using the IScosocoscles stance. I had to shake the weaver influence out of my shoulders for every shot, but it got pretty in a hurry.
