Guns are fun!
Ok probably entirely different story depending on your line of work and so on, but for me, I am having such a great time learning to shoot and learning about/getting to know the feel of different guns.
It seems that last week my getting along so well with Dave's 9mm was not a fluke. I shot 4 different 9mm's at the range today, and I got along very well with three out of the four. I think my overall favorite was a Sig P226, but I also liked the Springfield XD9 very well. The magazine of the Sig was far easier to load, and the Springfield has one of those "grip safeties" that means paying more attention to the precise positioning of my hand on the grip to make sure I'm pressing it so the gun will fire. Granted developing a consistent grip is important, but I would rather develop that with my own natural most comfortable grip, not because I have to shift my hand around on the gun to press the thing so it will fire. The grip safety on the Springfield didn't make me shift to an awkward position, but it made something I'm otherwise doing naturally into something I have to think extra about, and I don't prefer that.
The gun I didn't get along with so well was a Ruger P95DC. I was still fairly accurate with it, but nothing like the "it's almost hard to miss" feeling with the others. Also the Ruger was jamming after every single shot, and I would have to manually clear the casing out. No good. The guys at the range said another guy had that gun jam on him a lot today or yesterday, and it seems to need cleaning badly. Might want to do that, thanks. I didn't have a single round jam with any of the other three guns today though, which was cool.
Aside from the Ruger, Springfield and Sig, the fourth gun I shot was a Kahr K9. I had no problem shooting it accurately, but it's a smaller-framed gun and so far I'm actually more comfortable with a slightly larger and heavier gun. So it wasn't my favorite for pure feel of the gun in my hand, even though I was effective with it and found it easy to shoot.
All my shooting today was at 15 feet, except for 10 rounds with the Springfield at 25 feet. That whole group fell within 3.5" vertical and 3" horizontal, so really, lots better than my efforts with other guns at that distance up to this point. However I think what's going to serve me best, just knowing myself, is to keep shooting at smaller distances most of the time, and develop as close to absolute confidence in my aim, and as much consistency, as I possibly can. I think that will translate right out to the longer distances, rather than having good, but a lesser degree of consistency jumping right into a lot of shooting at the longer distances. I'm glad I did the try at 25 feet today though, just to see that while I lost some accuracy compared to what I was doing at 15, I was still doing very well. Just for comparison, my grouping with that Springfield at 15 feet, for 5 rounds, was a 1-inch square shot out almost dead center of the target. I think what also really encourages me though, is that instead of my performance starting to degrade a fair amount by the end of the day's shooting, due to mental or arm fatigue or both, for my very last grouping of the day, 5 rounds with the Sig, 4 of them were right on top of each other within a square inch, with one shot just a half inch higher. For now, I'm ok with that!
I did have a (very) few kind of wild shots today, but each time, I felt myself anticipate and knew I'd sent it off before even having to look at where the shot went. I think I started to get a little too quick to fire, partway through the session, and I pulled my concentration back and controlled that again. So I even consider that progress. And actually, I think I have decreased my average time to aim/fire for each shot by quite a bit, even though I'm not thinking too much about getting faster. It's just getting easier to know I'm aiming in the right place, get my sight picture, breathe, squeeze, and fire, and not taking as much time as before to set up each shot. This is good... I'm pretty sure that speed will come taking whatever time I need to be accurate, and that that time is just going to continue to decrease.
So yeah, all in all, I shot really well, tried out four guns I hadn't shot before, and found out that I do seem to get along well with 9mm's, since there's only one I've shot so far that I didn't do as well with. There's also a Glock for rent at the range, but someone had it out today, so I'll try that one next time in the interest of experience as well. I'm also very curious to go back to the .22, and to go back to the .357 magnum revolver, and see how those feel/how my accuracy is with each of those, after finding this seeming affinity for the 9mm.
Yep, guns are fun. I still wish I could go lots more often, but since even on no-range-fee-for-ladies Mondays, when I'm renting a gun and buying ammo, it's still a $30 bit of entertainment. Which is a pretty solid chunk of monthly expense to be adding to my budget. I can do it, but I can only carry that so far as far as thinking of doing more of it than I am. Now I'm still hoping that I'll get to go with Dave and Molly again. He said we would, just was out of town this week. So if I can use his guns, at least some of the time, and just buy ammo, of course that's less cost for the same amount of shooting, or more shooting for the same money.
Meanwhile it'd be cool to have my own gun, but I'm not sure enough yet of what I want to get, and it's a pretty good investment, and just isn't going to happen quite right now. I'm almost positive I'll have my own gun within the next year though, and already looking forward to it.
Ok probably entirely different story depending on your line of work and so on, but for me, I am having such a great time learning to shoot and learning about/getting to know the feel of different guns.
It seems that last week my getting along so well with Dave's 9mm was not a fluke. I shot 4 different 9mm's at the range today, and I got along very well with three out of the four. I think my overall favorite was a Sig P226, but I also liked the Springfield XD9 very well. The magazine of the Sig was far easier to load, and the Springfield has one of those "grip safeties" that means paying more attention to the precise positioning of my hand on the grip to make sure I'm pressing it so the gun will fire. Granted developing a consistent grip is important, but I would rather develop that with my own natural most comfortable grip, not because I have to shift my hand around on the gun to press the thing so it will fire. The grip safety on the Springfield didn't make me shift to an awkward position, but it made something I'm otherwise doing naturally into something I have to think extra about, and I don't prefer that.
The gun I didn't get along with so well was a Ruger P95DC. I was still fairly accurate with it, but nothing like the "it's almost hard to miss" feeling with the others. Also the Ruger was jamming after every single shot, and I would have to manually clear the casing out. No good. The guys at the range said another guy had that gun jam on him a lot today or yesterday, and it seems to need cleaning badly. Might want to do that, thanks. I didn't have a single round jam with any of the other three guns today though, which was cool.
Aside from the Ruger, Springfield and Sig, the fourth gun I shot was a Kahr K9. I had no problem shooting it accurately, but it's a smaller-framed gun and so far I'm actually more comfortable with a slightly larger and heavier gun. So it wasn't my favorite for pure feel of the gun in my hand, even though I was effective with it and found it easy to shoot.
All my shooting today was at 15 feet, except for 10 rounds with the Springfield at 25 feet. That whole group fell within 3.5" vertical and 3" horizontal, so really, lots better than my efforts with other guns at that distance up to this point. However I think what's going to serve me best, just knowing myself, is to keep shooting at smaller distances most of the time, and develop as close to absolute confidence in my aim, and as much consistency, as I possibly can. I think that will translate right out to the longer distances, rather than having good, but a lesser degree of consistency jumping right into a lot of shooting at the longer distances. I'm glad I did the try at 25 feet today though, just to see that while I lost some accuracy compared to what I was doing at 15, I was still doing very well. Just for comparison, my grouping with that Springfield at 15 feet, for 5 rounds, was a 1-inch square shot out almost dead center of the target. I think what also really encourages me though, is that instead of my performance starting to degrade a fair amount by the end of the day's shooting, due to mental or arm fatigue or both, for my very last grouping of the day, 5 rounds with the Sig, 4 of them were right on top of each other within a square inch, with one shot just a half inch higher. For now, I'm ok with that!
I did have a (very) few kind of wild shots today, but each time, I felt myself anticipate and knew I'd sent it off before even having to look at where the shot went. I think I started to get a little too quick to fire, partway through the session, and I pulled my concentration back and controlled that again. So I even consider that progress. And actually, I think I have decreased my average time to aim/fire for each shot by quite a bit, even though I'm not thinking too much about getting faster. It's just getting easier to know I'm aiming in the right place, get my sight picture, breathe, squeeze, and fire, and not taking as much time as before to set up each shot. This is good... I'm pretty sure that speed will come taking whatever time I need to be accurate, and that that time is just going to continue to decrease.
So yeah, all in all, I shot really well, tried out four guns I hadn't shot before, and found out that I do seem to get along well with 9mm's, since there's only one I've shot so far that I didn't do as well with. There's also a Glock for rent at the range, but someone had it out today, so I'll try that one next time in the interest of experience as well. I'm also very curious to go back to the .22, and to go back to the .357 magnum revolver, and see how those feel/how my accuracy is with each of those, after finding this seeming affinity for the 9mm.
Yep, guns are fun. I still wish I could go lots more often, but since even on no-range-fee-for-ladies Mondays, when I'm renting a gun and buying ammo, it's still a $30 bit of entertainment. Which is a pretty solid chunk of monthly expense to be adding to my budget. I can do it, but I can only carry that so far as far as thinking of doing more of it than I am. Now I'm still hoping that I'll get to go with Dave and Molly again. He said we would, just was out of town this week. So if I can use his guns, at least some of the time, and just buy ammo, of course that's less cost for the same amount of shooting, or more shooting for the same money.
Meanwhile it'd be cool to have my own gun, but I'm not sure enough yet of what I want to get, and it's a pretty good investment, and just isn't going to happen quite right now. I'm almost positive I'll have my own gun within the next year though, and already looking forward to it.
anyway if you have any questions e-mail me at castelo75@msn.com, my name is zac.