11/13/08

I wonder if Alice’s Restaurant is open for lunch today or if I'm going to have to wait for Thanksgiving to go there. Who knows? Anyhoo, John and I went to the shoosting range last night. Here’s the story. I pick him up at his house and we roll to Wal-Mart. There I find a nice gun bag which comes with two, count them, two, pistol case thingies! I made sure that someone hadn’t accidentally dropped an extra one from another bag in there but it said right on the label that it came with both. I snatched it up and headed for the counter. John went to find a clerk and came back with one. At first I thought she was wearing some of those novelty teeth that look like a horse’s mouth. No, they were hers. I felt like Austin Powers when faced with “The Mole” planted in Dr. Evil’s operation. It was all I could do to not stare at them. Anyhoo, she had John’s ammo but was out of .45 ACP except in self defense rounds. I opted to not buy those. We headed back to the car and then to the range. Cutie Patootie wasn’t there, dang it! John ‘splained to the dude who was thinking of buying the 1911 I bought that I bought it and apologized for… whatever, I don’t know. We filled out the forms and paid our fees then entered the range. I showed John one of the 000 buckshot rounds before loading it into the Judge. I ran a target out to “immediate threat” range and fired. As I was bringing the target in to inspect it John said, “Holy crap that thing is loud!” I smiled and had a look at the damage done. There were three neat little holes right in the middle of the torso. The spacing was about what I expected. They would have done some serious damage to a dude’s guts for sure! I ran the target back out and fired another. I pulled in and looked at that spacing. The spread was, again, about what I expected. Let’s say, a couple inches, maybe. I sent the target back and popped off the rest of the cylinder. I like those 000 buckshot rounds! I may have to buy a case of them. I loaded up a cylinder of the #4 birdshot and brought the target in a little closer. I popped one into the target’s face and pulled it in to count the holes. John came over to say how loud those rounds were and distracted me a little. Suffices to say, ½ oz. of 0.13” lead balls are still a lot of shot. I doubt I'll buy any more #4 shot unless I do find it locally as it didn’t seem that much better than the #6 I'd been using. I think the birdshot, in whatever size I have, will be more for “attention getting” and deterrent than for stopping power. When it comes time to load the thing for real, I'll load one birdshot, probably two 000 buckshot, and two “werewolf” rounds. If the birdshot doesn’t scare off the assailant, and six 9 mm lead balls don’t stop them, I'm sure a couple hollow point rounds will. Of course if they’re still coming at me then, well, I'm pretty much fucked I guess. Of course there’s always seven, six, and six, more rounds of hollow point ammo in the three clips for the 1911! Surely, twenty one .45 caliber hollow points ought to be enough to stop even Rasputin. But I digress. After attempting to count the shot, I hand the gun to John and he runs the target back out a bit. He fires it while I watch the muzzle flash. Damn! That thing flashes like a mo-fo! He unloads the spent shells and hands it back to me. I pull out the Long Colt ammo and load up a cylinder. I run the target all the way to the end of the range and fire them at the head. I wind up piercing one ear, demolishing the left jugular vein, dislocating the jaw, smashing the right cheek, and I think missing with the fifth shot. Still, he’s down. I pull in and load another cylinder with Long Colt. I pop off those then decide to do some more 000 damage. I load up the last five 000 shell I brought with me and blew fifteen more holes in the target. Have I mentioned I really like those 000 buckshot shells? They are so friggin’ cool! I think I fired a few more Long Colt rounds and then moved on to the 1911. Oh, I also think it might have been the Judge which tossed the shrapnel at my head the other day. I heard something go whizzing by and bounce off the wall once with the Cowboy Load ammo last night as well. So I guess I need to be a touch more careful as to how the cylinder lines up before pulling the trigger. Then again, it might have been when I was shoosting double-action, now that I think about it. Perhaps there is a slight misalignment just as the hammer falls when Juan doesn’t cock it and aim. Anyhoo, I changed to a fresh target and popped off the first clip at full range with the 1911. John had been complaining about the accuracy of his .40 caliber so I tried a shot. Mine went low and to the right, just as his had been doing and just like almost all of my shots. He had asked me to put one in the center of the face but I hit the jugular again. Well, still a kill shot if you ask me. My pattern with the 1911 at full range was a bit wider than I'd like for it to be but like I've been saying all along, they were all in the torso of the target and within an inch, or so, of my aim point. I'm not looking to use these things at 20 yards anyway. To be honest, at that range I'd rather pepper them with the birdshot and hope they don’t get close enough that I have to drop them with the big stuff. Anyhoo, I burn through all the .45 ACP ammo I have and then wipe down the guns. We sweep our brass and toss our targets then return our eyes and ears to the counter. John talks to the dude a bit about a concealed handgun class and then we head downtown. There is some sort of film festival going on so everything was crowded. Every place except the little Mexican place we wound up eating. We swung through the tobacconist on the way back to the car but I didn’t buy anything. I dropped John off and then went home. I made it in time to watch most of Mythbusters and the dumb assed show that follows it. I gave up and went to bed at 2200 h. Actually, I cleaned the guns and put them away then went to bed. So now I'm here at work talking to y'all. And I'm through with that as well. Toodles.