Sniper Kitty Beats Boyfriend at Rifle Shooting

[Ivan Seeking]

Hey MB, if you ever get out this way, come on by and we'll do some drinkin and shootin.

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/8479/mybasement.jpg

 

[turbo]

Hey MB, if you ever get out this way, come on by and we'll do some drinkin and shootin.

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/8479/mybasement.jpg

I had to deliver a gun to the business of the editor of Small Arms magazine a number of years ago, and he asked me if I wanted a tour of the "vault". I said "Hell, yeah" and we spent the next couple of hours reviewing class III firearms in a reinforced concrete cellar with a bank-vault door. Among other treasures, he had the AK47s used in the movie Red Dawn, the mini-gun used in the movie Pedator, and lots of other "famous" guns. The whole vault was filled floor-to-ceiling with firearms and other weapons that were fully automatic, silenced, or otherwise prohibited for possession without paying licensing and registration fees to the ATF, and LOTS of paperwork. He had modern fully-automatic weapons that were probably not even in current production, yet. What a wonderful tour. He has since moved from Maine to a desert climate in the SW to protect his investments from corrosion and reduce maintenance costs.

 

[Moonbear]

Hey MB, if you ever get out this way, come on by and we'll do some drinkin and shootin.

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/8479/mybasement.jpg

Now that looks like fun!

 

[Cyrus]

Hey MB, if you ever get out this way, come on by and we'll do some drinkin and shootin.

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/8479/mybasement.jpg

Damn, this is impressive! It reminds me of an old kings palace called Afifabad Garden in Iran. You can tour upstairs and see the inside rooms, or you can tour the basement, which is converted into a weapons museum full of guns, knives and swords.

http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/6641/irangarden.jpg

Parked in front of the main entrance walkway on either side are two old tanks.

 

[Oerg]

yay, now you can try firing from a prone position!

 

[Moonbear]

yay, now you can try firing from a prone position!

Considering I was wearing a cocktail dress while shooting (it was after dinner), I'm sure my boyfriend wouldn't have managed to fire a single straight shot if I was in a prone position. He'd have been a wee bit distracted.

 

[rewebster]

I think he's been asking for that since our very first date.

either that or looking for a holster

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Damn, this is impressive!

It is alleged to be Charlton Heston's secret basement, but it apparently belongs to one of two other candidates. I guess no one [publically] knows for sure.
http://www.snopes.com/photos/architecture/gunvault.asp

 

[turbo]

I know at least 3-4 people (former clients) that could own that vault. One jumped to mind immediately when I saw the anti-aircraft gun because another client was asking me if I had seen XYZ's vault, and told me that when you open the door, you are staring down the barrel of just such a beast.

One Christmas, I got a card from a client with a laminated photo of his gun room. No automatic weapons, but the hugest, most impressive collection of Mississippi rifles that one could imagine residing in a private residence.

 

[Danger]

One of them needed an eyepatch because she couldn't manage to close the eye she needed to close to shoot, so her date (don't know if he was a boyfriend or husband) took a picture of her wearing an eyepatch and holding a rifle...looked like a pirate.

Uh... ... you're supposed to shoot with both eyes open, unless using a scope. Closing one is moderately acceptable on a range, but it'll get you killed prematurely in a combat situation. You need your full visual range. When it comes time to pull the trigger, an effect known as 'tunnel vision' comes into play, wherein you see only the target. 'Auditory exclusion' also occurs, which prevents you from being deafened by the gunshots. Closing an eye is severely detrimental to your shooting ability and ultimately your survival.

 

[Moonbear]

Uh... ... you're supposed to shoot with both eyes open, unless using a scope. Closing one is moderately acceptable on a range, but it'll get you killed prematurely in a combat situation. You need your full visual range. When it comes time to pull the trigger, an effect known as 'tunnel vision' comes into play, wherein you see only the target. 'Auditory exclusion' also occurs, which prevents you from being deafened by the gunshots. Closing an eye is severely detrimental to your shooting ability and ultimately your survival.

It was with a scope, which seemed like over much for the small range...maybe I should ask if they have any rifles without scopes next time. Probably not, but I think it would be a better challenge. It doesn't phase me one way or another to close one eye or keep both open. I'm used to focusing with one eye only from my days with monocular microscopes (most people close one eye, but proper technique is to keep both open and just use one to look...less strain from squinting if you're doing it a long time).

I'm not planning on going into combat though! Yipes! I'm perfectly content to limit all my shooting to paper targets...maybe a deer some day.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I once dated a girl who would close both eyes when shooting. With each shot, the barrel of the gun would go higher, and higher, and higher...

We only went shooting once.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Oh man, I haven't thought of this in years. My little brother couldn't have been more than ten years old when he wanted to try shooting the twelve gauge at the trap and skeet range. We kept trying to tell him that it would kick like a mule, but he insisted.

The pigeon was launched. He carefully took aim, fired, froze in position, and turned white as a sheet.

 

[Danger]

He carefully took aim, fired, froze in position, and turned white as a sheet.

Ouch!
A kid in my high school thought that bracing himself against the barn door would alleviate the recoil. He did so, then lit both barrels of a 12-gauge at once. Needless to say, his shoulder was broken.

 

[turbo]

I favor large calibers, and have seen a lot of "wow" reactions when I've let people shoot my rifles and pistols. My neighbor's teenage sons love their .270s and .308s, but they politely decline when I offer to let them shoot my .45-70 rifle or Glock Model 20 in 10mm auto. My wife loves pistol-shooting, but she has pulled the trigger on that Glock only once, before going back to the .22s and the 9mm (P38). She has had NO formal training, just what I have been able to teach her in practice sessions, but I pity anybody that she has to aim at in a home-invasion or other confrontation. With my old Python (shooting .38s) she could group the shots into an area smaller than my hand at a distance of about 50'. Plenty for home-defense.

 

[Borek]

she could group the shots into an area smaller than my hand at a distance of about 50'. Plenty for home-defense.

As far as I remember your house has no 50' in neither direction.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Ouch!
A kid in my high school thought that bracing himself against the barn door would alleviate the recoil. He did so, then lit both barrels of a 12-gauge at once. Needless to say, his shoulder was broken.

My brother was probably shooting a low-base 8 shot, with Green Dot powder. It wasn't going to hurt him but it definitely rattled him. He insisted that he was fine, but he didn't ask to shoot the 12 gauge again for some years.

As a kid, I always wanted to shoot the BIG guns no matter how bad the kick. Heck, if it doesn't bring tears to your eyes then you need hotter powder. I remember a guy at the duck range, in Mendota, California, who hunted with a custom two-barrel 10-gauge. One day we could hear that he had fired both barrels simultaneously - the thing sounded like a cannon - but I never got a chance to ask how bad it was.

 

[turbo]

As far as I remember your house has no 50' in neither direction.

You're right. Guaranteed heart-shot.

Point-blank range for somebody with her level of accuracy. My cousin's son had no experience with pistols when he was about 12 or so, and I took him to the sand-pit where I like to practice and after some basic training (about 15-20 minutes or so) I could throw out a shotgun hull and he could dance it across the floor of the pit with my Browning Challenger II (semi-auto .22). My wife doesn't have quite that level of instinctive aim, but close.

 

[turbo]

As a kid, I always wanted to shoot the BIG guns no matter how bad the kick. Heck, if it doesn't bring tears to your eyes then you need hotter powder.

Me, too. My father started me out deer-hunting at age 10, using an M-1 carbine (.30 caliber auto). I used that gun not because I couldn't shoot hotter cartridges which would be more effective on deer, but because at age 10, the M-1 was about all the weight I could tote around all day. I was a small kid, but loved the big cartridges. "Hug the gun tight to your shoulder and it won't hurt you." Good advice for heavy loads. I learned to shoot standing, and off-hand - the best way to allow enough freedom of movement to absorb the recoil. Anybody who would try to introduce a kid to heavy loads shooting from a prone position deserves to be slapped.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Me, too. My father started me out deer-hunting at age 10, using an M-1 carbine (.30 caliber). I used that gun not because I couldn't shoot hotter cartridges which would be more effective on deer, but because at age 10, the M-1 was about all the weight I could tote around all day. I was a small kid, but loved the big cartridges. "Hug the gun tight to your shoulder and it won't hurt you." Good advice for heavy loads. I learned to shoot standing, and off-hand - the best way to allow enough freedom of movement to absorb the recoil. Anybody who would try to introduce a kid to heavy loads shooting from a prone position deserves to be slapped.

For me it was big 12 gauge loads, a Savage 400, a 30-30 Winchester, and various and assorted arms that I was allowed to fire at the police range - 38 and 44 pistols, various rifles, and a Thompson submachine gun, which didn't kick as it was only a 22 caliber. Great fun though!

We never hunted big game, so all hunting was done with shotguns.

 

[turbo]

We never hunted big game, so all hunting was done with shotguns.

In this neck of the woods, a lot of bird-hunting was done with gauges larger than 12 for many years. When Winchester came up with a repeating lever-action shotgun (Model 1887), they chambered it for 12 and 10 gauge. Lots of fowling guns were made in the single-digit gauges. High-quality shotguns in large gauges (8, 6, 4...) can bring huge money, especially if they are in good condition and are engraved or otherwise factory-embellished.

Lots of cheaply-made but functional large-bore shotguns were produced to supply coastal fowlers who shot birds primarily for their plumage during the feathered-hat crazes of the 1800s, and those guns were exposed to fog, mists, and salt spray, so the surviving specimens are usually ugly.

 

[Moonbear]

So, just as an update, I got my boyfriend to tell me the distance. It was 30 feet. That doesn't sound like much with all the talk around here now, but then again, I wasn't claiming to be a great shot...at least not yet. I'm just going for maximal gloating that I beat my boyfriend who has been shooting since he was a teen (at greater distance, and with a more powerful kick, or freestanding, or without a scope, etc., I'm sure he'd beat me easily, but I know when to quit while I'm ahead and to get maximal gloating in before a re-match is declared). I'll still let him claim bragging rights on the cooking any day.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

So, just as an update, I got my boyfriend to tell me the distance. It was 30 feet.

You are still PF's official Annie Oakley.

This is allegedly a video of someone shooting a homemade 4-gauge.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/547250/4_gauge_home_made_gun_being_test_fired/

I also spotted a few references to a 3-gauge.

Way back in the late 40's, early 50s, or so, my dad spent a summer on a deep-sea fishing boat. At some point he saw a two-man shotgun that I believe was used on whaling boats. I've never seen an example of a gun like this... He thought it was a 2-gauge, or maybe even larger.

 

[turbo]

Way back in the late 40's, early 50s, or so, my dad spent a summer on a deep-sea fishing boat. At some point he saw a two-man shotgun that I believe was used on whaling boats. I've never seen an example of a gun like this... He thought it was a 2-gauge, or maybe even larger.

Back in the 1800s and early 1900s, very large guns were made as "punt guns". They were intended to be mounted in punts and shot by hunters operating under cloth blinds. They are quite rare these days, but the difficulty of properly displaying such monsters limit their auction values.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Hey Moonbear, tell your boyfriend that you want to see him do this without shooting himself in the...gun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYdkt7yIFLY

 

[Moonbear]

Hey Moonbear, tell your boyfriend that you want to see him do this without shooting himself in the...gun.

No WAY! I like his...gun.

 

[turbo]

Some trick-shots are a bit less than honest. Annie Oakley used to wow audiences that thought she was shooting bullets. In fact, she was probably often smashing thin glass balls with "rat-shot" - tiny lead shot blasted out of smooth-bore guns in .22 caliber loads.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Here is a video of a punt gun firing
http://www.maniacworld.com/biggest-shotgun.html

http://www.instablogsimages.com/images/2007/11/01/punt-gun_18.jpg
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...mage_result&resnum=2&ct=image&ved=0CAoQ9QEwAQ

 

[Danger]

That punt gun video reminded me of one of my favourite shooting scenerios. The Solothurn SS18. Nice little semi-auto rifle. The targets were 1" thick steel plates at about 500 metres. The rounds ploughed straight through as if the plates weren't even there.
One can never have too many 20mm anti-tank guns in one's inventory.