Range Day 2-4-11
 

So I had a pretty awesome shooting trip this last Friday, and I did a write-up with pictures of the event for another forum. Would you guys like to see and read about what all we did?

good pics of guns? If yes, then of course post.

Kay, I guess k9870 wants to see, and I wanted Excalibur to see my friends P-01, so posting time.

This last Friday, my friends Weasel and Mik from Washington, my friend James and myself found ourselves with a lot of guns to fire, ammunition to load, gear to test, shooting drills to try and several hours of daylight to burn, so the new Washingtonians came back down to Oregon and we got it all done.

After warming up on bullseye targets with our 9s, the U22 NEOS (Mik's), the Walther P22 and the Taurus Tracker in .17 HMR (Weasel's), we set up some of the IDPA patterned targets on the prototype target stands we used (both items made by Weasel). Targets worked, stands didn't, so they need to be redesigned, but we managed with them for the day. Here they are clearly in this shot, along with me randomly strutting in a very haters gonna hate like fashion.

http://i.imgur.com/SJYER.jpg

We began the tactical type shooting with some Mozambique Drills. For those of you who are not familiar with the drill, it's basically firing a double tap to center mass, analyzing your target, and then firing a well aimed shot to the head, and for our purposes, we did so until our mags were empty. We all shot a couple mags individually, and then we tried it competitively, myself and Weasel going head to head first.

http://i.imgur.com/wACbC.jpg

Gear in check, and then... GO!

http://i.imgur.com/kWGRI.jpg

Absolutely excellent shot, very clear, and not one, but two casings mid-flight. After scoring, I soundly beat Weasel, but he was shooting a brand new gun (CZ 75 P-01) he had no previous training on, and it was shooting really low for whatever reason, not only for him, but for me too. He then practiced on some cans to figure out his POA (Point of Aim for newbies) to get a good POI (Point of Impact).

http://i.imgur.com/x8QNi.jpg

While he did that, James and Mik went head to head, though James had a 6 shot S&W Model 65 loaded with .38s next to Mik's 16 round Jericho...

http://i.imgur.com/bXeEU.jpg

...but he sucked it up and performed a reload with a speedloader I bought him for Christmas.

http://i.imgur.com/gA1wo.jpg

Scoring was complicated, but Mik was a clear winner, though it wasn't truly a fair fight with James's wheelgun in the mix, same with Weasel's breaking in of his gun and shooting, so James and Weasel went head to head, James borrowing the Jericho this time.

http://i.imgur.com/ureH1.jpg

I believe James came out on top, but I honestly don't remember, since I was so psyched after beating Mik in a winner's face off! His groupings on paper were, and generally are, much better than mine, but with the scoring system, and him missing one of his headshots, I edged victory. More to come...

Is that an extended mag on the p01?

Why yes it is, good eye. On top of the 2 factory mags that came with the P-01, he also bought 2 Mec-Gar 14 round mags, and 2 Mec-Gar 19 round mags. The latter stick out a bit, but they look a lot better than some guns with extended mags sticking out the bottom.

cz custom shop has 26 rounders:eek:

I've seen 25 rounders on sale before, never 26, but factory mags are all very expensive. The Mec-Gar 19 rounders are a good capacity at a good value.

I think mec gar makes the factory mag. Factory mags, mec gars, and custom shop mags are all i'd trust, promags and other junk suck.

Mec-Gar does make their factory mags, as do they for SIG, Browning and a lot of other companies. Pro-Mags are hit and miss, I've heard some good and some bad, but when it comes to your magazine, that isn't really good enough, not to me. Anyhow, more range stuff:

The fog and wind came in hard, and it was a pain in the ass even trying to keep the target stands up, so we concluded Mozambique and after I called a can out at 20-25 yards and nailed it with one shot (the rest of the guys got sick of me bragging about that, but damnit, it was a good shot, and I'd give them credit if it were they in my shoes), we moved into what I call the "Boss" drill. Each person stands at the same distance and has 5 cans/bottles (we concluded bottles would work better) in a line to shoot. First person to hit all their cans/bottles is the Boss. I don't think James or Weasel ran this one, but Mik and I ran a couple, the first at 15 yards, and the second at 7 yards.

http://i.imgur.com/3QbEJ.jpg

We both got our guns out at about the same time, and our first shots were about right on top of eachother...

http://i.imgur.com/lLhSq.jpg

But I clearly finished first, with shots to spare in my mag. Mik finished his mag off, and hit 3 or 4 out of 5.

After that, we decided to move up to 7 yards and see how fast we could get it done. I'm typically the can master at most distances, but within 10 yards, Mik and I shoot at about the same skill level, if he isn't noticeably better, so I knew I had to kick it into high gear. We both drew our guns, though he got his out before I did. My shirt caused me to fumble for about a second...

http://i.imgur.com/SPJxu.jpg

...but I got back in the game and started taking cans out.

http://i.imgur.com/P8HHa.jpg

I took some shots, and I couldn't tell if I'd hit a few, since they didn't fall over, having been dug into the dirt, so I took a look.

http://i.imgur.com/7WLPo.jpg

After that, I popped an extra shot at can number 4 for safety's sake, and then hit number 5 dead. Again, Mik was still shooting at his cans, so I just reholstered my gun.

http://i.imgur.com/7hzRG.jpg

I fired 6 shots pretty quickly, and hit each time (2 hits on can number 4). Mik finished his mag off again, and he either finished or got 4 out of 5, not sure. All I know is I beat him by quite a bit, with 100 percent accuracy. I'll concede all day that he kicks my ass hard on paper with regard to grouping, but when it comes to games, and cans or reactionary targets, I summon something in me that gets me to put rounds where I want them to go. 7, 15, 20, 25, 30, even 50 yards, my Hi-Power (old and new) treats me very well, and treats reactionary targets very poorly.

Anyhow, while Mik and I were figuring out who was the Boss, Weasel and James went to the other end of the range to fire some slugs with his Benelli M4.

http://i.imgur.com/sheDB.jpg

James grabbed some Sprite cans, shook them up, set them up at the end, and shot them dead, no, "disintegrated" was the word he used. The pressure combined with the strike utterly destroyed them. I also got to watch Weasel snipe a gallon jug from 60+ yards, proving against every videogame or false logic on the internet that a shotgun is capable of fire outside 10 goddamn feet (Weasel was inspired to try slugging after watching Hickok45 on YouTube shoot slugs at 230 yards with open sights and HIT HIS TARGET EVERY TIME).

http://i.imgur.com/A1sFL.jpg

Not sure if Mik got a turn with the Benelli, but I did, but we'll talk about that later. After this bit, the fog got foggier, and a light rain started coming down, so we hastened to run the last drill of the day, the Collateral drill, named for it's basing on the nightclub shootout in the movie Collateral. I ran a dry run to show the guys how to do it, and after that, Mik went up first.

http://i.imgur.com/mP466.jpg

And frankly, his shooting made Tom Cruise look like a bitch.

http://i.imgur.com/LqJ03.jpg

In fact, I'm pretty sure he looked at his targets afterward and said "Tom Cruise is a bitch". I agreed.

We then taped up the targets and I put a serious run in. I completed the course without missing, thankfully, and though my groups were complete rubbish compared to Mik's, I got this SWEET MUZZLE FLASH IN MY FRAME SO YEAH!

http://i.imgur.com/cQISR.jpg

I then gave James the Hi-Power so he could put in a run without using his wheelgun. Aside from fumbling one of my magazines and having it hit the ground (it didn't get damaged luckily), he did pretty good.

http://i.imgur.com/y6b6K.jpg

And lastly, Weasel ran it with his P-01. Granted this was his first 9mm pistol, and his first try at some tactical type shooting, he didn't do too great, but he too GOT A MUZZLE FLASH!

http://i.imgur.com/u3y1A.jpg

Though we only ran it a couple times, I have a feeling that the Collateral will prove itself to be a very good drill in the future, for building upon, and just for practical practice.

James seems to put his support finger over trigger guard like me. Harder with those curved guards, thats why I like a hooked one.

BTW I think you are only the second member to show what you look like.

Yeah he does that, and you just started doing that, yet you talk like you've been doing it for years. I dunno, just sounded silly to me in my head when I read that. : D

And yeah, all my guns come from an era before serrated guards were in hgh demand, and I kind of like that.

It was getting dark, and the rain started coming down, so we decided to pack it in. Hours before this a group of three guys showed up at the range as us. As always we were skeptical, a bunch of strangers with guns out in the sticks, that's how it goes. We eventually found out that they were pretty cool dudes after they destroyed a TV with an M44 Carbine, which started conversation between our and their group. One turned out to be a Marine, one was a hipster with a hunting hat, and one was wearing a hoodie and had a pretty nice SLR camera with a large lens. They left after doing some plinking, and we continued to run drills.

When the rain and darkness came in though, they came back to the spot though, so we had a chance to say goodbye, but they had other plans. At some point, I saw a can of gasoline that they had taken out of the back of their Jeep, but thought nothing of it... until I was talking with the guys and a giant fire came out of nowhere down range. Turns out they used the gasoline to make molotov cocktails.

http://i.imgur.com/QkdID.jpg

Weasel greatly approved, and took a drag from his cigar.

http://i.imgur.com/kEKt6.jpg

And then... a thought occurred. They had to throw the cocktails, and we had an automatic shotgun, so naturally, it became one, no, two very dangerous rounds of skeet shooting. Weasel went first, and missed the target. They could only throw it so far, and Weasel could only shoot so fast and so well in the dark. They had one last cocktail, so I grabbed the shotgun and gave it a try while the hipster watched.

http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/7647/ynhrange.png

Sadly, I also failed, but I wasn't bummed considering the difficulty of the shot, and that I was still rewarded with fire on the ground and a cool picture.

http://i.imgur.com/Zbt38.jpg

Now, I've said it once, and I'll say it again. I don't know if the Benelli M4 is worth it's hefty price tag, but regardless, it's a damn good shotgun, and I'm privileged to have been able to handle one on not one but two shooting trips.

http://i.imgur.com/n0LaZ.jpg

Many thanks Weasel.

The shoot was fun without a doubt, but now that we've tried some things out, the next one is going to be even better. I'm not going to give out much more detail than that, but I have some stuff planned and I'm also expecting some new additions to our collective collection, gun and gear wise. For now though, we have the memories of this trip, and they are certainly good ones.

Molotov Skeet! Sweet. As to the trigger guard thing I just started but I do it on any hangun, even revovlers. I have grip tape on my taurus. Doesnt help as much as on an auto though. I dont know anybody else who does this so Im glad to see im not alone on this one. I wish I had an open shooting area like that. Ranges you cant do the fun stuff like reactive targets, dual wielding, hip fire, etc.

Trust me, for nearly every modern handgun company to put a squared off trigger guard, serrated trigger guard, or both, on their gun, you and James certainly can'tbe the only people that do that.

And yes, it's a nice place we have to shoot, and I think I've done all of the above that you just mentioned there...

Looks like it was a really awesome time! I'm amazed you were out there so late, though...

range coses at night so ive never gotten to do nightime shooting.