Your shooting background

[MT2008]

My Dad got me into skeet (errr..."clay pigeon") shooting when I was about 8 or 9. I enjoyed it, but I think I saw it as strictly a sport. The guns themselves weren't what interested me. I had a little 28-gauge Harrington & Richard single-barrel shotgun which my Dad got me for my 9th birthday, because I was such a short and skinny little boy that that was all I could handle.

By the time I was 12 or 13, I started getting interested in the military, and modern firearms. My grandfather got me into pistol-shooting, mostly with his little .22 Ruger, but by the time I was 16, I was shooting his S&W 4506, Taurus PT92, and Walther PPK/S. I could never shoot consistent groups with the S&W (still can't), but I was decent enough with the Taurus and the Walther.

I also remember literally counting the days to my 18th birthday because I had wanted to own an AK-47 for as long as I could remember.

[Rockwolf66]

I grew up around weapons like alot of people here. My grandfather used to be a rangemaster at the Simpson range outside of Eureka, CA and I have spent some quality time there when I wasn't shooting on an aunt's ranch. Some of my relatives are former military and one relative who will remain unnamed has been called a Mercenary. Now I tend to be rather suspisious of people who claim to be experts in small arms when they go by what's in books and don't even train to shoot under conditions they talk about. It's a very big differance between I have read and I have done. While I have not done everything I want to try when it comes to shooting I have tried as much as I possibly can. Sometimes what i would like to do is as much for "Shits and Giggles" as it is to see if something can be done.

[S&Wshooter]

I hate the people who falsely claim to be small arms experts too. I usually know much, much more than them about guns and I am by no means any sort of expert

[Excalibur]

I'm not really a small arms "expert". I just know a bunch of stuff that a lot of people dont.

[S&Wshooter]

Same here, but alot of people my age believe that playing Call of Duty makes them experts. Unsuprisingly, everything they say is utterly idiotic/ false

[Excalibur]

It surprises me sometimes when I talk to people who knows absolutely nothing about guns. A girl I know who was in the Marines surprisingly didn't know what a Desert Eagle is. When I was talking with a comic book shop owner about the M1 Garand, he didn't know what that was.

[S&Wshooter]

How does someone not know what a Desert Eagle is? It has been in just about every single goddamn movie and video since it was put into production

[Rockwolf66]

Originally Posted by S&Wshooter

I hate the people who falsely claim to be small arms experts too. I usually know much, much more than them about guns and I am by no means any sort of expert

I know of one guy who writes for a couple publications and outside of a 25 yard range I don't think he's ever used a firearm. I first heard about the guy when someone who admits to having only shooting a firearm once in their life tried to argue that the 5.56X45mm round was short ranged and that the 7.62X51mm NATO round was uncontrolable in Full Auto. Now I have seen a 5.56/.223 rifle shoot out past 600 yards. Heck there is a man who has used a .223 AR-15 varient to put twenty rounds in a twenty inch circle in twenty seconds at a range of 1,000 yards. The man chose the cartridge because it had low enough recoil that the weapon wouldn't be moved off target.

As for the 7.62 NATO round I have friends who use such rifles at Class 3 competitions. In addition I have friends who have used such rifles in more "political" situations and when under 100 yards such weapons can be used to shred entire squads who have made the mistake of bunching up at the bottom of hills. Unfortunatly most armies don't properly train their troops to really use the weapons they are given.

[Excalibur]

The vets I know have no real complaints about the 5.56 being too weak. A couple have a little problem with jamming in their M16/M4s, but they are ok with the weapon.