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America and the Shooting Range
Mrs. Tex and I made a six-day pilgrimage to Front Sight near Pahrump, NV, for a four-day handgun shooting class. What a quintessentially American experience! We were with four other people from Texas; one is a Brit expat who has totally absorbed the American attitude on firearms. Spending days around hundreds of people all wearing sidearms in complete safety was lots of good fun.
I had a recent rotator-cuff injury so I sucked it up and still had fun, although 700 rounds of 45 ACP didn’t make my shoulder feel any better. The range is literally about a mile from the California border, so many of the CA students in our group bemoaned the fact that they couldn’t own many of the firearms that people from free America brought to the course.
I would do the shoot house 50 times if they would let me. I dropped all the bad guys and didn’t pop any hostages. Our group included an MD, a pilot, three EMTs, and five engineers (lots of overlap with skills).
I’m already planning which pistols to bring next time.
It is great fun, isn’t it! Thanks for sharing!
Pretty sad We’re at the point when talking about America and having to add the qualifier Free.
alternative to adding “free” is dropping the “A”. ‘Merica!
I considered “America, CoC Yeah!” for the title.
The Texans were there because they’d be too embarrassed to have other Texans know that they were unfamiliar with firearms. :)
I took our eldest son and his groomsmen’s party to the range in Greenville, SC (City Arsenal), the morning of his wedding. The shooters ranged from novice to expert (my policeman brother-in-law). The facility was great, and the gal who showed us the ropes was a fantastic guide. I mostly stood back and watched, and learned about the personalities of the groomsmen and saw their joy. It was worth every penny, and more. The grand finale is that anyone who wanted to got to shoot a Smith and Wesson Model 500. There were few takers (I think some were intimidated by the automatic weapons), but their grins were indeed .50 caliber!
I’m glad your experience was great!
Glad you enjoyed it. They have quite an operation there. I did a four-day class there a few years ago, and it felt good to not only pop the bad guy who had taken my “wife” hostage in the shoot house, but to put 115 grains of lead and copper thru his right eye.
That’ll leave a mark.
We stayed in Vegas (so tired we never went out), but apparently the Pahrump hotels make guests sign a promise that they won’t practice dry firing in their rooms. I can only imagine the havoc that lead to that.
Interesting. It only takes one “oops” to ruin it for everyone.
If you’re looking to follow up your training, I highly, HIGHLY recommend Karl Rehn at KR Training. Karl is setting the training world on fire right now with his ideas on getting new people into gun training, plus he’s really nice guy and a great musician.
Even if thinks that Nirvana is better than the Pixies… :D