Monday, October 13, 2008

Use it or lose it

A church about 2 miles from the house had a mens breakfast and trap shoot Saturday morning.
Pretty good biscuits and gravy!!
I took my Winchester 1897 12ga. pump and shot .
I was in the first round I went 1/10 I was so embarrassed. Then I watched everyone else shoot only a couple guys did much better.
Dad had brought my old Browning Citori. This is the first gun I bought with my own money when I was 12 and its a very sweet gun. I ended up trading it to dad a few years back for a couple other guns. I don't even remember which ones now. I'm sure one of my kids will end up with it someday.

Anyway I only hit 2/10 with it.....embarrassed again. When I was walking a way from the line someone I didn't even know said "what happened?" I replied "I can't shoot".
I used to be a crack shot, a couple friends from back when I was a teenager still mention it occasionally.

When I lived in Colorado I was up in the mountains all the time running around on the dirt roads exploring or just driving. I always would do some shooting of some sort. Here I sit on our 30 acres and only shoot if I see something to shoot at like a groundhog. I have missed a few of them over the seven years we have been here.

Tanya say's "Maybe you should shoot more" (Bless her heart)
It's the truth I have lost some of my shooting ability and I would love to shoot more but with the price of ammo I can't shoot as much as I would like.

My point is: Skills deteriorate, keep them honed if you think you will need them.
I have a small shooting range set up from a get together I had at the place in August.
I plan on using it on a regular basis with all different types of guns. (Rifle,Pistol, Shotgun)

A word on safety.
Teach your children well.
There was a man and his grandson at the shoot on Saturday.
The man was shooting at one station and the grandson at the one next to him.
The grandson was having trouble with his gun and the grandpa was over helping him out.
The grandpa turned to go back to his shooting station and swept us all with the muzzle of his loaded gun. After the official rounds were over they were lined up again to shoot and the grandson fired a round into the ground pointed right in our direction. It hit five feet in front of him but he should never of been facing our direction with a loaded gun. Even though the grandfather had modeled the behavior it was wrong. All ended well and no one was hurt but it could easily of been bad.

About eight years ago I was camping in Colorado with a guy and his family I had met at Frugals web site. He had two young boys and we were shooting his MAK90. He had just bought it and wasn't very familiar with it. He was done shooting and was trying to remove the magazine when BAAAM! he hit the trigger instead of the magazine release.

He had the muzzle pointed in a safe direction and the round went downrange. We were very shaky after that though. It was a teaching point for his boy's , we were able to point out "Thats why you always keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction"

Shooting skill is like any other use it or it gets bad. Someone pointed out on Saturday "It's not like riding a bike" I would have to agree.
Randy

4 comments:

RFD America said...

So many times we tell ourselves,"I could do it if I had to." That may be true; but could we do it well if circumstances demanded it? Probably not.

Randy's post about his shooting skills becoming rusty made me think about some of the skills that I've allowed to go unused for much too long.

I have fallen into the habit of ignoring my morning meditations and supplications. Heck, it's just praying. I could do it if I had to.

The thing is, prayer requires a certain amount of grace, that kind of grace that comes from being in the presence of God everyday.

When we let prayer go by the wayside, that grace we have learned to come into the presence of God with wears thin, and when that happens, our prayers and devotions don't hit their mark.

I'm with you Randy; time to focus.

Bright Blessings,

Jerri

Randy Augsburger said...

Thank you Jerri for taking this post to a higher level.
Randy

Jerry T said...

Randy, I'm a first time visitor. I was just reading about your lack of practice versus the rising cost of ammo. Some good friends of mine and myself have taking up reloading. I was hooked on this new hobby immediately. We share the cost of equipment and reloading components. Now we can shoot our custom ammo, with better accuracy than anything off the shelf and with a little research, we can save a worthy amount of money. It takes time to hand load but, its a good excuse to get together to load and then hit the range. Just remember to track your loads. I'm trying to prepare for the times ahead in every way I can think of. It's hard to feed the family if you can't hit anything. Do you know the indian word for, "bad hunter?" Vegetarian. God bless, I'll be touch.

Jerry T.

Randy Augsburger said...

Jerry
Good advice.
I have been a reloader since I was a kid. Between dad and I we can reload untold number of rounds.
Randy