The Wandering Minstrel

We went to the range today for our weekly target practice. We took three handguns with us: “Jerry Lee,” my .357 magnum revolver, “Little Boy,” my Glock 26 9mm pistol and The Better Half’s unnamed S&W 908S 9mm pistol. We shot 50 rounds of .38 special and 100 rounds of Luger 9mm parabellum ammo.

Video - The Better Half shooting “Jerry Lee.”

Now that we’re getting back to shooting on a regular basis, we can see ourselves improving after the long period of not shooting while we were building and getting moved in to our new house. The Better Half put a nice group of rounds on the small target at the top of the stand and I got three or four rounds out of 10 within two inches of the center of the big target. The other rounds were all in the black. We were shooting at a distance of about seven yards.

Before heading to the range last Friday for target practice, we stopped at the Gun Trader to renew our family membership to the Wickenburg Sportsmen’s Club. The renewal was quick and practically painless; we filled out the application and signed the waiver forms and paid our $75 2012 family membership fee. We used to pay about $400 for two yearly memberships at the indoor range near our old house in California. We like this range better at less than one-fifth of the price.

There is another CCW class coming up a week from Monday that will include a range orientation refresher for members. We’re planning to attend and ask some questions about some of the bays and how to use them, where to get target stands and so forth. We’re looking forward to participating.

The Better Half and I have made an early New Year’s resolution; we will be going to the range on Fridays (weather permitting). We were there two Fridays ago but missed last week doing pre-Christmas chores. We went today and had a great time.

Clickable Image - A Great Day at the Range

We brought our 9mm and .357 guns today. The Better Half brought her S&W 908S 9mm pistol while I brought both “Little Boy” and “Jerry Lee,” my Glock 26 pistol and S&W 686 revolver, respectively. In the image above, she is shooting “Little Boy” and I am getting ready to shoot her 608. We each shot about 50 rounds of 9mm and we both shot about 50 rounds of .38 special ammo. We stayed about an hour at the range before heading back to our nice little house.

We went to the range yesterday and afterwards cleaned our guns, as usual. Before we started, I posed “Rosie,” my Smith & Wesson .38 special 442 J-frame revolver on the felt workbench cloth and snapped this nice photo (if I do say so myself). Clickable image.

Clickable images - the 25 yard range shortened to seven

The Better Half and I finally made time to go to our Sportsmen’s Club today. We took up residence on the 25 yard pistol range for some badly needed practice with our carry weapons. TBH practiced with “Rosie,” her S&W .442 38 special revolver. I practiced with “Fat Man,” my Glock 30 .45 compact semi-auto pistol. We walked out on the range to a distance of about seven yards from the silhouette target.

We looked in the archives and found out that we have not been out shooting since June 30, 2010, much to our embarrassment. We had a good, albeit brief, outing today and it was a lot of fun, so we’ll be back to the range sooner than later. Next time, we’ll bring some other guns from the arsenal. We chose the carry guns today just to get some rounds through them and regain the “feel” of shooting our every-day carry guns.

Last week I got John Lott’s “More Guns Less Crime” in the mail. I have not started on the book yet, but plan to read it over the next couple of weeks.

We read Dr. Lott’s blog on a daily basis and read his articles in the media from time to time. He has an easy-to-read style and we get a lot of information about politics, guns and more from his conservative viewpoint.

This latest edition of More Guns has an additional ten years of case data since the initial published book. I look forward to getting more information about this interesting topic.

I was out surfing the internet today and ran across this interesting event at the Muskogee Gun Club. According to the event description, zombies will be overrunning the pistol range. It’s a free event offered to the public. While folks are shooting zombies, kids can shoot their pellet guns or .22 caliber rifles. There will be instruction for the kids on handling firearms. Both activities are free. What a neat way to celebrate the Halloween season! Clickable image.

These signs are posted at the WSC shooting range. “PLEASE HELP KEEP OUR RANGE SAFE AND CLEAN” and “BEND AT THE ASS PICK UP YOUR BRASS - OK.” When we watched the action pistol shoot the other day, folks were indeed bending to get the brass. There is a repository for spent brass at the rear of each range station. We have seen a range or two where brass literally is the ground cover. We’ll do our part to keep this place safe and clean. Clickable image courtesy TBH.