Perhaps we should discuss guns.
Let’s start off with a link I found on a blogosphere walkabout on the subject of gun oils. Interesting. In my emergency supplies, I have stashed a couple of tubes of lithium grease and a quart of a synthetic motor oil. I figured they would be better than nothing if things went really bad.
I’ll also note there are a number of products out there (FIREClean is the latest I’m auditioning) that do seem to be designed by gunnies for gunnies, if the advertising can be believed. I’ve seen others but don’t recall the names. If you do, leave me a comment.
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Took a trip to the range yesterday. This one was a special trip, requested by a young lady and her new husband in order to introduce said young lady to firearms and her husband to something larger than the .22 LR cartridge. Therefore we took everything from a .22 revolver and .22 semiauto through the .38 Special, the 9mm and the .45 ACP plus an Evil-15. I left the high capacity assault pressure cooker at home, figuring we didn’t want to over do things.
Young Lady was a bit hesitant, despite having requested the trip. Even though she grew up around firearms, she is somewhat timid around them. It turns out that she is rather timid about many things, ranging from driving to loud noises and a cat walking by her. It seems odd given her gregarious nature, but it is what it is.
We were able to work around it to some extent. We started off with the .22 revolver, but she had some problems with the proper grip and quite honestly couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with it. I switched off to the .22 semi and we had better luck, but even after several versions of how to aim properly (including visual aids) she was still not doing so well. Part of that had to be that we had went in mid afternoon, and the sun was facing toward us. The bigger part was that she was squeezing her eyes shut as she squeezed the trigger.
That problem somewhat solved, I moved her from the 8″ hanging plates over to some large (about torso sized) hanging plates. I figured that a easier to hit target that gonged better under the impact of the .22 might help her out from an enjoyment standpoint. After all, the goal here was to introduce her to firearms and show her that shooting is enjoyable, not to turn her into Ninja Self-Defense Goddess in one lesson.
At that point, she started doing dramatically better. She began keeping her eyes open (most of the time, anyway) and began hitting well over half of her targets. As she gained confidence, she started shooting target sequences, moving from left to right and back again. Doing this, she finished off the 250 or so rounds of .22 I had brought along. I just smiled at her and told her that age old wisdom I received many years ago and that has stood me well in any number of areas where the female of the species is involved.
“Always leave them wanting more.”
Her husband, on the other hand, required very little in the way of training. Some work on proper sight picture and grip and he was off to the races. He tried everything that was brought along and seemed to enjoy it all.
All in all, it cost me around $100 (current cost) in ammo and I view it as money well spent. Perhaps not two more hard core shooters, but at least two people who now realize that guns are fun. Mission accomplished.
