Back from rifle school

We're home after spending 4 days shooting in the Nevada desert. 'Chung and I drove with Susan, Eric's step-sister and met 'Chung's cousin, Dean there. Susan and Dean took a handgun class while 'Chung and I learned to shoot rifles.


We left early Thursday morning and drove all day. Friday morning we got to the school by 7 am and started the weekend with some basic instruction on how to handle the rifle. From there, we moved on to some basic shooting...at fairly close range (15-50 yards). Since this class was somewhat geared toward home defense, a lot of the drills (like shooting from 100, 200 and 400 yards) were fairly impractical. At the same time, it was great to see how effective a rifle can be compared to a handgun when it comes to accuracy over long distances.


Day one we didn't shoot a whole lot, but basically became comfortable with our respective firearms (there was also a machine gun class at the same time as our rifle and handgun courses). I think by the end of the day 'Chung and I had each shot about 12 bullets. My gun became very popular for instructor demonstrations. Between the unique paint jobs and the fact that our guns are 100% legal in CA (a rare thing for and AR-15) we had many people coming over from other ranges to check them out. Word spread very quickly about "the pink rifle".


The great thing about this class was the balance between learning to shoot and lectures/discussion regarding the use of deadly force. There are many issues involved which, I suspect, many gun owners don't even consider until confronted with a situation which might cause them to use their weapon. Having a plan ahead of time, and knowing under what conditions one is willing to use deadly force would help to avoid rash decisions as well as hesitation. For example, one of the things stressed throughout the weekend was that, in terms of self-defense, if something isn't worth dying for, it's not worth shooting for.


An example was used of a shark tank. If you dropped an expensive watch into a shark tank, you probably wouldn't jump in after it. If, however, your daughter fell into it, most people would not hesitate to jump in. Similarly, if a criminal is demanding money, or your car, or something equally replaceable, it's probably not worth shooting him over unless your life (or the life of another person) is also threatened. There are likely to be many other consequences...court battles, legal fees, damage to reputation...that follow as the result of even a justifiable use of a deadly weapon. The course emphasized time and again the value of avoiding situations in which you are forced to use the gun either by maintaining a high awareness of your surroundings (and therefore not walking into dangerous circumstances) or by finding a way out of a threat...run if you can, etc.


In terms of shooting, the instructors walked us through a variety of drills after we mastered safe handling of the rifle including shooting from various positions (sitting--my favorite, prone, kneeling, standing, squatting, etc.), various distances (from 3 yards all the way to 400 yards). We learned how to handle malfunctions, technique for zeroing the gun and compensating for the bullet rising or dropping at various distances, shooting at night with a flashlight, and using cover while shooting. Days 2 and 3 we went though a tactical simulator where we walked through a desert canyon and had to identify targets as either a threat or not, use our shooting stances and the brush as concealment and shoot the "bad guys".


On the last day we had a skills test to put together everything we had learned. After the test, 'Chung and I got to compete in a little shooting match and then practice some new techniques like shooting left-handed.


Sitting and shooting was a fairly stable position, and for me, faster than getting into the prone. By the end of the class I felt like I'd been doing squats all week from getting up and down while trying to keep the gun pointed in the right direction.


Standing is the least supported position, and really only effective for me closer than 50 yards especially if the wind is blowing (which it was the first two days at up to 50 mph and averaging 25-30 mph).





Here, we're shooting a target 400 yards (that's 4 football fields) away. What targets?? If you look at the first picture (below) with the blue barrels, you can see the target we're aiming for at the top right of the picture. It's the square steel target above the black silhouettes. They're really hard to see from 400 yards. The instructor sitting next to us is using binoculars to see where we hit and tell us how to compensate. After 3 adjustments, I finally made the 4th and 5th shots. I think 'Chung made 3 out of 4 shots, but he has a scope that magnifies 4x.



Here we are learning to be sneaky and shoot around cover at all of the black metal zombies that are trying to attack us.