Noob Range Report and...

I took the Random Harlot I've been dating to the pistol range on Black Friday. She did great with the rifles last summer.

I took the Saucy Trollop to the pistol range for a N00b shoot last Friday. Black Friday. That range has an attached gun store and they were VERY crowded. All the AR rifles that were on the wall a week after the election are now gone. They all had little sold signs on them in early November, just waiting for the 1 week waiting period to be up. At least 2 dozen rifles in the hands of free Americans just from that one store.

After a short wait for a lane the fun part began.

First up was for me to function test the new SIG P229 SAS with a DAK trigger. It works fine for me. I wasn't serious. My usual flaws were in evidence. I will go solo with it and see what I can do when I'm not teaching. Or 'teaching' as is this case. It's not quite the blind leading the blind, but.



Now I had taken Trollop shooting before, but with rifles at Hap Baker. She did well there, and loved the Garand most of all (so proud of her), so she had the firearm basics down. I made her memorize the 4 Rules months ago. And I had her do dry fire work at home on and off for weeks.

You usually like to start off a new shooter with a .22. I have no dedicated .22, so the 1911 took that duty with the .22LR conversion kit attached. After going back to the .22 later in the session I saw that she was most accurate more consistently with this.

Next up, the S&W 686 with .38 Special loaded. She learned how to swing out the cylinder and load it. When you are unfamiliar with a firearm that is something. Where to put your thumb on the release and where to put a finger to push out the cylinder are not instinctive when it is a borrowed gun. A gun you familiarized yourself with more extensively after purchasing and before your range trip. Same with figure out how

She did fine after I told her to concentrate on the front sight. Well, AFTER I told her to do that and still line up the rear sight. "Focus on the Front Sight" is a confusing term for the N00b. I explained that you line up the sights and the target like you normally would but that the front sight should be where the eyes focus. The rear sight may be a little blurry and the target definitely will be. Once she grocked that, the center of the silhouette was her domain. Like other new revolver shooters, she lost track of bullet count, so she fired on the 'seventh' round of six more often than not. She had a flinch. And was hitting low and left. So the next instruction was for more of a constant pull on Double Action and let the shoot surprise you. This helped her a LOT. Her trigger finger awareness discipline still needs some work. Especially on hair trigger single action. She cocks the hammer and the finger is already INSIDE the trigger guard. No serious damage would occur if she had discharged before she was ready. Just the ceiling down range a ways. Still.

Next up was for her to try the new SIG .40 caliber. She learned where the mag release was for this and many other semi-auto pistols. Her grip isn't perfect and I didn't harp on it. She has small hands and crosses her support hand thumb back over her shooting hand. There was no danger in getting hit by the slide that way so I let it go. I just wanted her to get used to shooting before fine tuning anything. And she was still hitting near the center of the paper.

I didn't convert the 1911 back to .45. Maybe next time she can try that.

Finally, the revolver with .357 magnum loaded. I demonstrated a couple so she'd see the flame and feel the difference in pressure (And damn I shoot that revolver pretty well. Even double action.) When it was her turn, I loaded just one round in the cylinder, just in case. My concern was unfounded. She loved the .357 shooting most of all and shot that the rest of the session when given the opportunity to choose her weapon. I asked her what her favorite was after the trip and she said the big round, "peels her panties." But you expect language like that from someone named Saucy Trollop.

She kept her main target. As a memento.

One thing. With my new SIG she had a FTE. Failure to eject. It stovepiped a casing. Uh-oh. I don't want a brand new gun to be imperfect. Now, I believe the major reason for a stovepipe is limp-wristing the shot. When I mentioned that, she wholly agreed that she was indeed holding it pretty loosely. And it served as a chance to teacher her the Tap-Rack-Bang method of malfunction recovery. Tap the magazine back into place in case it is loose, rack the slide to clear the ejector port and chamber of any problems, then pull the trigger. She took to that technique like a duck to water.

So, all in all a good piece of range time.





Here is her target. The holes past the right ear are her before she totally understood the 'focus on the front sight concept' All the other holes except the good head shots were her: