So Proud

I truly am. Proud.

Saucy Trollop went to the range with me on Sunday to test out her new XD40 purchase. Her accuracy improved when she stopped listening to me about her grip and just listened to me about trigger squeeze.

Well, on Tuesday she went to the range. Alone. By herself. Solo. She didn’t even tell me about it. WONDERFUL.

She says she shot well. So I need photographic evidence to share with you readers. All both of you.

And she ran into problems.

First, she is short. Altitudinally challenged. She cannot reach the little clip to attach her targets to. Luckily, range folk tend to be polite, helpful folk. Plus she’s a girl. She was able to secure assistance with that, no problem. (Short men could get the same assistance, but that would require they ask for help. Trollop asked, too.)

She had never operated the switch to send the target downrange, so the range officer had to demonstrate that. Once you do that once, you know how to do it forever, so that issue is resolved.

The range has a minimum distance you must push the targets out to. It’s the house rules. She wasn’t familiar with that. Again, the nice range officer told her to send the target out to the line on the floor, and everyone was happy.

Her final issue was a malf. Her first. She got a click when she expected a bang. She notices the chamber indicator was down and concluded that she had a FTF. Failure to feed. She did the malf drill, Tap-Rack-Bang, but still nothing. Chamber indicator still down. So she asked for help. The range officer gave it a good rack and it fed. No further problems.

Now, not being there, I have to guess. I am guessing she limp-wristed the grip and that’s why it failed to chamber a round. As for correction of the malfunction, I am guessing that she didn’t rack the slide back far enough to strip off the next round. So, two easy things to work on. One: grip a little firmer to avoid the limp-wristing effect. The spring in an XD is pretty stout and it needs a stable grip to work the action properly. Also, that stout spring makes it harder to rack, to correct the problem. I know she can get the slide locked back when she wants to. We/she will dry ‘fire’ practice more to get her used to pulling the slide ALL the way back. Alternatively, if it happens again, she can take the magazine out, take her time locking the slide back, and the load and fire like usual. Easy peasey.

She’s becoming a gun enthusiast. Today is her payday. This is where she starts putting a few $20s into a stash for her Colt Anaconda…

Did I mention how proud I was?


Here is her target. Shot at the top 2. 25 feet. Very good.