I have an 8 inch bruise running from my bicep to the top of my shoulder this morning. Yesterday when I woke up, I had never fired a tactical shotgun (or any gun for that matter). Turns out tactical shotguns have a bit of kick when fired with buckshot. If you ever need to put 5 rounds into an elk in under 2 seconds at close range, they are the way to go. Dangerous animal the elk, no respect for you're personal space. Its just that, if you are going to be sweeping any other elk out of dense urban environments, I suggest doing it all at once. Once the soarness sets in, just looking at the shotgun is enough to make me wince. I'm told thats when you need to shoot a bunch more, otherwise you'll never feel like shooting a shotgun again. B.F. Skinner knows what I'm talking about.We started the day with a .45 automatic, it wasn't my favorite. That might have to do with the fact that it was the first gun I ever shot and I didn't really know what the hell I was doing. From there we went to the 6" Ruger .357, it was a lot smoother than the 45. More kick I think, but I liked it. We also fired the 2" version of the same gun. The kind you carry, if youre the kind of person who carries guns. The 6" is more the size to keep in the passenger seat so you don't have to waste time getting to the 2" gun on your waist when you get incorrect change at the starbucks drivethrough (its a jungle out there folks).
Then we shot the afformentioned shotgun. It hurt to type that.
After that a Marlin "cowboy" style lever action rifle, which was a lot of fun. I shot that one a lot. Maybe not as deadly as a loaded six-string, but good for taking out starbucks cups from 50 yards.
After the lever action, it was time to try bolt action. Not sure exactly what model it was. Just a very light scoped rifle good for a day of hunting deer I suppose. I killed the Starbucks cup with my first shot on that rifle. Often times those cups don't give you a chance to get off a second shot, so I was fortunate.
How do you cap off a day that includes all those guns? How about millitary grade assault rifles! There were two of them. These are franken-guns made from a wide variety of interchangeable parts from many manufacturers so I can't be too specific. One was set up for .223 ammunition (don't really know what that means) and loaded with "special purpose" rounds. I think special purpose is a polite way to say you intend to hunt people. But I'm not sure. We didn't shoot that one much. The other, I don't know what it was loaded for, but we shot it a bunch. It had the military red dot sight on top, so you could just bring it up in front of your face real quick, get the dot in front of your eye, and pop off a round within 6" of what you were looking at. Almost no recoil. A video game gun. Lots of fun, and scary. Better get yours now while the Republicans are still in office. It will come in handy when the rapture arrives. Since you can't hunt real game with it, just "special purpose" game, you'll probably want to stock up on vittles too.
After all that, we four-wheeled to another spot and shot them all some more. For the record, Fu@% that shotgun. Shooting it the second time was like running the last six miles of a marathon. Thank god it was the 5 round model and not the 8 round model.
The point of all this, I'm going to go gun shopping soon (4" ruger .357 revolver probably, apparently Smith and Wesson's are yuppy guns, who knew. I wonder if you can get them in colors to match you're Volkswagen). The safety class has enough time on the range that combined with yesterday it should cover my Journal July requirements, and bonus!!1!!exclamationpoint, combined with minimal paperwork and a perfunctory background check, it will qualify me to carry a concealed weapon in the state of Oregon! Happy Birthday America!
