Fun day out at the range.

Recently I had a really fun day at the range. My Dad and I went to the Calverton rifle-pistol range out on Eastern Long Island. I hadn't been to this outdoor range in about 10 years or so. Since then, they have made it look a little nicer than I remember. We went on a weekday so it wasn't so packed... the shooters "ran the range" as there was no dedicated Range Officer.

I fired my 92FS and did poorly for some reason. I don't know what it is about that pistol, but I just can't use it nearly as well as the 1911. All that means is that I have to shoot it lots more (smiles). I left the 1911 at home that day but I brought the CX4 Storm. I'll say it again... that thing is ACCURATE. I had to shoot some stuff out at about 75 feet to make it fun. I was shooting a soda bottle someone left out at the far end of the handgun backstop. I even managed to tag it while it was tumbing through the air from a previous shot.

I guy from a few stalls over came and asked if he could try my Storm. He said he was thinking about buying one. I let him try it and he liked it. Then he offered to let me try his Bobcat, a clone of the HK MP5. I had been eyeing that thing since he got to the range and accepted his offer. The MP5 shoots 9mm pistol rounds and can be seen in movies like Lethal Weapon and any thing else where there are SWAT teams or Navy S.E.A.L.s fighting close quarters battles and shorty AR-15s / M16s are not suitable. Anyway, he had a bunch of stuff on this thing. He had some kind of long barrel and shroud, a vertical fore-grip, a light with pressure switch, an a $350 Trijicon ACOG reflex sight. The dot sight worked pretty well... but $350! I fired it well, but it had more recoil than I expected from 9mm rounds and felt like its internals were rattling around. Maybe all the attachments were vibrating or something. I also didn't like the vertical foregrip. It felt very foreign and tended to unbalance me a little. Still, it was a lot of fun. I wouldn't drop $1400 on that pistol caliber carbine though. Besides, I like my $700 Storm better.

The real fun was getting to shoot my Dad's M1 Garand. This rifle was used in WWII and the Korean War by American armed forces. It is a classic. It fires the Springfield 30.06 rifle round. My Dad had not taken it out in a while, but wanted me to try it as I was planning on purchasing a .30 caliber rifle (this one) and he wanted to see what I thought about a high power rifle round. You know what I thought? I loved it! It was a lot of fun to fire something out at a target 600 ft away and hit it. Actually, I was not shooting paper targets, but some leftover stuff people had placed out on the berm to shoot at. Using the iron peep sight setup I did pretty well. We had some problems with the cycling of the action. It wouldn't travel rearward far enough to eject a spent case, so i had to cycle it by hand. Seems the gas tube port was fouled. Nothing a little cleaning won't fix.

So I had a great day and am looking forward to the arrival of my DS Arms STG58 which I have since ordered. It is the Austrian version of the Belgian FN-FAL chambered in 7.62 x 51 NATO (or .308 Winchester, depending on what you'd like to call it). Yup... only 6-8 more weeks before I get it. I can make it... I can make it.