One of my favorite things to do on this planet is to send some type of projectile downrange and try to hit something with it, as accurately as possible. I'm always shooting a slingshot, kid's crossbow, throwing knives, shooting my compound bow, or trying to find the maximum effective range of my own absurdities. It's always a challenge for me, because I am NOT a "natural" shooter of any type. I have run across the natural born shooters quite often over the years of my life, and I do envy them. Those are the ones who have never shot anything, pick up a rifle and whammo, they cannot miss. No training or anything, they just hit whatever they aim at like it's no big deal. I'm not that guy.
Historically speaking, I fall right in line with Ralphie (of The Christmas Story fame). It all started about the same time that movie actually came out, although I had no clue because I didn't see it for the first time until I was in my 20's. Sometime around '82 or '83 when I was but a wee lad of 7-9 yrs old, my older sister and husband were stationed in the great state of Texas and invited us to visit for Christmas. I was pretty young back then, but I can still remember going out with my brother-in-law and his father with some guns and soda cans and experiencing my first impromptu shooting session.
LJ, my brother in law, brought out a 12ga pump, a .357 Magnum revolver, and an old BB gun. I'm here to tell ya, when you're 7 or 8 yrs old, a big pump shotgun is really freaking intimidating. Flames shoot a foot and a half out of the barrel, it's loud as hell, and it will shred a soda can into pieces with one shot. (Maybe this is where my love of the pump 12ga comes from??) LJ called it "his BB gun". I guess because birdshot is so much like BB's. LJ swears up and down that I shot the pump once, but I can't remember doing it. I can remember shooting the BB gun, though, and I was HOOKED.
That summer I began attending our local YMCA summer day camp. Monday through Friday during the week, the Sr. Camp Counselor, Jamie, would swing by and pick me up at the house in her convertible VW bug and we would drive the whopping 5 miles out to the "camp" pavilion and grounds in Kinser Park. The campers got into groups with their respective counselor and did their daily "camp" stuff. We got to shoot bow and arrows, Red Rider BB guns, canoeing was a biggie since we were right on Davy Crockett Lake, arts & crafts in the pavilion, lunch, and almost every day we did a 1 mile hike through the woods (when we were lucky) or on the dirt/gravel road over to the pool where we learned to swim and, as we progressed, even learned basic life guarding skills. Fridays were always special because we would typically go creek hiking in Horse Creek and swimming at the dammed-in swimming hole there. Then we would do an awards ceremony where we would get ribbons for the things that we did well at. I don't think that I ever got an award for shooting bow&arrow or bb guns. Sexy Rexy and Bubba were the dead ringers every week for those. My fortes were always creek hiking and swimming, NOT marksmanship of any kind, so I digress.
I really wanted a BB gun of my own. There was 1 kid in my neighborhood, Doug, and he was a year older than me, but he had one. Like Ralphie, I begged, pleaded, prayed, and everything that I could do to get my own. Mom and Dad were dead set against it. We weren't a "gun" family. No firearms in the house, no weaponry at all, save some power tools and the knife block in the kitchen. I think that my good old brother in law, LJ, played a large part in my BB gun. If I am not mistaken, he had to beg, plead, pray, and probably offer many concessions to my parents, but he and my sis somehow managed to get me a Daisy lever action repeater for Christmas and a couple tubes of ammo. LIFE WAS GOOD!
No soda can was safe. I would dent the crap out of them, sometimes even put a hole into it. Looking back, I'm sure that I annoyed anyone within range with constant "chick chick, bmmp, tink". I was crafty, too. I was always hoping the BB went into the can since there wasn't enough power to go all the way through. I could get 2, sometimes 3 shots out of the BBs when they ended up IN the can.
A funny thing happened, though. One day I was out front with Doug and my older brother (+12yrs) Jimmy. Doug and I were plinking the mailbox as we were prone to do, Jimmy came out and was talking to us in the street (rarely any traffic on our little road) and sure enough, Doug somehow pulled the trigger, with his muzzle down in a "safe" position, the BB ricocheted off of the street and hit me in the right eye. He was standing not 5 feet from me. Freak accident, but by golly I got hit in the eye with a flippin BB. I was crying, Doug was crying, Jimmy was trying to calm us both down and check me out. DAMAGE CONTROL!! My eye was ok, Doug's pride was completely smashed because he was always trying to be super-safe with his BB gun, and in his defense, the barrel WAS pointed down and if we'd have been on grass it never would have happened. So Jimmy did damage control, my eye was fine, no blood, no foul. All good. Sweep that one under the rug, only to come out 29 years later.
In the summer between 5th grade and 6th grade I attended a week long Bible camp away from home, in the woods of western North Carolina. The camp was called "The Wilds" and was somewhat promoted by the Baptist Christian elementary school that I attended before middle school. That week was quite possibly the worst week EVER. The ONLY saving grace (pardon the pun) for me that week was getting the opportunity to shoot my first true rifle. I'm not sure what brand or anything, but it was a .22 bolt-action single shot with a wood stock. I still remember being on the firing line with tears in my eyes. In order to do stuff, we had to memorize Bible verses. Lots of them.
I was having a very tough time at that camp, and it started from the very moment I got there, before I even met the first person. I had gotten out of the car and watched my Dad drive off, turned around and was standing by the big pond/lake and was immediately struck square between the eyes by a God Damned rock (I can say that because I was at a southern baptist retreat camp and that rock WAS damned By God..so I'm not taking the Lord's name in vain, I'm just stating the facts). That thing dropped me to the ground just like Goliath. That was the beginning of my Baptist summer camp experience at The Wilds. It never improved, the entire week that I was there. Jumping forward a couple of days and I'm supposed to be memorizing Bible verses that I'd never heard of before. Keep in mind that I'd been in a southern Baptist Christian elementary school since I was 4....I knew some verses. Regardless, I couldn't remember anything, probably due to a mild concussion, so I wasn't getting to do ANYTHING. The biggest highlight for me was the fact that I'd get to shoot an actual rifle on an actual range, but I was being denied because I couldn't memorize the verses. I was trying, I really was. I guess the counselor in charge took a little bit of pity in my plight because he could tell that I was trying but having trouble and could see that I was big time distraught. I didn't get to spend a lot of time on the range due to the whole "keep trying to memorize the appointed verses" thing, but I did get to shoot a little bit with the rifle and that, in itself, was a small highlight that I can still remember to this day, so many years later.
My next step up from my trusty Daisy repeater came around 1986 or 7. Gwen and LJ were stationed in what was then, West Germany. Berlin was still split, with soldiers on both sides of the wall, locked and loaded, and minefields between them. An assault through Fulda Gap was a major concern and the USAF had airbases around Germany loaded with A-10 Warthogs. Tank busters. The ultimate fixed wing Close Air Support platform. Sis was command post, eventually NCOIC and LJ was an SP, base Security Police. They took a little weekend trip over to Berlin to the areas that were "OK for US Personnel" and took advantage of an awesome exchange rate for some shopping. The only trick to shopping that area was communism. You had to stand in line for just about anything. If they ran out before your turn, too freakin bad. I love 'murica! Anyhow, they spotted some pretty sweet air rifles with a short line and managed to purchase TWO of them. I'm not 100%, but something tells me that they spent a whopping $14 or $15 each for them with the exchange rate at the time. LJ got one, and I guess they sweet talked my parents into letting ME have one for my birthday as well since I was doing so well with my BB gun (remember, DAMAGE CONTROL! haha).
Haenel 303, break-barrel, spring piston, single shot, .177 (4.5 kal), pellet rifle. Manufactured in Suhl, GDR. That's the eastern bloc, commie red, German Democratic Republic. Nothing Democratic or Republic about communism, but I won't get off topic again so soon. One thing is for certain though, Haenel made a SWEET pellet rifle and I still love mine to this day. It shoots somewhere in the neighborhood of 600-650 feet per second. That's one heck of a step up from a smooth barrel 250 fps BB gun. I learned something VERY quickly with that air rifle. A 600+ f.p.s. lead pellet will go through both sides of a soda can. It will also go through a steel mail box. For fear of more self-incrimination, I shall stop right there. It's a sweet shooter for a 14-15 up to 125 yr old. It's fairly easy to cock, about 22 lbs. of force needed. Push a pellet into the breech, swing the barrel closed, CHECK BEHIND YOUR TARGET, take aim, squeeze the trigger, and you will probably hit what you are aiming at. If it is rather small and fuzzy or has feathers, you'll kill it. 'nuf said.
See Firearms Safety Rule #2.
So we have progressed into the mid-80's and I have another family that lives pretty close by that somewhat "adopted" me. I call them one of my alternate "southern" families. I have a couple of them. My running buddy, Eric, his dad Allen, mom Sandy, and older sister Kelley. Allen was a professional gun slinger. He was paid to carry. In his off duty time, he was (and still is, to some extent) a gun trading, sport shooting, and hunting anything kind of guy. He is 100% safety and an awesome shot with whatever you put into his hand. Same thing with Eric, who grew up in that environment. When most kids were learning to shoot a red rider, Eric was shooting clays one day for trophies and the next was grouping tighter groups than the adults with his rifles for a frozen turkey. Both of them were in the woods or fields and hunting on a fairly constant basis.
Eric eventually got me into doing some hunting with him occasionally on their family lands when I was probably 14 or 15. It seemed like I was always having to borrow our buddy's shotgun, though. Eric and Allen both have a really nice Rem 1100. Me NO TOUCH! They also both have beautiful single shot bolt action rifles that have been in their family for eons. Me NO TOUCH! (I did get to shoot the rifles every once in a blue moon when Eric would do some zero confirmation in the basement with a bullet trap, and I think I got some 1100 trigger time once in a while when Eric would feel sorry for me having to use a borrowed shotgun, hehe.) So anyhow, Mom and Dad realized that I was having to borrow Clay's shotgun all the time, and I mean ALL the time. You couldn't keep me and Eric from going somewhere to do some shooting. Shells were cheap, time was easy, we loved to shoot. Amen.
Christmas rolls around and I received a Winchester 1300 Ranger, 12 ga pump chambered for 3" magnums. 28" vent ribbed barrel, 3 chokes, walnut stock and pump grip. I named her "Chester". That's short for "Chester the whatever it shoots Molester". Wal-Mart had them at a really nice price way back in 1991. I think Dad liked the idea of having a 12ga pump around the house, too. It's funny how that goes when security comes to mind. Getting that shotgun was a ticket to disappear into the mountains any chance I could get. Our younger best buddy, Will, had just gotten his DL and a really good 4wd truck, so off to the mountains we went and if you needed us, that's where you could track us down. This was way before cell phones.
I knew I was going into military service from a very early age. Gwen was in the Air Force for over a decade, her first husband was AF, and LJ retired from the AF. My brother was a Navy mine man for a while...but my heart was really the Air Force's. To make a long story short, I joined the AF while still in high school, delayed entry. Left for San Antonio but before I could catch my flight they found a hole in my ear drum from tubes when I was a kid that hadn't healed properly. I wanted to be a PJ/CCT which entails jumping out of airplanes and locking out of submarines. Not with a big ole hole in my ear, so I was sent home. Got my ear fixed, then joined the Army. The AF didn't seem to care if I got my ear fixed or not, but the Army was interested, so I went.
What do I like to do? Shoot. What did I do in the Army? Infantry, huah! There is no better job on the planet for anyone who likes to shoot than to join the Infantry. It isn't easy, it's certainly not for everyone, but by golly THEY PAY YOU TO SHOOT. They pay you to shoot all kinds of awesome weapons. It is the freakin BOMB. Hell, you get to play with bombs, too! If you can handle the 98% of the other stuff that goes along with it....which entails a lot of sleep deprivation, long and heavy marches, LOTS of physical training, and living life IN the elements. For a guy like me, I couldn't believe they actually PAID us to do it, but that's just me.
Infantry is just different than anything else you can do in the Military. All Marines like to think they are all infantry because they do more rifle stuff in "basic" training than the rest of the branches of service do. Talk to a true Infantry Marine and they'll tell you different. By the time I was finished with my Army Infantry training, I had spent A LOT of time on the range with an assortment of weapons systems. In those days it consisted of the M16a2, M249 SAW, M60, M203 grenade launcher, and AT-4 rockets which have "training" devices that shoot 9mm tracer rounds. We shot all day, all night, in just about any position against paper targets, pop up targets, moving targets, static targets, etc. It was lock n load, full tilt boogie, hard core automatic weaponry and LOTS of it. Trigger time galore. Banzai! Heck, that was just basic and advanced training!!
It was pretty funny because there were a few guys from my training platoon that got stationed with me in Germany for our first duty post. We were all sitting together after a long night of boozing it up, waiting for orders to come down for us. Our discussion was something like this. "Berlin Brigade, that's the only place for light infantry in Germany any more, we'd be in Italy or Spain if we were going to any units in those countries....so on and so forth. We all had our hopes set on the Berlin Brigade....they were set to deploy to Bosnia within months, the year was 1993. It was not to be. The clerks got the orders and started laughing at us in a sly kind of way. "heh heh heh, no Berlin Brigade for you guys, you're going straight to hell." We were clueless, "What do you mean by that? What unit, where?" "Ever heard of Hohenfels?" "Nope" "It's an OPFOR unit, you guys are going to be field bitches playing wargames all the time, it's hell." "HUAH FUCK YEAH HUAH HUAH HUAH!" (Sorry for the language, it's an actual quote). We were stoked, it was better than we'd all hoped. We were gonna get paid to go play wargames ALL the time. Not just some of the time, ALL of the time. It was why we signed up. We all wanted to be GI Joe. You don't join the Infantry without a huge chip on your shoulder, a lot of "drive on" and a whole lot of "Huah" deep in your soul. It was a gift from the heavens. If we can't get deployed with Berlin Brigade, we can play Army laser tag ALL THE TIME and get paid for it. How cool is that?
Depends on your idea of cool. Regardless, it was the beginnings to a lot of fun, some extremely hard and sucky times, a lot of great friends, and a lot of learning about myself. And a lot of shooting. Over the years I managed to shoot expert every time I qualified with my M16a2 with the exception of the very first time. I missed it by 1 shot on my first try, but I was ok with that. There weren't many "Expert" qualifications, a few, but not many. I managed to get top status on everything I could get my hands on, but my baby was the Pig. The M60 is "The Pig". 28 pounds of belt fed 7.62 full auto love. Yummmmmy! I would hump that thing 15 miles to put 800 rounds down range. Oh...how I loved being a pig gunner. I spent time with the other weapons as I did different things. I did some scout sniper stuff, so I got to trade off between the m24 and the m16a2/m203 under it depending on the mission and my position that mission. I carried the a2 as a team leader and a-gunner, carried the pig, carried the 203 as a team leader. Packed an m9 Beretta on occasion. Shot just about everything there is to shoot, all the way up to 25mm chain guns, TOW missles, and that big sumbitch sticking out of the end of an M1a1 Abrams tank, the 120mm smoothbore. I got lucky doing some ammo duty one time for the tankers during their weapons density and they let me up into their tank to pull the trigger on a sabot one time since they didn't have to wait on their ammo at all. I had it there and ready to load for them and they thought it was great.
I haven't shot them all. Not even close, but I've shot a lot more than most folks on the planet. There's not many weapons that I have NOT liked. The m249 is one of the ones that I do NOT prefer. I really like to shoot it, don't get me wrong, but as far as carrying one in an infantry patrol, nope. Hate it. It's a personal opinion. I don't like the way it works with my body while in transit. The balance was wacky for me, it was noisy to carry unless you did 83 things to make it quiet, which in turn made it WORSE for me to deploy. I just didn't care for it a whole lot and thankfully didn't get assigned to one during my time in service. Some guys love it more than chocolate but it's one of the rare few that just wasn't a good fit for me.
I eventually ended up as a Cav Scout Instructor at Ft. Knox, KY. Funny thing, being a grunt and having to cross train and teach the scouts. If you don't kow, there's a wee bit of rivalry between the two corps. The Scouts seem to think that they do everything the Infantry does and the Infantry thinks the Scouts are REMFing POGS. That's slang for slackers and non-hackers in the rear guarding the gear. As an instructor I spent a lot of time on the range and with the cadre as a teacher. I honestly believe that you learn more by teaching than by being taught. You become a "true" expert at things when you teach them. They ingrain into your brain a lot deeper. Information embeds into your long term memory and become a part of you. Sadly, a lot of that brown round wearing, army swearing, half-right face drop and gimme 50! tends to stick with me, too.
As a brown round, walking the firing line with newbies on the rifles and a range paddle in hand, it's loud, earplugs are in, and you are a safety director. When there's 30-50 guys on-line, weapons hot, things like muzzle discipline take on a whole new meaning. My wife and her friend get nervous when they have their pistols out at the house on our "backyard range" because when the weapons are hot, I'm in overdrive. I'm in hawk mode, eyes sharp, looking to beat someone across the head with a range paddle for screwing up the safety and endangering others...at least that's how THEY see it. I wish it weren't that way, but they are probably right. They are amateurs and I'm used to being around professionals who have excellent muzzle discipline and it comes through in my demeanor. It sucks, but I don't want to lose a family member to stupidity, either. My poor nephew caught my wrath about muzzle discipline with his airsoft guns on more than one occasion. Those things are full-auto and shoot over 300 fps. I did NOT want a stray to hit my little 2yr old or 11yr old daughter. He wants to be a grunt some day, he needs to learn the RIGHT way to carry arms, airsoft or mickey-mouse rifle. I don't care. Safety first in my A.O. at all times or I will bring down scunyon upon you.
These days I get my kicks shooting our current blend of firearms whenever I get the chance. I've got a little Ruger LCP .380 which is easy to sit on all day without losing any comfort. It's purely a tight-spot getter-outer. Snappy recoil for such a wee cricket. The wife has what I consider to be one of the best shooting pistols (for me) that I've ever laid hands on, the Ruger SR9c. It's like taking the handling and accuracy of a Glock and mixing it with the controls of a Beretta 92/96. I flat out love the thing. I also have a Hi Point 9c which doubles as a brick due to its weight, but shoots surprisingly well. Handles ok, easy controls, and pretty doggone accurate. Best budget pistol out there, hands down. (I actually am giving thought to picking up the Hi Point Carbine in 9mm, at some point in the future, which shares ammo/magazines with the 9c). My "fun" gun is my little Mossberg 702 Plinkster. It's an auto-loading, magazine fed (10rd+1), rifle chambered in .22lr. I topped it off with a scope but actually prefer the iron sights even though I think they could use a little "work" as in changing the rear sights. haha. It's more accurate than I am, which makes it a fabulous little rifle to kick around with. The wife and oldest daughter love to shoot it as well. Best $109 that I've ever spent on a rifle. I also recently picked up my latest project, a Weatherby Vanguard chambered in 7mm Rem Mag and topped off with a mil-spec fixed 10x42 mil dot scope with milrad turrets. This ain't your daddy's deer gun. I'm designing it to be an extreme long range precision platform, currently in its infancy and doing the break-in process.
Did I mention that I still own the Haenel 303 and "Chester"? I still own my Daisy, too. Dad has been "borrowing" it for the past quarter century, though. I should give some thought to getting it back at some point because I guarantee that my oldest would love to shoot it at cans. I recently restored my Haenel and am spending a LOT of time with it.
Why spend a lot of time with an air rifle, you ask? If you're still reading this then your curiosity is unwavering and I applaud your patience with my rambling tangents that I have a tendency to run off on. Air rifles similar to mine are relatively quiet to shoot. They are a hair louder than a Red Rider. It makes as much sound hitting the target as it does in the spring action within the receiver. They do make some really awesome nitro-piston pellet rifles these days that are NOT quiet. They shoot so hard that the pellet breaks the sound barrier and you get a nice sonic "crack" out of them. Not exactly the sound my young daughter wants to hear when she's in bed. In bed?? You shoot that late? Ahhhh ye of little faith, my 600fps air rifle and I spend a LOT of time under the lights of my carport shooting groups and playing little games.
The biggest ticket when it comes to shooting a spring piston air rifle is that the recoil is NOT to the rear, just the opposite. The spring pushes the piston towards the barrel of the rifle, compressing air from the size of a .50 cent piece into a 1/8" hole which transfers into the back of the pellet, called the "skirt". This propels the pellet into the rifling, twisting and accelerating it down the barrel, eventually reaching that 600-650 fps mark as it leaves the crown. As that piston surges forward under the pressure of the spring, it eventually has to stop and it does this with a big cushion of trapped air that is trying to escape the cylinder by way of the transfer port. The energy forward with the fast stopping motion is what "recoils" the gun forwards. It's not much of a movement, but it's noticeable depending on how you hold the rifle.
When shooting an air rifle, your fundamentals have to be in top shape for tight groups. Whatever you do with a .22 rifle for accuracy, you have to concentrate and double it with a sub-sonic air rifle. This is due to the speed of the pellet through the barrel. In a firearm, even subsonic .22lr, the projectile is out of the barrel a LOT quicker than with a 600-650 fps projectile. When the projectile spends that much time travelling the length of the barrel, any little thing that you do can affect where that barrel ends up being pointed as the pellet leaves the muzzle, which in turn affects your point of impact.
To be really accurate with an air rifle, forget about a supported bench rest. I cannot get ANY accuracy while bench rested due to that forward recoil thing going on. I have learned that a lot of "springers" act this way. What you need to do is rest the stock in your hand gently. This is called the "artillery" hold, which is a moniker given by the great Tom Gaylord "aka B.B. Pelletier" who is one of THE gurus of everything air gun. He's forgotten more about shooting than most of us will ever learn, but you'll never hear that from him. He's THAT good of a guy and modest as well. Anyhow, just doing the artillery hold won't suffice. Most springers have a certain spot to "hold" that achieves their best consistency. They are all different, so you have to do some experimentation to find that sweet spot. My Haenel shoots best when I rest the stock at the very end in the palm of my hand and actually cup my fingers up towards the barrel, actually touching the charging lever.
Once you find the sweet spot, you need to find the ammo/pellets that your rifle prefers for consistent accuracy. "Consistency" is an odd thing with spring piston rifles. They have fps variances for literally every shot, and sometimes within a group of 15 or 20 shots you could have variances of 20 or even 30 feet per second within those shots. Depending on the distance you are shooting, it can make for some challenging shooting. Another caveat to air-gunning is typically a heavy trigger pull. There are some really nice and light triggers out there that helps eliminate this issue (somewhat), but mine doesn't have one and the thing must have an 8 lb pull. It is a real bear, but it actually HELPS me to concentrate more on my squeeze than anything else.
If you don't put a lot of focus into your trigger squeeze with an air rifle, you are going to push/pull and be all over the place. You might not notice it much with a .22 or larger firearm, but with that pellet taking so long to travel the barrel, it shows you IN SPADES how bad you really squeeze. Heavy triggers necessitate making your squeeze a true art form. Remember that the fps won't affect your left/right traversing on the target, only the vertical point of impact. If you are typically "on the money" and end up shooting to the right a lot, chances are good that you are pulling your trigger ever so slightly. In an air rifle it is an embarrassing miss waaaaay off into right field. I get embarrassed by a miss like that even when I'm the only one present.
A decent pellet rifle will typically set your wallet back by about $100-$150. You can spend $5000 for an Olympic blah blah blah with blah blah blah on it. enjoy! Not me. I would guess that my old Haenel is on par with the rifles in the $100-$150 range as far as speed and accuracy. With ammunition prices for the firearms rising like they have been, purchasing a boat load of pellets for less than ten bucks that you can enjoy shooting in your back yard without disturbing the neighborhood too much. Heck, you can shoot it in the house if you have a pellet trap (pending your FPS or selection of pellet are ok for traps). That makes for a whole lot of shooting fun and trigger time that you actually have to make sure your fundamentals are spot on for good accuracy. $150 for a lifetime of shooting enjoyment at sometimes less than 1 cent per shot?? Sign me up. My air rifle is a testament to the longevity of a quality built air rifle. The only thing I've had to do to it is re blue the metal works, clean and re-lubricate the internals ONCE in 25 years.
As a concluding statement, your targets can be as cheap or elaborate as you prefer. I like to mix and match. Last night my oldest was drawing silly faces with "accessories" and asking me to shoot certain points on them, like their tongue, eyes, etc. I drew a couple of stick figure people in "hostage" situation with only a gun and crescent moon silhouette of a head to shoot at. 25 feet away with an open sights pellet rifle. Challenging, fun, and inexpensive trigger time that hones my skills for when I get down and dirty with my other weapons that cost bigger money to shoot. My fundamentals will be that much sharper with every shot due to muscle memory and practice. How often to you get to practice YOUR fundamentals?
Hope you enjoyed my blurb about my personal shooting history, tangents, and side notes. Shooting is fun, trigger time is always well spent, but remember your safety first or I'll whack you with a paddle on the head and you probably won't be wearing a helmet like my trainees had to. ;)
