Jack was still on his break while I walked over to the firing range. The man there waved me over to the booth on the furthest left. Upon noticing I was heading to the firing range, all of the proctors put on a pair of heavy ear muffs and handed Jack a pair of his own. A pistol sat on a waist-height table. I handed the man there my paper, and he clipped it down.
“We’ll start here, then move to rifles, and finally to shotguns, do you understand?”
I nodded. Excited to shoot a gun.
“You have ten bullets. Once you begin you will fire the ten bullets into the target five yards from you. After the ten bullets are expended, you will reload with one of the clips there, and a new target will appear ten yards away. You will repeat this one more time, do you understand?”
“How do I reload?”
He picked up the gun, pushed a button near the clip, and it slid out. He slammed the clip in and pulled the top slide.
“Got it?”
“I do.”
“Good, now put on your ear muffs, and pick up the pistol. It will start as soon as you take a stance.”
I slipped on the orange muffs and picked up the pistol. It was heavier than I expected. A thick wooden backdrop had been set up in the backdrop to prevent ricochet, and the walls were made of a similar wood. As soon as I pointed the pistol forward, a blue and white bullseye-like target popped out. I fired the gun and it roared much louder than I expected and kicked more than I thought it would. I try to hold it steady while I shoot again, and again, nine more times. I repeat his actions of removing the clip, picking up the next one, and slamming it in place. I pull the slide and take a stance. The next target popped up, and I repeated. Reload. Repeat. He makes some notes on the paper. I noticed that most of the bullets on the 10 and 15 didn’t even make it within the blue and white rings.
We moved to the next station. It was much the same as the other, this time starting at ten yards instead of five. I fired ten times. Reloaded, took a stance fired ten times when the paper target reappeared. Reloaded. Took a stance, and fired ten more times. I was much more accurate with the pistols; not a single bullet managed to tear the paper on the 20-yard target. We moved to the shotguns just as Jack was making his way to the mats.
This one, clay discs would pop up, and I was tasked with shooting them as they appeared. I had thirty seconds to shoot as many as I could. He showed me how to reload, and I nodded. I took the shotgun and put it on my shoulder. The first clay disk popped up and I fired. The kick was insane, and I felt my shoulder bruise. The clay disc shattered in the corner, and the next one popped up, a little behind it. I fired again. It shattered completely. The next was a couple yards back. It took me two shots to hit it. I reload, take up my stance, and fire at the next. In the end, I managed to hit 4 in the 30 seconds. He jotted that down and handed me the paper.
“You know where you need to go.” He said.
“Okay,” I responded, taking the paper in my shaking grasp. My shoulder ached, and my heart beat like crazy.
Comments (0)
See all