One thing I’ve always wanted to do was to shoot a real gun. I never had the opportunity until today. Since my brother-in-law, Kyle, was in town for Christmas, he brought his guns that he inherited from his Dad when he passed. He offered to take me shooting, and I didn’t turn him down! So, today I went shooting for the first time with Kyle and his 3 guns: a 22, a 357 (shoots 38 & 357) and his 45 at a local shooting range.

It was quite an experience, let me tell you. If you’ve never shot a gun before, you should — you’ll have a lot more respect for them.

We started out shooting the 22, which was great because my nerves were definitely there. Once I fired off a few rounds, though, my nerves were not at all what was bothering me. Instead, it was the urge to shoot something with a higher caliber! The 22 was a little pea shooter LOL. POP! Not much recoil and it was gone. It’s a great gun to start out shooting with because it is easy to use and has no recoil.

We moved on to Kyle’s 357 (Dirty Harry style gun) and fired off a few rounds of 38’s before we turned to the 357s. Wow…. talk about recoil and firepower. It was like having a small bomb going off in front of my face every time I pulled back the trigger. Standing back and watching Kyle shoot, you can really see a burst of fire with each shot. Amazing firepower! We finished destroying a target and moved on to his 45, which was a larger caliber bullet, but because of the slide recoil action with the barrel, the recoil effect was far less than the 357.

For our last few rounds, we loaded up the 357 and pushed the target back 25 yards to see what would happen. Kyle took one shot and nailed it in the black. I took six shots and two of them hit in the white. Not bad for 25 yards out and my first time shooting. Click the pic for a larger version. And watch your back, foo!

I had a great time, and glad I finally did it. Thanks a lot for taking me out to the range, Kyle! How’d I do? Well, I think I did pretty well (Kyle seemed impressed), and I did nail the small target I’m holding up in the above picture twice from 25 yards out (albeit in the white). The 357 was the most difficult to shoot (especially with the larger 38s) because the trigger was so sensitive when fully cocked, plus the recoil scared the crap out of me the first time I shot it — and it has the biggest visible blast.

I still have no intention of owning a gun here at the house, but if I could store it somewhere else I’d love to have one for just these opportunities to shoot in a controlled environment. In fact, that’s probably what we will do since they have lockers there and there are still a few guns left in my wife’s family.

What was fun, too, was referring to “GSR” and “striations” while not watching an episode of CSI! I think I’m going to take my shirt to trace. I can still smell the GSR all over my clothing!

Here’s the video from today’s action!

That pic at the top is of me with the 357. Feel lucky punk? Go ahead… make my day comments…