MUSHY'S MOOCHINGS: A SHOOTFEST

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

A SHOOTFEST

One thing I enjoy best in this world is when my brothers-in-laws and I have a shootfest! We all have several weapons apiece and we swap out taking turns shooting up all our ammunition at targets we’ve placed down in the woods.

Often times we take turns shooting the capped ends of plastic beer bottles full of water with a scoped .17 or .22 caliber rifle – you don’t think we’d waste a beer do ya! Another favorite “tack driving” competition we have is to see who can shoot the primer out of a 12 gauge shot shell! Steve has devised a plywood sheet that allows us to insert shells up to the rim pointing away from us. It takes a direct hit to set them off – it’s not as loud as you would think, but fun nonetheless to see all the smoke fizzle out.

Steve has a great little shop for working on nothing but firearms and reloads most of what he shoots. His favorite thing used to be to load some strange experimental load, hand it to me, and say, “Here, try this in your gun.” I usually obliged him, but I would hold the pistol around the trunk of a tree and squeeze the trigger. If it didn’t blow up the gun, we fired the rest! It’s awfully hard to blow up a Ruger, but that never kept us from trying.

My best Steve story is when we broke a “cardinal rule” of ours and did a little shooting while drinking beer. As he loaded a .22 revolver with some sub-sonic rounds off the tailgate of my '83 Blazer, he let the hammer fall on a full cylinder and shot a round into the back! We never did find that round! Ever since then, I’ll point out boxes of sub-sonics at gun shows and say, “Look! Blazer killers!” He hates that!

Last week, Ron, one of my other brothers-in-law purchased a new Taurus 1911 at a local shop’s “no tax sale” and so we all had to shoot it and compare it to the one’s we have. Steve likes the el-natural Colt 1911s, while I, being more technically advanced in my taste, like the modern improved Springfield “carry” models (see photo).

Anyway, we blasted away and finally succeeded in breaking the extractor out of the brand new Taurus! So, after Ron and Steve decided they couldn’t fix it, Ron took it right back to the store, same day he purchased it, and got another one. This Friday we’re going to see how it holds up!

8 comments:

BRUNO said...

I don't think I could wait 'til Friday! And I thought I was the only one who "test-fired" around tree trunks! Although I do confess---I wore a glove, too! You know, "Safety First!"

*Goddess* said...

Boys and their toys.

*shakes head*

Women are smart. We just buy vibrators...lol!

FHB said...

Damn Goddess, is everything about that? Well, ok.

Sounds like a lot of fun. I'm looking at a Kimber 1911, maybe. Hard to spend that much on something that doesn't have a 30 round clip, you know what I mean?

Michele said...

*LOL* goddess, my little Baretta is in the same drawer as the vibrator, right next to the bed! Like to keep 'em both handy for the 'just in case'!!

*Goddess* said...

Well, FHB, it's only about *that* to the extent that youse guys talk about guns;) So *yeah*.

BTW, Michele, I'd worry about whipping out the wrong one at the wrong time....

Becky said...

It sounds like you had fun, but never having touched a gun before, I had no idea what all you're referring to:)

Lana said...

When I took Gun safety class and finished my dad gave me a shoot gun it was a 20 gage 22 over under. I still have it in the case I never used it. It will remain in there until I die. I keep it there as a remembrance of my father. He passed 11 years ago this coming Christmas.

phlegmfatale said...

This reminded me of one of my favorite firearms experiences:
http://phlegmfatale.blogspot.com/2006/03/while-were-celebrating-my-southern.html