NFA Day at the Range

We headed up to the local range today because we thought a league shoot was going to occur, and we wanted to try competing (for the first time!). Turns out we had the wrong date. Oh darn, stuck at the range on a glorious Saturday morning in fantastic weather with 500 rounds of ammo. There could be worse things!

We had a great time working with our M&Ps doing some practice. I also fired up a Beretta 96 Centurion which I recently obtained (got a great deal on it too!). That is probably worth a post in and of itself, but needless to say, it worked fine.

We started talking to the guy next to us; I complimented him on the can for his 9mm, which was really great, by the way. It made the 9mm sound like a 22. Suppressors really are the polite thing to use; I think more "fudds" would be appreciative of them if ranges allowed .22s and suppressed guns ONLY on the "shoulder hour" or two just prior to quiet hours. I bet a bunch of folks would be more interested in getting that suppressor if it meant they had an exclusive prime-time evening shooting hour to use during the week. Local residents would probably also appreciate it.

He had a bunch of NFA items and invited us to shoot his MP5. I was a bit hesitant, but hey, it was a really generous offer and when else am I going to have a chance to burn through a magazine of 9mm on full auto? Heather and I each got to burn through a full mag, lighting up a water bottle on the berm. What a fantastically fun weapons system to shoot. It was pretty controllable, as well, especially with a foreward pistol grip. Recoil was negligible, but there was some muzzle creep upwards. If you used good isometric tension and kept it to short 2-4 round bursts it was quite manageable.

We talked for awhile and I ended up tossing him two boxes of 40 ammo on the way out. Ammo -- even 9mm -- isn't cheap these days and I figured it was the least we could do for getting to shoot his $5K+ NFA full auto!

I really love Alaska. The people here tend to be really friendly, in all sorts of contexts. The whole state is like a big small town. Additionally, there are a ton of veterans up here so that brings a certain feel to the community too which I like. How many other places would a total stranger loan you their MP5 to blaze away with?