Range Day

Chris posted about this already, but he was not particularly verbose so I figured I'd do my own.

I started out with a shotgun in May of 2010 largely because I was not very comfortable with rifles.  It seemed like there were too many choices out there as far as action and caliber went and I didn't know very much.  Shotguns seemed much simpler.

In September of 2010 I took my first bird on the wing.  I cannot describe the amazing feeling - and it was that feeling that led to us getting Kodi, who will be my bird hunting buddy once she gets a big older.  Since then, Chris and I flirted a bit with skeet and trap, largely as training for hunting.  Skeet is, well, a bit tough for beginners, especially beginners who are cross-dominant and were therefore shooting wrong-handed.  During our Big Move, we learned about trap in Idaho.  Trap is much simpler, but we still ran into the hand-eye issues.  I stubbornly held out against switching hands for a while, but last fall decided to make the switch.  Chris made the long gun switch back in December but I had to hold out until after the Kodiak trip since my bear rifle is a left-handed bolt.  But that trip is behind us and I'm switching!

We headed out to a nearby range, intending on shooting .22s.  However, the rifle lane (singular, yes) was occupied, so I borrowed a shotgun and we each shot a round of trap.  Chris shot left-handed and I shot right handed.  For comparison, when we shot dominant-hand, we broke 4-6 out of 25.  This time I broke 13 out of 25 and Chris broke 10 out of 22.  Nothing changed except the hand switch.  Pretty awesome, huh?  Chris is feeling much more confident about the shotgun now.  I practically had to force the gun into his hands this afternoon, but now he's wanting to make this a weekly trip.

In other news, Chris has ordered his first shotgun ever and I've bought my upland bird shotgun.  More on that when they arrive (shockingly enough, the internets is much cheaper than buying from local stores).

I have some more to say about the range we were at, along the lines of Gun Culture 1.0 vs 2.0, but that can wait.