Time At The Range...

...is always good time for me. So today when I left the office, i headed to the West Side Pistol Range in the heart of Manhattan. Yep I renewed my membership and have until next April to keep having fun there.

I had my issue Glock 19 and 125 rounds to shoot, along with my Henry Survival Rifle with about 100 rounds for it. Not a lot of ammo, but I figured what the heck it was better than nothing. As opposed to my shortage of ammo, the range had no shortsage of shooters. There were about 10 people shooting when I got there. Surprisingly enough all of them were probably in their young to mid twenties. Can you imagine that - young hipsters, young yuppies, young Manhattanites, young New York City kids - at a firearms range late on a friday afternoon! Are we finally getting our message across that the shooting sports, self defense, hunting, collecting, and everything else legal to do with firearms is a good thing, an American thing. I sure hope so.

Enough for the youngsters though, let me talk about my shooting. It was okay but not great. I was tired, grumpy, and just a bit out of it when I arrived. After 125 rounds of 9mm through the Glock I was feeling a lot better. I was shooting at a distance of only about 50 feet, maybe a bit more; the range is pretty small but big enough for big fun. I put all my shots into a spread hand sized group which was okay by me, and my hand is average sized for a man. Put your hand over the center of your chest, and you will see why that was okay by me. Then I had some fun with the Henry rifle. I had a pretty good group, albeit all to the low left of the bullseye while shooting CCI Mini-Mags, then all high to the left with Remington Golden Bullets. Then with a slight sight adjustment, all of my shots went into the bullseye. That is one thing I like and dislike about the Henry, the front sight, that is, being easy to adjust with just a hard push of the fingers. While easily adjusted, it is also fairly easily knocked out of alignment. Still though I like shooting this little survival rifle, I figure it is good practice just in case I actually ever have to depend on it for its stated purpose.

While shooting the Glock, one of the owners came over to say hi to me. He is a cousin or uncle of an agent from my job, and he makes it a point to stop by to say hi to me when I visit. We chatted a bit, and seeing him reminded me that I have not seen M-------, the agent in quite awhile. I miss her, she is one of the better people on my job but is now working in another office than me. We used to work together at JFK Airport back in the day when things were better (at least for me because I was younger) and the job was somewhat more exciting. Oh well, seeing her relative would have to do for now, and he is always very pleasant.

All in all it was agood 45 minutes to hour that I spent shooting. Next time I'll have to rememebr to bring more ammo (I had thought I had some at the office but must have used it all last time).

All the best,
Glenn B