Long Island Firearms (LIF) hosted a range meet of some of its members at the Nassau County Rile Range this evening. The last time that I went to a planned shooting event, of any sort, with folks I had never met before was in August 2012 when Brendan and I attended the 5th Annual Northeast Bloggershoot in a supersekrit location in New England. I usually go to the range alone or with Brendan. I am not a very social drinker and it seems not a very social shooter. After tonight's shoot, the idea of me being a not so social social shooter may change into one in which I become much more sociable at the range. I met some nice folks, all LIF members and I had a good time tonight at the range with them.
Mostly, we met at the range, then took over two of the rooms in which to shoot. The range has several rooms with five points in each. I think there was a total of about 16 of us. We made introductions all around in the room in which I was in and everyone introduced themselves with their first names and LIF Forums sign-on name. I am already not great at remembering names, to have to try to remember a first name and a nickname will be almost impossible for me. I do remember the Range Safety Officer in our room was Dan although I forget his forum handle. Another guy whose name I remember is Roman but again I cannot remember his forum name either. I met Roman on the last LIF trip to Albany to protest the NY SAFE Act so his was already a familiar face to me. The RSO in the other room was malakaguy, no do not recall his real first name. Oh well, if I go again next month and again each month after that, I am likely to start picking up a name or two now and again.
After the intros, we got to shooting. Eight guys in the room and only five points, so I shot for about ten to fifteen minutes and let someone else into my slot for a while. We switched back and forth like that for the hour and forty-five minutes of so we had to shoot. At first, I was a tad disappointed that we were slated to shoot from 7-9 but most folks did not get there until 7 and we only started shooting at around 7:15. As it wound up, I had more than enough time to shoot before I started aching between the shoulder blades. I really need to start a work-out routine. I took another break and shot some more later on.
I brought along my Remington R1 1911, my Ortgies pocket pistol and my Glock 26. It was the first time I have shot the Glock since I got new sites put ion it. I shoot okay with it but probably could do a tiny bit better moving the rear site to the right just a bit. I will practice with it a bit more, could have been my fault in how I was holding it that had it shooting a bit to the left, maybe an inch or two at the most, at 15 yards. Nonetheless, the group was a good one. As for the Remington, it is right on out to 15 yards (I only shot out to 15 tonight) and I was perfectly happy with it. I shot well enough with it to get a compliment from the RSO on my group. I was not all that happy that once again there was a problem with the next to last round failing to feed a couple of times when using the Remington factory magazines. The cheap after market mags I have work perfectly, I never have a jam with them. Again, I forgot to mark the mags that jammed. I need to do that and then send them to Remington to either repair or replace. The Ortgies functioned flawlessly but I do not shoot as well with it as the sights are fairly hard to see being they are very small. I shot okay with it, would even qualify with it if I had to shoot a qualification with it but know if the sights were a bit bigger I would shoot better with the Ortgies.
Other LIF members had a decent variety of firearms. There were a few other .45 Autos (at least one was some model of Kimber), Dan, the RSO, was shooting a .44 magnum revolver among other guns. Roman had an Uzi (semi auto only - of course being we are in NY) and also had a rifle that was a revolver. Anew member, I think his name was John, said he had not shot since summer camp many moons ago. He was shooting a marlin rifle in .22LR. Considering he had not shot in many years, I have to say he must have learned really well at summer camp. He was right on the paper with everything and the target he was using was pretty small. Some of the guys shot one anothers' rifles and handguns. Like I said though, I am not all that social a shooter and I held off on sharing for now (although I did share at the 5th Annual NE Bloggershoot). Once I know this guy from that one and know each person's gun handling habits, then I will let other shoot what I have with me if they want to do so. Since I was already aching, I had no desire to shoot guns belonging to anyone else.
I am pretty sure I will go to the next one in a month or so. If I miss that one, then I will attend the next one. It seems they shoot at that range monthly but also shoot monthly at other ranges here on Long Island. When the weather is a bit nicer, I will probably join them on some of the outdoor ranges too.
Nice guys - all them. These meet-ups at the range could become habit forming.
All the best,
Glenn B
