Texas Blogshoot AAR

First off, a huge thank you to Borepatch for putting this together. If you ever get the chance to meet him in meatspace, do so. He is a thoroughly nice guy.  I'd also like to thank The Redneck Engineer for giving me a ride to the shoot, spotting me some ammo, letting me shoot lots of fun guns, and generally taking me under his wing.

On the topic of attendees, as much as I'd like to, I don't think I could provide an accurate list of attendees, so for want of not leaving anyone else, I will leave that to more organized people.

On the topic of fun guns, oh my goodness.  The steady stream of gunfire continued pretty much unabated from 10-3:30, from all sorts of fun things.  I tried to keep track of the assorted guns and people, but there were so many of both that that was somewhat difficult.  It was an exciting enough day that even keeping track of the highlights is proving difficult.

I shot an AR15 for the first time today, and, simply put, I understand the love.  They point naturally, balance well, are far more accurate than me, and are easy on the shoulder.  We were shooting along the Trinity River, and every so often someone would chuck a piece of wood or tennis ball into the water as a target.  The two guns I hit the most with were the AR and .22 pump action (which was also a hoot. No recoil to speak of and fairly accurate, with potential for a very high rate of fire.)  On a related note, tennis balls floating in the water make insanely fun targets, as a hit on the bottom (or sufficiently close) will send the ball flying up to about 50 feet in the air.  Small slices of log are similarly fun, as even a good hit from a .22 will break one into smaller targets.

Other firsts for the day included a suppressed pistol, a Ruger Mark 2 with can and red dot, a 12ga shotgun, a Saiga 12 (also my first semi-auto shotgun) a .50bmg, a homebuild of Redneck Engineer's, a KRISS (squee!) and a Garand (which Kevin Baker was kind enough to share with pretty much everyone.)

No blogshoot would be complete of course without the sacrificial stuffed animal.  It held up to the small arms fire remarkably well, especially considering photos I've seen of the results of other shoots.  However, no stuffed animal can withstand the might of 6-7 guys with bayonets.  I, not having my 91-30 (and more importantly the overly large bayonet) down in Texas, was unable to join in the charge, but did get some decent film, as well as somehow ending up with the maimed and dismembered critter. It now hangs on the wall between my two flags in honor of the event.*

It was both a pleasant and fascinating experience to put faces to names I have seen before, and in the case of Kevin, read for years.  This was my first time meeting anyone from the gunbloggosphere in meatspace, and I kept thinking throughout the day about how Heinlein got it slightly wrong. An armed society is not just a polite society. An armed society is a friendly society.  Everyone there all day was pleasant, friendly, and not only willing to allow others to shoot their firearms, but actively wanted to share them (or so it seemed.)  Overall it was a fantastic experience, and I fully intend to go to many more.


Pics to follow.


*Entertainingly, my mom gave me a cardboard deer head for my birthday, as even target shooters who shoot paper need trophies. I have moved onto a different medium now, and I already have a trophy.