Jamie and I had another fun weekend in Connecticut - home-cooked meals, a night at the GW, and a movie or two. One great addition to the weekend was a day of shooting at the Dover Furnace Shooting Grounds.
It was my first time shooting a gun (other than, of course, the one from Nintendo's Duck Hunt or a bar's Big Buck Hunter) and I had the good fortune to take out a 20-gauge Beretta that looked something like
this one (see the 4th picture also). The piece was fit for a museum and the craftsmanship was outstanding. Solid, not too heavy, and immensely beautiful.
Our group had some very experienced shooters eager to teach a beginner. I was given a primer on everything about shooting - a few of the topics we covered were the different gauges of guns and the ammo used with each, how best to approach certain shots, and most importantly how to maintain the safest environment possible. It was invaluable to have people there to help guide me through the process. In additional to giving me practical advice, I now have a whole slew of new words and phrases to add to my vocabulary. Things like "keep it cracked," "choke," and "over and unders" are all part of the game. The term "nice pair" also took on a whole different meaning by the end of the day.
The setup is fairly similar to that of a golf course - you walk the course of 16 stations, alternating shots between the men in your group. Each man has 3 "rounds" of shooting per station - meaning you end up taking 6 shots in sets of two (if you're not familiar with a shotgun, they only hold 2 shells at a time). Each round consists of 2 "birds" - the goal is obviously to hit the first clay bird with your first round of ammo and the second bird with your second round of ammo.
When it's your turn, you step up into the shooting box and load your ammo. This is where it gets fun.
Once you're loaded and ready to shoot, you yell "PULL!" and the trapper "pulls" the first clay pigeon - meaning he launches it into the air with a remote trigger. Once you fire at the first target (whether you hit it or not), the trapper pulls the second clay pigeon. You then adjust and fire at the second target. You get three chances at the same station in hopes of hitting 6 out of 6 targets. It's an exciting few minutes.
This is where I have to laugh at myself, because every time I stepped up to shoot, I kept thinking of 2 movies. In the back of my head I was hearing Mel Gibson telling me to "aim small, miss small," Mark Wahlberg instructing me to pull the trigger on my exhale. Embarrassing? Yes. But did it help? Of course not.
I tried my hardest to soak up everyone's great advice. As I readied for each shot, I silently repeated "get your head on the gun," "follow through on your shot," and "aim a few feet in front of it's flight path." Certain targets warranted vastly different approaches which makes the sport new and fresh at each station. It's quite a bit to keep in mind, but when you're sighting a target, time seems to stop.
In the end I hit 18 targets out of 92 chances - about 20%*. The guys I was with were quite surprised that on a course that hard a first-timer was able to "break that many birds." (everyone was breaking about 50% of the targets they usually hit) I even "won" one of the stations by hitting more targets than anyone else. But 20% is still just 20% and you have to factor in beginner's luck. Suffice it to say I have tons to learn.
Here are just a few pictures from the day - I wish I had taken more. Enjoy!
