Monday, September 22, 2008

So when my Father-in-Law (FIL) comes to visit, we head out to the range. Usually, the womenfolk stay at home and we re-group for dinner. However, since my wife started going to the range I had hopes the range trip would be co-ed this time.

To my surprise, this time my Mother-in-Law (MIL) said she wanted to go along. Now once, years back she shot a rifle and did well, but overall has not been interested in guns even though there are loaded handguns in her house and my wife grew up around them as a kid.

So when she asked to come along and shoot pistols I was surprised. I quickly agreed. Sadly we could not get a babysitter in time and in the end my wife had to stay back and only send her P22 to the range without her.

So off we went, and as luck would have it, we got the range all to ourselves. Now we had a bunch of guns with us: our P22, Glock 23, PT1911, 642 and my FIL's Glock 26 and S&W 380 pocket gun.

So the MIL did really well right out of the gate scoring repeated x ring hits with the P22. So we moved the target back and she still did really well. After a few mags she wanted to try something bigger and tried the Glock 23. "WOW!" she yelled and kept going. She then moved back to the P22 and in between mags told me "This is Fun!"

For 2 hours she tried each of the guns but gravitated back to the P22. She hated the 642 and did not really like the Glocks too much (a Glock 17 might have been best). My FIL tried my Glock and wants to take his from a NY trigger back to stock (which is funny cause I want to take mine from stock up to NY trigger).

As we were winding up, I asked if they minded me switching to the rifle bay as I had a rifle I needed to cycle some rounds through. "Can I come?" asked the MIL and I happily agreed. Now, keep in mind, she is a vociferous (her word) Obama fan and one that until this trip to the range had no use for firearms. So I was happy to introduce her to my soon to be "trunk gun". And she took me up on the offer.

Nothing makes smiles like a new shooter and a eastern european rifle:



FIL in law also took a turn:



I almost took the opportunity to play the "Now that you had fun, guess which of the firearms you shot today would likely be banned by Biden if given the chance" game. But did not want to push to hard. (If you plant a seed and pound it with hard water, it will wash away instead of it taking root).

I wish my wife could have come, but it was great regardless...