Outdoor Expo

[Fresnel]

http://www.azgfd.gov/outdoor_recreation/showcase.shtml

The local range is having an outdoor expo. Exhibitors include Glock, Sturm Ruger, Smith & Wesson, and by extension of S&W, previous experience tells me Walther will be there, renting guns at $2 a magazine. ******** yes PPS. S&W will also likely be renting out their model 500 at similar prices, but I am not man enough for that monstrosity.

Oh yeah... also appearing is DILLON AERO. They're having minigun demonstrations. I can't wait, this is going to be off the ******** hook. If I die next week, I shall die a happy man. I mean, yeah, there's other s**t there, but I'm really only going for the gun rentals and the ******** minigun.  

[OberFeldwebel]

Have fun you lucky son of a b***h.
stare  

[Crash Maniac]

********. You. and your proximity to the fun stuff.

I hate CA.  

[uryu ishida]

Mother ******** I get is Knob Creek, and I can't even go to that, yet alone afford any ammo if I were able ot go stare  

[Fresnel]

Buy your ******** plane tickets and make it out here tomorrow, HOLY ******** that was awesome. I took some pictures and a couple videos, but it was with my camera so video quality is sub-par. Pictures are pretty good. I linked them below to save space.

Went with my dad and my girlfriend, and had some interesting things happen. Shot an M1 at the high power booth. Nice rifle. Less kick than I expected. Went over to the Walther booth, got to shoot a PPS. Not a bad gun, but the trigger was weird as hell. The first shot had a longer pull than the rest of them, even though I can't see any reason why that should be so. It's also not as small as the pictures make it look.

At that point, we went over to the cowboy action shooting. One round of steel plates with a .45 SA revolver, a .357 lever gun, and a SxS 12 ga, which successfully ******** up my shoulder for the rest of the day. I ******** swear, I am NEVER shooting a break-action again. But anyway, the booth next door had practical shooting. I watched a couple guys do this course of steel poppers with shotguns, and they were terrible for speed on a timed course. Took a tricked-out Mossberg 590 to it, passing up a Saiga 12 (tough choice, I tell you). Got an official time of -2.11 seconds, setting the day's course record in a single round after dropping three of the six plates with a single shell and two with another. The previous record had been set by a guy who tried FIVE TIMES before breaking -2 seconds. xd

Farther down the Practical range, there was a guy with a Glock 17LC with a tiny optical sight on the slide. It was there that I discovered that it's something with the iron sights on a pistol that ******** me up. I shot six shots at five targets, dropping them all after hitting the frame with the first shot. No idea why iron sights psych me out on a pistol.

Then... Dillon. I took video. Dillon's SUV was parked out on a small pistol pit next to a repro Gatling Gun. Video's 7 minutes long because I didn't know when the guy was going to stop jabbering and let the shooting begin. When it did, you ******** KNEW IT. Where I was standing, the muzzle blast physically pushed me backwards, and my whole body felt like a cell phone on vibrate. It was a ******** holy experience, I tell you what. And when he was done, there was a cloud of dirt over the range, and the gun was rippling with heat. God, it was glorious. Video is here. At about 3:30 you can hear the Gatling gun go off (I think it shot .45-70), but the minigun doesn't fire until around the 7:00 mark.

After that, we went out to the trap and skeet fields. "Intro to Skeet" was ******** so bad... we sat there for 15 minutes and they never changed shooters, so we left. Intro to Trap was ******** awesome. Ten shots from a Beretta Urika 2, five against retreating clays and five against pop-up clays (dunno the official terms), but I aced all ten. I moved onto a reloading station where they let you shoot 5 rounds if you reloaded them yourself first. Another perfect five aces, plus one more the rangemaster gave me to see if he could get me to miss. xd

Then onto black powder. It was pretty awesome. Got to fire one percussion cap and a flintlock. I really enjoyed the flintlock. There's just something to knowing that this is the rifle that won our country... Anywho, video of my dad shooting the flintlock (poorly). My girlfriend had a BALL (pun entirely not intended), and I think she might get into black powder shooting. Good on her. In related news, I ******** love trap shooting. I should get into that some time. I also discovered that I'm a fair hand with a shotgun.

Anyway, much fun was had by all, attendance was probably in the 5,000-10,000 person range, and all in all the whole thing was pretty ******** sweet. The whole ride home I kept getting whiffs of black powder. Damn I like the smell of black powder.

Oh, and one vendor had this kick-a** barbeque grill.  

[Fresnel]

Went back again today. Was awesome as hell again. More muzzleloading fun, some smallbore silhouette plinking, and then on to the fun stuff. Rented a Walther PK380 from the S&W booth. Stiffer recoil than I'd have expected from such a small recoil, but very manageable in any case. Also, it's the only Euro-style mag release I can easily use; my thumb sits right on it. The Glock booth was fun, they had a handful of Gen 4 Glocks. Oh GOD do those things have incredible grips on them. They're both comfortable and sticky at the same time. Rented a Gen 3 G32, just to try out a .357 SIG. Strong kick for such a small package, but still less than a .40 or .45. I might just get something in .357 someday. Dillon was there again, but they were out of ammo for the day (this was about 1PM), so I just got some pictures. The shotgun booths were the most fun though. Took two bouts at the Practical Shotgun poppers, and my girlfriend got video of me. The Saiga they had there was a ******** stovepipe machine, and I crapped out on the last round and missed totally. The Mossberg 590SPX that was there last year was still nice to me though, and I broke the 0 second mark again, at -.13. I had even more fun with skeet, where Benelli had a booth set up, and I got a few rounds with their Cordoba. The squishy recoil pad and ComforTech stock helped a lot, but I think the long recoil hurt my wrist a little. Remington was also out at the "intro to trap" field, showcasing their 887, which is a really nice gun, and manages to kick like a semi. It does have some interesting visual/thermal properties along the barrel though... anything near the hot barrel dips down. The 11-87 was fun too, but has a really odd bolt release. It's actually behind the elevator. Anywho, I dusted most of them, and have the videos to prove it. If anyone cares, I can upload the day's videos and pics. mrgreen

And then in an epic bout of karma, my car exploded on the way back home.