Bullseye

I joined the Scottsdale Gun Club. I paid a $100.00 one-time “initiation” fee and gave my credit card information for the monthly $39.95 on-going fee. For that I get a free handgun rental, a free machine gun rental on my birthday, six guest passes to use during the year and unlimited use of the range any time they are open.

Well, the Ruger .357 was quite an education. It is hellish to shoot, very intimidating (to the shooter as well as anyone downrange) and not cheap. With that gun, I started to understand that it’s going to take a lot of shooting to gain any degree of proficiency and, at $0.25 a pop, the .357 is an expensive way to learn to shoot.

I bought my first gun today, a Ruger “New Blackhawk” (used) single-action .357 magnum (and 38 special) 6 round revolver, at Outdoorsman’s on Cave Creek Road in Phoenix AZ for $259.95 (plus tax).

Background

After going pistol shooting with some co-workers, I became interested in target shooting. My first pistol was a Ruger New Model Blackhawk in .357 calibre with the stainless steel finish. I immediately liked the really big noise that it made and ran through a couple of boxes of ammunition before deciding that 1) this could get expensive at approximately $0.25 per “bang”, and 2) I wasn’t hitting where I was aiming except on rare occasions, and didn’t know why. Talking with my friends and the other shooters, I discovered what “flinch” meant, and I had it big time. I learned that as I pulled the trigger, I knew when the gun was going to go off and my body was reacting in anticipation, and in a protect-myself manner, just before the hammer actually fell. That reaction was pulling the gun away from the middle of the target and I was never going to hit what I thought I was aiming at with any semblance of regularity.

Collected by: Ed Skinner, ed@flat5.net http://www.flat5.net/

Revised: 03/08/2005

Converted to HTML and additional notes added: 07/26/2005

Note: Ed Harris is the “Ed” in Ed’s Red; that’s not me.

Do you need to apply a correction to a set of fixed sights? If you know how far away from center the bullets hit the target, the following formula will let you calculate how far you need to move the sights.

“Hammer Follow” is when the hammer falls simultaneously with the release of the slide when initially charging the 1911. When it occurs, unless special steps are taken, the gun will fire. (An important safety rule is to always keep the muzzle of the gun pointed in a safe direction.)