1911

I took a Newbie to the range yesterday. I let Jim shoot my 22, first with iron sights and then with the dot. As might be expected for his first time, he struggled with the irons but did better with the dot.

I occasionally take non-shooters to the range for their first experience with firearms. Over time, I’ve tended toward a similar sequence of presenting things but knowing the Bullseye community’s safety record, I decided to ask for their input as well. The following procedure benefits from the excellent suggestions of Fred, JC, Chuck, Sheral, Kent and George in the Bullseye-L email community, and from the shooters I meet on the line from whom I’ve learned many valuable and sometimes life-saving lessons.

Five days, four guns, nine disciplines and over a thousand rounds, that was the Arizona Desert Midwinter competition for 2010.

Recently I mentioned that I had the trigger weight on my IZH-46M air pistol cranked up to the maximum. I did this to practice with a heavy trigger.

(Pictured: Jim Henderson and myself)

Tony has a provocative idea. In his Harmonic Functions on Manifolds blog, he suggests pulling out your best scores from the record book – you all write down your scores, don’t you? – and tally them up to discover your true potential.

If you reload 45 ACP for automatics (but not necessarily for revolvers), you need one of Bruce Martindale’s gauges.

On a recent business trip to the Washington DC area, I had a couple of spare hours to visit the National Firearms Museum. It’s in the NRA headquarters building in Virginia, just west of Washington DC. For those with street mapping GPSs, a good map or who are familiar with the area, the street address is 11250 Waples Mill Road, Fairfax, VA.

I absolutely love central Pennsylvania, from the southern border with Maryland all the way up to New York state. Every bit of it is gorgeous and the people are warm and friendly.

I met Bob Brown once while on a business trip to San Diego. I stopped by his home a few days after he had offered to fix a nagging reliability problem with my 1911 wad gun. As I sat in his garage that day and watched him gently turn the chamber reamer and then witnessed the impossibly tiny metal shavings that resulted, we chatted.