I almost forgot to pass this story along from my last trip to the range. Its humorous and scary at the same time. I was shooting ladders with my 300 WM 210 SMKs, 270 150 SSTs and .243 with 87gr VMAXs when I saw a beater Jimmy pull up over at the pistol range. Out climbed your stereotypical inbred redneck from the Attoyac creek bottom in San Augustine Co in East Texas. In other words, honest to goodness white-trash in his black wind pants and wife-beater, and lest I forget, the cheap, inappropriate tats on both shoulders and barbed wire covering most of his visible 115# frame. I didn't think to much of it at first, but he was fiddling with something on the tailgate of his POSUV. I got to looking closer, and he was using a pistol rest to hold an AR15 so he could work on it? I have no clue what he was actually doing, but that is what he was doing. He had a screw driver and 1/2 a cleaning rod in the mag well and a dowel rod hanging out the muzzle. He took out a pistol case and went over and busted some caps at the dirt berms. My little brother was over there breaking in his new SA 45 Micro. Each pistol he pulled out had a laser that was evidently used to burn retinas because it didn't help him hit paper at 7 yards more than once or twice from what my brother was saying. He smiled at everyone and went back to his tailgate. I finished shooting most of my stuff and was trying to let barrels cool down, but it was 100F so they were taking some time to cool. He came over with his AR and sat down a couple tables over holding the AR tighter than a new mother holds her first-born. He just sat there, and it was making me nervous. I took off my muffs, which have the microphones so you can hear on them, so he could tell I wasn't doing anything but waiting. I asked if he needed to put up targets. Picture Andy Griffith's partner sounding like Gomer saying, "Yep, um-hm." He laid the rifle on the table and pulled a rolled up pistol qualification target, the silhouette kind, at 50 yards. He had no clue how to work the firearm, so I got behind my Tahoe and watched the show. He got over to the side of the benches in the grass and took one knee. It took a good five minutes for the fellow to figure out how to take the safety off. He kept trying to push it through the magazine instead of flipping it down. When he finally started shooting, the first couple bullets hit the grass somewhere between 25 and 35 yards down range. He had a 20 round mag. The first 5 or 6 shots walked their way up to the bottom of the 50 yard berm. Then he started to see how fast he could shoot or whatever he was doing. Out of 20 shots, only 4 or 5 hit the berm at 50, two of which hit his target. The rest of the shots hit between 25 and the 100 yard berm. In fact, he put as many holes in my targets as he put in his. So his vertical was about 75 yards of the range, but his horizontal was much better. He managed to keep the bullets within about a 15-20 yard width on the 100 yard berm and ground between the berms. He had that grin you'd expect from a kid that just had his first cookie crossed with the look on your face after your first kiss. He came back and set the AR back down and sat down again. I asked if he had more mags or if he was done. He just asked to go see how good he shot. I just smiled and said sure. He pulled his target, and he was happier than before he went down there. He came back showing me his amazing shooting skills, 2 out of 20 on paper at 50 yards. He said that's pretty good because he was just silhouette shooting and had not shot it since he was on the unit 8 years ago. Then he asked what I was hoping he would not, "What do you think?" I know I had a deer-in-the-headlights look, but I muttered, "That thing sure is loud!" That pleased him, but he persisted to ask about the two holes on the paper in the silhouette's appendix. "I guess he is probably hurting?" He was all, "Yeah he's dead! That'll kill you!" He went through the whole I'm a bad man routine and strutted back over to the POSUV to rummage some more. I saw him pull out a pistol-gripped Moss-berg with an extended tube. He was loading it with 3" shells. I packed up everything I had as fast as I could and pulled all my targets that he had not shot. He took another silhouette target into the skeet range to shoot with his shotgun. It took him the entire time I was packing to figure out that a skeet thrower can't throw paper targets I guess. I went over and picked up my brother while goober was coming out of the skeet range. We went over to the 500m range to finish up. I did not want to see him blow a foot or face off. He could not control the recoil of the AR, so I was NOT going to stay around for him to shoot 3" buckshot from a pistol-gripped Moss-berg. We never heard him bust a cap again, and about 30 mins later we saw him drive out. I guess he lost his audience so he couldn't shoot his scatter-gun.
Just thought I'd share my harrowing experience!
Just thought I'd share my harrowing experience!
