Shooting on Saturday.

Saturday was a bright, sunny day here in central Texas. A perfect day for blasting away with new toys and old.



I took a new guy with me this time. Joe Reeves (in the shorts on the right) had never been up to Dave's place in Gatesville before. He'd overheard us talkin' about shooting at work, and he's seen the shooting pictures on this blog, so he was ready to join us. When I picked him up in Cove I was surprised to see he'd packed a cooler/drink dispenser full of ice water. That was a brilliant idea that none of us had thought of before.

When we got up there we found that Dave and his buddy Kevin Dally there waiting for us. They'd been in a parade on the 4th, dressed as Union soldiers. When I started pullin' my gear out of the car Kevin shit a brick. He went nuts over my old Tokarev SVT-40, and was even more excited to see my new AKS-74. He reminded me of the old Soldier Of Fortune article about 30 years ago when they broke the news on this rifle. They picked one up in Afghanistan and were the first people to test one.



I took the '74 out of the bag and loaded a clip, handing it to Kevin. There was a problem now and then with the rounds not fully loading in the chamber. I may have a head spacing issue. I'll have to talk to my gunsmith. Most of the time I could just ram the round in and it would shoot fine. We didn't take time to try to sight it in though. We were havin' too much fun blastin' away from the hip.



Kevin also loved shootin' my Tokarev. It sure is a sweet rifle. One of my favorites in my collection.



Next, Kevin cut loose with my Polish AKMS. He was quick to note the big difference between the kick of the 7.62x39 round vs. the 5.45x39 in the '74.



You can see from the smile on his face that he's hatin' it. I put the bayonet on there just for giggles.



Joe brought up two new toys for all of us to play with. One was this interesting new "pistol", called a PLR-16, made by Kel-Tec. It was an interesting little toy, fer sure.



Joe talks about using it for home defense, but after hearin' the noise the thing made I wondered about shooting it indoors. After I shot it I told him that if I was robbin' a house and someone cut loose with one of those a few blocks away I'd shit myself.



Here's a merge of three shots of me shooting this "pistol". The middle one shows me goin' "Holy Shit!" at the impact of the blast. It's like the baffles on the muzzle break are channeling the blast back at you. Loud as hell, even with ear protection.



After me, Dave took a turn. I shot a little video (no sound) of him shootin'.



Look at the smile on his face at the very end. Hilarious.



Next he brought out his new revolver, a Taurus .45/410 called The Judge. Now this was some cool stuff. It shoots .45 ACP and .410 shotgun shells from the same cylinder with no modifications.



We started at 50 yards and a few of the guys were pingin' the metal targets with ACP. The we moved closer and started shootin' shotgun shells.



The impact of the shotgun shell was impressive.



Then Kevin took out his Civil War replica musket and we all took turns with it. I love shootin' black powder guns. It's a direction my gun collection's gonna have to go in before long.



I think Joe had a great time. We all enjoyed corruptin' the boy. Last Thursday, as I was leaving the building out on Base that I teach in, that he works in, he told me he'd gone out to a local gun store and picked up the PLR-16. I laughed and told him "Oh, the hand of Satan is on your shoulder my son." We both laughed.

We'll all enjoy watchin' as his collection gets a little bigger. We all enjoyed havin him up there with us, and the jug of water he brought with him. It was good to have cold water to sip as we blasted away, shooting up one another's ammo. What are friends for anyway.