In another string on the topic of "the range," SSGSAD had asked for a range report. Far be it from me to disoblige.
This range report is not so much about FTEs or FTFs or lack thereof, nor about how many rounds I ran through which pistols, nor about how snappy the recoil felt on this gun versus that one. It’s more about being out in it and being alive.
After working 11- and 12-hour days for the past three weeks, Friday felt like it should be a vacation day so I took it. I’m lucky enough to have a wife who recognizes that I’m a happier man coming back from a country drive to Wilbur Wright or Atterbury, so she encourages that.
Friday morning, I put my boys Sigmund (ie, Sauer P226) and Gaston (ie, Glock G19) in their car seats (range bag from the Sig Store, Christmas present from Jill). After a stop to charge my cylinders with a blackeye (coffee and two espresso shots), I’m heading east on State Road 38. Destination: Wilbur Wright Fish and Wildlife Area.
Windows down, a blue midsummer Indiana sky, I'm wheeling past farm implement dealers and well-maintained barns and corn growing strong… Kenny Chesney and Miranda Lambert loud on the radio. It occurs to me that the older I get, the more I like country music.
The air out here carries the clean smell of horses and dark earth and green growing things, and brings up memories of being twelve: bailing hay on Mooney’s farm, playing barn tag, shooting rifles, square dancing, riding horses, milking cows.
Against this freshness, I compare the air from the parking garage tunnel I pass through daily on my way into work. Dank and hot, that air smells faintly of urine... which is odd, because I’m sure that pharmacists and chemists are not actually pissing in the stairwells. It feels like I’m going into a coalmine, in more ways than one, and I most certainly prefer the morning air here, now heading east along US-36 into Henry County.
I make my way through Pendleton, Emporia, Mechanicsburg, and Sulphur Springs, where you can find decent tenderloins at The Iron Kettle, if you give yourself enough to stop for lunch on the drive home. Finally passing through Mt. Summit, I turn south onto IN-103 and roll into the Wilbur Wright range some 45 minutes later.
Dick, the DNR guy, is on post, sitting in the cab of his state-issue pickup under a shade tree with the doors swung open. We trade waves and “howyadoins” and “justfines” and “beautifuldayhuhs.”
The pistol range is clear, save for a rangy older gent on the far lane, shooting what looks to be a couple of small-caliber pistols.
He waves and calls out, “You want to put up targets?”
“Sure enough,” I say.
We each stroll down to the backstop, him to check his groupings, me to staple up a fresh target. A Friday morning away from work, temps in the low 80s with a nice breeze going, and nobody’s in a hurry about nothing.
I load up and run a couple magazines through the Glock. Feeling the recoil run up my arms and through my shoulders, each shot is like a momentary rodeo in my hands. Holding the ropes on a muscled bronc, staying on top, keeping control, and wary of the risk that goes with losing your focus and having that power turn on you, bucking you off and stomping you flat.
A few magazines through the Sig gave further testament to IndyGunworks’ skill, the newly staked TruGlo sight budging not a millimeter.
Setting the Sig down on the bench, I look down the line to my left to see how my range neighbor is doing. I appraise his stance, his grip, what he does with his index finger when he’s not on target, whether he’s putting the muzzle on anything it shouldn’t be on. Looks good. Looks competent. I walk down to say howdy.
We shake. He says his name is John and he’s from Greenfield. He’s mid 60s, tall and wiry, wearing a tee-shirt and a “107.9 WTPI” ball cap (my own touting “INGunowners.com”).
For the rest of the hour there on the range, I talk with John, who’s soon to retire and hoping to make it out the door before his company moves the rest of its Indiana jobs back to Germany. We talk about the new parking lot law and how our respective companies had each lobbied their way into an exemption from a law that protects every other Hoosier. We talk about the future of a republic where a government presumes to fire the CEO of one company, ignore bankruptcy law to hand over another to a block of favored constituents, and confiscate $20 billion from a third company without due process (Fourth Amendment, anyone?).
We talk about the Second Amendment and why the Founders must have placed it #2 in the line-up and not eighth or ninth.
We talk about how he likes his Smith & Wesson AirLite and his Beretta Model 21, both in .22LR, and how that little AirLite was perfect to slip into his pocket when he and his wife go out for their nightly walks.
We each take a turn on the other’s firearms, him putting a magazine through each of mine, me firing a round of Stingers through his little S&W, each complimenting the feel of the other’s pistols.
We talk about how it was good to be free men on the range on a sunny day in America.
We shake and say hope to see you out here again. I drive off thinking that in an hour on the range, I’d actually had a pistol in my hand for maybe 10 minutes.
I think how that is just fine by me.
This range report is not so much about FTEs or FTFs or lack thereof, nor about how many rounds I ran through which pistols, nor about how snappy the recoil felt on this gun versus that one. It’s more about being out in it and being alive.
After working 11- and 12-hour days for the past three weeks, Friday felt like it should be a vacation day so I took it. I’m lucky enough to have a wife who recognizes that I’m a happier man coming back from a country drive to Wilbur Wright or Atterbury, so she encourages that.
Friday morning, I put my boys Sigmund (ie, Sauer P226) and Gaston (ie, Glock G19) in their car seats (range bag from the Sig Store, Christmas present from Jill). After a stop to charge my cylinders with a blackeye (coffee and two espresso shots), I’m heading east on State Road 38. Destination: Wilbur Wright Fish and Wildlife Area.
Windows down, a blue midsummer Indiana sky, I'm wheeling past farm implement dealers and well-maintained barns and corn growing strong… Kenny Chesney and Miranda Lambert loud on the radio. It occurs to me that the older I get, the more I like country music.
The air out here carries the clean smell of horses and dark earth and green growing things, and brings up memories of being twelve: bailing hay on Mooney’s farm, playing barn tag, shooting rifles, square dancing, riding horses, milking cows.
Against this freshness, I compare the air from the parking garage tunnel I pass through daily on my way into work. Dank and hot, that air smells faintly of urine... which is odd, because I’m sure that pharmacists and chemists are not actually pissing in the stairwells. It feels like I’m going into a coalmine, in more ways than one, and I most certainly prefer the morning air here, now heading east along US-36 into Henry County.
I make my way through Pendleton, Emporia, Mechanicsburg, and Sulphur Springs, where you can find decent tenderloins at The Iron Kettle, if you give yourself enough to stop for lunch on the drive home. Finally passing through Mt. Summit, I turn south onto IN-103 and roll into the Wilbur Wright range some 45 minutes later.
Dick, the DNR guy, is on post, sitting in the cab of his state-issue pickup under a shade tree with the doors swung open. We trade waves and “howyadoins” and “justfines” and “beautifuldayhuhs.”
The pistol range is clear, save for a rangy older gent on the far lane, shooting what looks to be a couple of small-caliber pistols.
He waves and calls out, “You want to put up targets?”
“Sure enough,” I say.
We each stroll down to the backstop, him to check his groupings, me to staple up a fresh target. A Friday morning away from work, temps in the low 80s with a nice breeze going, and nobody’s in a hurry about nothing.
I load up and run a couple magazines through the Glock. Feeling the recoil run up my arms and through my shoulders, each shot is like a momentary rodeo in my hands. Holding the ropes on a muscled bronc, staying on top, keeping control, and wary of the risk that goes with losing your focus and having that power turn on you, bucking you off and stomping you flat.
A few magazines through the Sig gave further testament to IndyGunworks’ skill, the newly staked TruGlo sight budging not a millimeter.
Setting the Sig down on the bench, I look down the line to my left to see how my range neighbor is doing. I appraise his stance, his grip, what he does with his index finger when he’s not on target, whether he’s putting the muzzle on anything it shouldn’t be on. Looks good. Looks competent. I walk down to say howdy.
We shake. He says his name is John and he’s from Greenfield. He’s mid 60s, tall and wiry, wearing a tee-shirt and a “107.9 WTPI” ball cap (my own touting “INGunowners.com”).
For the rest of the hour there on the range, I talk with John, who’s soon to retire and hoping to make it out the door before his company moves the rest of its Indiana jobs back to Germany. We talk about the new parking lot law and how our respective companies had each lobbied their way into an exemption from a law that protects every other Hoosier. We talk about the future of a republic where a government presumes to fire the CEO of one company, ignore bankruptcy law to hand over another to a block of favored constituents, and confiscate $20 billion from a third company without due process (Fourth Amendment, anyone?).
We talk about the Second Amendment and why the Founders must have placed it #2 in the line-up and not eighth or ninth.
We talk about how he likes his Smith & Wesson AirLite and his Beretta Model 21, both in .22LR, and how that little AirLite was perfect to slip into his pocket when he and his wife go out for their nightly walks.
We each take a turn on the other’s firearms, him putting a magazine through each of mine, me firing a round of Stingers through his little S&W, each complimenting the feel of the other’s pistols.
We talk about how it was good to be free men on the range on a sunny day in America.
We shake and say hope to see you out here again. I drive off thinking that in an hour on the range, I’d actually had a pistol in my hand for maybe 10 minutes.
I think how that is just fine by me.
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Get yourself some Toby Keith or something.
