Guy Miner
Master Loader
- Apr 6, 2006
- 17,746
- 5,823
Yesterday I had an interesting group of folks for my Basic Handgun class. Four men and one woman, normally that ratio is reversed. All but one fellow had their own gun. Everyone in my class was shooting a 9mm semi-auto. That had never happened before. Normally I see quite a mix of cartridges and even a mix of revolvers & semi-autos.
Some lessons learned:
Steel Wins. Yes, the recoiling slide is harder than human skin.
Ammo matters. One fellow was shooting an older Ruger semi-auto. It worked fine with pointy 9mm fmj ammo. Stopped cold by his hollow point ammo which simply wouldn't feed. Good to know. I didn't catch the brand of ammo he used, but it had an unusually short ogive and wide mouthed jacketed hollow point bullet. It just wasn't going up that feed ramp no matter what. Nope.
Guns need to be clean and lubed. The lady with her 9mm S&W had multiple incidents of the slide not going fully into battery. Time after time, and she was using full strength ammo. Turns out, her husband (also in the class) is in charge of maintaining the family firearms. The gun had never been cleaned and lubed, had less than 100 rounds through it before class. Well, ya, lack of maintenance can lead to problems.
Slow down. Breathe. Relax. Shooting is supposed to be fun. Some folks get all tense and rattled.
The .22 made a lot of new friends. :grin: It always does. Particularly when people have been having a tough time dealing with a compact 9mm, .40 or other "warm" cartridge. The full-size Ruger 22 target pistol was very calming.
Then we talked about how a fellow could buy about 400 - 500 rounds of 22 ammo for the same price as a box of 50 .45 cartridges... They liked that idea too.
Too many people, men especially, mentally put the .22 into the category of "kids gun" and refuse to have anything to do with it. I try to break that stereotype. It's a great cartridge! Perfect for learning safety and marksmanship without having to deal with all that muzzle blast & recoil.
For me as an instructor - just 'cause there are a bunch of gray haired guys in the class - don't assume that they know anything about the subject. Dang. How do ya get to 50 or 60 in a rural area and not know anything about firearms? Sigh...
We all survived, no bullet holes off the target board, and two fellows even did some pretty good shooting.
Pretty experienced group here on the Nosler Forum - and I just wanted to mention this - because yes, there are really good people out there, who like guns, own guns, and stand with us... But they really don't know much about 'em. Take a moment now and again to help out a new shooter.
Regards, Guy
Some lessons learned:
Steel Wins. Yes, the recoiling slide is harder than human skin.
Ammo matters. One fellow was shooting an older Ruger semi-auto. It worked fine with pointy 9mm fmj ammo. Stopped cold by his hollow point ammo which simply wouldn't feed. Good to know. I didn't catch the brand of ammo he used, but it had an unusually short ogive and wide mouthed jacketed hollow point bullet. It just wasn't going up that feed ramp no matter what. Nope.
Guns need to be clean and lubed. The lady with her 9mm S&W had multiple incidents of the slide not going fully into battery. Time after time, and she was using full strength ammo. Turns out, her husband (also in the class) is in charge of maintaining the family firearms. The gun had never been cleaned and lubed, had less than 100 rounds through it before class. Well, ya, lack of maintenance can lead to problems.
Slow down. Breathe. Relax. Shooting is supposed to be fun. Some folks get all tense and rattled.
The .22 made a lot of new friends. :grin: It always does. Particularly when people have been having a tough time dealing with a compact 9mm, .40 or other "warm" cartridge. The full-size Ruger 22 target pistol was very calming.
Then we talked about how a fellow could buy about 400 - 500 rounds of 22 ammo for the same price as a box of 50 .45 cartridges... They liked that idea too.
Too many people, men especially, mentally put the .22 into the category of "kids gun" and refuse to have anything to do with it. I try to break that stereotype. It's a great cartridge! Perfect for learning safety and marksmanship without having to deal with all that muzzle blast & recoil.
For me as an instructor - just 'cause there are a bunch of gray haired guys in the class - don't assume that they know anything about the subject. Dang. How do ya get to 50 or 60 in a rural area and not know anything about firearms? Sigh...
We all survived, no bullet holes off the target board, and two fellows even did some pretty good shooting.
Pretty experienced group here on the Nosler Forum - and I just wanted to mention this - because yes, there are really good people out there, who like guns, own guns, and stand with us... But they really don't know much about 'em. Take a moment now and again to help out a new shooter.
Regards, Guy
