GRAVITYWELL NEWS

    Don't worry... the wait is killing me too!

        Well I shot my first gun tonight, 3 actually so let me relate to you all what I learned tonight, and I did learn quite a lot. Although I'm sure Lorenzo could expound on this subject better than I can, I figure it helpful that I relate my experience). BTW I strongly recommend doing this, it gives you a whole new POV on guns in our books.
        Okay, we went to Shooter's Emporium, which isn't too far from the Escondido Target Dept. Store, came in and you get your basic gunshop. You give them your license, signs some wavers (read them!!) pay 7.50 for a lane, 5.00 per each additional person, 7-10 for each gun, and you must buy ammo from him. The ammo is fairly cheap... by the end of the night, after... oh at least 2 hours of constant constant shooting we had not run over $50.00. The reason for buying ammo from him, other than making money, is so you use low power smokeless ammo, this is to preserve the gun, insure safety on the range, plus you don't need that extra power from high power bullets, the range is only 50 yards long. You also buy targets, they're dirt cheap, like 15 to 25 cents apiece. You can also buy brown and black stickers so you can keep reusing your targets, they run 1.89 a roll.
        You have to wear ear and eye protection to be on the range, and you go through two sets of doors to keep the noise down to a minimum in the gun shop area. On the range, you have a large back table, and then you have 12-16 stalls. Inside the range, all guns must be in the stall. If they're out of the stall, they must be in a box or in a bucket, unloaded. You can load your clips on the back table, but the clips must be loaded in the stall with the gun facing down field. You also have to watch your footing, the ground is covered with used shells. Before you lood your gun and prepare to shoot, you have to clean up your stall, unless you want a fatal accident that is. In the range, its heavily air conditioned and tonight was EXTREMELY cold. Too bad I didn't have a jacket =^^=;; The stalls are made of what I imagine is a bullet proof layer of something (rubber?) covered by metal. At waist level you have a tray to lay your gun and ammo on. Always leave your ammo up in the tray, someone "accidentally" (?) swiped a box of ammo from us. To your left is a switch to move the target holder up and down field, it looks a lot like the carrige system on a garage door opener if you've ever seen one. There were some padded pillars in the middle of the field that were a bit shot up, concrete walls, and at the end of the lane heaving padding to catch bullets, preventing richochets.
        Guns... are a _____LOT_____ louder than I expected them to be. Take a hardcore textbook, stand on a table and drop it flat on the ground, multiply the sound by ten and you have how loud a gun is... most of the ones that were fired there anyway. Fortunatly no one was shooting any of the higher powered ones... the noise was scaring me enough as it was. Aiming a gun is harder than I ever thought... and after firing those 3 off... seeing how often I hit and missed... I find myself laughing / angry with a cop show we went home to watch, now I realize just how ridiculous the "I'll shoot it out of his hand" crap is. I shot from about 10 yards away, mostly slow shot with only a few rapid fire attempts in there. Only 50% of my bullets hit on a spot sufficient to kill someone, 30 were "flesh wounds" that would have left me getting shot, 10% were nicks, and the remaining 10% were total misses. Holding a gun, you keep your thumb the same level you keep your trigger finger at, and you use your other hand to hold your hand steady. Some of these guns have sliding actions that will injure your hand if you hold it elsewhere, and some of them shoot off sparks, flame and the bullet pops out the side at high speed. The other thing that's hard to do, is to squeeze not jerk the trigger... this controls how bad the gun jerks when its fired.
        The first gun David had me use, was a .22 caliber, semi-automatic. I don't remember the style of this one. It had a 10 shot clip, the slide stays in place until its released, then you're ready to fire. Not too heavy... the recoil was odd to get used to, huge difference moving from an air pistol to a real gun, HUGE. The gun's sight consisted of a rear sight and a front sight. The rear was to prongs, and the front was a single prong. To aim you'd line the 3 prongs up so that they were level and the front sight was smack in the middle of the rear sight, then you'd rest the target on top of the front sight, not the sight on the target. After you fire, you pull a tab on the bottom of the grip to pull out the clip. The clip has a small button to manually draw back the spring, and you load 10 bullets in, very easy. I figure I could reload the whole gun in under a minute. Slide the clip back in, release the slide and you're ready to fire again. The bullets popped out the side, and after bouncing off of the divider wall to your right, they'll bounce off of your head. Once your're out of ammo, the slide stays back and the trigger will not pull.
        The second gun we shot, was the Glock design. The glock was very, very different. The clip was spring loaded, so after pressing the clip release lever you had to have your other hand ready to catch the clip. The clip itself is a PAIN IN THE ASS to load bullets into. It took 9 bullets, and was so tight, I could never get the ninth bullet in without help, for that reason alone I would not want to own this particular gun. You'd press the clip back in, and then you would have to release the slide to get ready to fire, that's safety number two. Saftey number one was a lock we could use to prevent the slide from coming forward. Safety number three was the trigger. The trigger had two parts. In the middle of the trigger was a second trigger, if it was not all pulled at once, the gun would not fire. The recoil on the glock was much worse than the recoil on the .22 caliber, my whole arm shook when this sucker was fired. I don't see how anyone could hit anything further than five feet away shooting this sucker sideways. When firing, the slide would come back so fast that most people do not see it moving. If your hand is in the wrong place, you get injured. The bullets also pop out the side, and a puff of flame I wasn't seeing out of the 22 came out, very briefly. Scary though. The sight on this was similar to the .22, except the rear site was lined with a luminescant material, and there was a dot on the front sight. To aim, you had to center the front site between the rear sight, level, and place the dot on the target, rather than rest the target on it. The other good thing about this gun, which would be a reason to own it, is its a lot more accurate than the .22. Once you're out of ammo, the slide stays back and the trigger will not pull.
        The third gun we handled, was a Desert Eagle model. Ooooh... nice. The aiming on the DE, was just like that of the Glock. I didn't load it so I can't speak for that. In terms of safety, it had was a lever for the slide relase, and a switch for safety / fire. It fired the same ammo as the Glock (can't remember which caliber, sorry) and the recoil was just as bad. It didn't spout fire like the Glock, but sparks did jump out of the slide as the bullet popped out. Just like the two previous guns, once you are out of ammo the slide stays back and the trigger will not pull.
        A note on pulling the hammer back manually: its not necessary, and makes it easier for the gun to go off.
        After two hours of NRA madness... even with ear protection on, my hearing was funny. Everyone sounded like they were a robot, it was odd, that's all I can say. It disappeared after an hour.
        I'm thinking about going again tommorow morning by myself, but I think I'll wait to go with my brother in law so he can pass on some more info to me (he was in the Marines at one pt.). Next time I'll try out a baretta, a revolver, a .357 (if they have one) a rifle, and I don't think they have one, but I'll see I can get my hands on a shotgun.

        After doing this I realize how realistic Rainbow 6 is... and I'd say the game's handling of shooting is fairly accurate. And as for people jumping through windows, shooting guns out of peoples hands and out of making perfect shots while rolling on the ground... BBBBUUUULLLL*******************TTTTT!!!!!!!

        Side note: I had a look into CA's handgun laws... absolutely ridiculous. Our legislators need a swift kick in the ass.

       The guns from last night:
        The Desert Eagle, 9mm, single action *1
        Glock, 9mm, single action
        The .22 I shot last night was a Ruger MKII, single action

        Beretta 21A : Short barrel, semi-automatic, up to 8 shots, the first shot is double action *2, every shot after that is single action. You can also pull the hammer back manually before your first shot. The most important thing about this gun, is that it is short and VERY hard to control. The recoil is monstrous, and the site is very hard to see and use. Only half of my shots hit the paper at 7 yards, and at 15 yards I averaged about 2-3 shots, and they missed my main target. The barrel breaks forward to slide the first bullet in, the other 7 bullets go in the clip you slide in. It features a safety and a slide that ejects the bullets towards your head 5% of the time. The clip does not have the thumb tab the other one had, it has one, but its hard edged metal and very rough on your fingers. I would not recommend this gun.
        Smith & Wessen 617, 22 caliber round .357 revolver replica. Meant to act as much like a .357 as possible for practice, while using the inexpensive .22 caliber rounds. ($2.50 for 50 shots) its a heavy gun, takes 6 shots, and has no safety at all. Once its loaded its ready to fire. The recoil and the noise level is nothing like a real .357, someone was firing one of those off next to me, extremely loud. So loud in fact I was rushing to get out of the range. its very, very accurate, even at 20 yards I got 4 out of 6 shots dead on target. Emphasis on the dead part.
        Oh yeah, they rent shotguns and rifles. That's for my next visit when I can afford that expensive ammo =^^=;;
        As for short guns, according to David and the guy that runs the place, the longer the barrel, the greater the accuracy.
        My total at the ened was $35, 3 hours of shooting *3, 2 guns, one lane, 250 shots and several sore fingers.

        *1 Double action means : When you pull the trigger the hammer comes back and goes forward.
        *2 Single action means : the hammer is already back, and it moves forward when the trigger is pulled.
        *3 Lane rental is all day, so you can leave for lunch, dinner what have you and come back later.