pistols at twenty paces...

Well, the plate is full today and I go out to buy stuff and do things. I take a little time to stop at the Range on Ft. Lewis and fire my Micro Compact 45 ACP, by Springfield Armory. I haven't fired it in a long time but it was small enough to sneak out of the house without setting off my wife's alarms. I pick up the target and two hundred rounds only expecting to use fifty.

I like to use the twenty yard line, anything beyond that I would want to have a rifle or I would turn and run away to hide better. They say that bringing back dueling would promote better manners, I don't think so but then only once would you have to put up with bad form from that fool. I blazed away on the first five magazines and was low and all over, all on the paper but random and not really effective.
I wander looking at other targets, most other pistoleros are using the seven yard line, and some have a large hole in the center of their target, lots of bullets and well done in 9 mm. I talk to one of the riflemen, he is shooting two rifles, one a heavily modified Garand, 338 Winchester Mag, shooting that semi, in that load? I have to believe him, it is right in front of my eyes - he offers to allow me to shoot but I pass - temptation is a terrible thing but like most one has to test and taste it to become addicted, and I pass. Still an awesome weapon and sight. One of my old inmate clerks would have loved to have seen that fired, and fire it himself, but he won't get the chance unless he finds full pardon somewhere in his future. He lost so much, permanently, that the rest of us take for granted or foolishly try to prohibit for safety reasons on others. Bill of Rights, anyone?
I finish firing another twenty-five rounds on the Shoot-n-C targets, ten on top, ten on the bottom, then my rear sight slid off during reload and I used only the front sight post and have no evidence that the target was touched, NONE, so I will have to fix that so it never happens again. Use both sights, just wishing death and destruction doesn't work as well as a correctly operating weapons systems and the skills needed. But then I work in a real gun free zone, only the Irish prisoners get weapons into jails for killing their brethren, and my only targets of choice are paper, or far away and about to die without my assistance. Now back to that list of things to fill my weekend's work.