A Day at the Range: Saturday, August 15, 2010

There are few nicer ways to spend a Saturday than to go shooting with your family, and so when my brother Big Mike suggested a day at the range early last week I offered my own enthusiastic support for the project. I think "Hell yes!" covers it.

Breakfast of Champions

Anyone who has met me in person knows I don't miss many meals (I'm working on that) and breakfast is no exception. Main Lady was nice enough to fix me breakfast this morning; a spinach and goat cheese omelet topped with a mild salsa, toast, grapes and strong coffee. Excellent Rachmaninoff was hoping I'd share, but sadly he was out of luck.

Excellent Rachmaninoff

Then we were off to the Bullet Stop shooting range. As usual, Mike drove. The more I ride in Mike's Chrysler 300, the more I'd like to own one.

Round One

We started out with .22 auto-loaders. Mike shot his Browning Buckmark while I chose to run a few boxes through my Beretta Model 101. I like shooting .22 - you won't get deafened, the recoil doesn't beat you to death and you can shoot all day for $10. I wish I had a few extra clips for the Beretta.

A few more shooters showed up, and because several lanes were closed for repairs Mike and I ended up sharing a lane, which is fine since one man can load his magazine while the other is killing the paper. Here's our target after a few rounds.

Target

Note the bottom right international orange bull's eye. The Bullet Stop has one small air conditioner which sounds as if it's on it's last legs. The temperature outside was about 90 degrees, with the humidity at 95 percent. Inside the humidity rose to about 120 with the temperature right on its heels. The real problem is that the range is really one building within another, the 'other' being a large, old barn. Rather than A/C that doesn't really work, the place needs a fan that will move a large volume of air very slowly. This would keep my eye protection from fogging up and causing results like those on the bottom right target.

One way or another, Mike and I fell into the Visine game: get rid of the red. I think Mike started it. I ended up trimming the final few bits of red out of the target, thus putting the old coup de grâce on the center target. The finished product has more holes in it than a politician's promise.

PC Target

Mike also shot his .380 and I gave my S&W 9mm some exercise, but by that time I was getting severely overheated and couldn't hit much of anything. Mike did very well with his .380 auto, with is odd because Mike can't shoot it's Mike's 'sock drawer' gun. The sights are small and fixed and the pistol has a short barrel. Mike isn't the only one to have some success with his .380. When Flopsy (Main Lady's oldest little darling) came out shooting with us, she was putting all her shots on target at 50 feet with Mike's .380.

In need of sustenance and replenishment of essential fluids, we repaired to the Maumee Bay Brew Pub where such things as beer could be had, along with fine food.

Amarillo Brillo

I won't say Amarillo Brillo is the only beer worth drinking at the Brew Pub, because clearly that isn't true. Nor is it my absolute favorite beer, however if you're thirsty and can't decide which beer will satisfy, you can't go wrong with Amarillo Brillo. 

Pretzel Appetizer

There's a large wood fired oven in back where they roast (toast? bake?) the pretzels, which are then served warm with a hot mustard and a cheese sauce. Excellent!

French Dip

I had a cup of the cheddar cheese beer soup and the excellent roast beef sandwich. Bon appétit!

History

Thus concludes an excellent day at the range. This is the way a Saturday should be spent.