Today was a holiday so I decided it was a good day to go to the range. It has been several years ago when I went to the rage with Scott, my oldest son. He has never shot handguns before so we took a few to try out. He started with the Ruger MK III Hunter. It is a nice 22 caliber handgun that has a little weight to it. It is one of my favorites to shoot. From there it was to the Ruger GP100 with 357 Magnum. Scott was a bit surprised by the difference. Then came the Smith and Wesson 340 Airlite in 38 special. The .38 Special round is not as powerful as the .357 Magnum round. However, when you shoot it in a gun that weighs a lot less, the felt recoil can be similar.
What happens when you put .357 in the S&W 340 Airlite? Nothing, until it goes boom. All I have to say is that .357 is not something you shoot for the fun of it in the 340. I only put two rounds in for Scott because any more could be considered torture. I told him he would have to dry fire the 340 until rounds appeared. He pulled the trigger once, then twice and then on the third time, boom. He turned his head and looked at me like, that hurts. He fired off the second round, made sure the gun was safe and set it on the bench. He showed me the pinkish marks on his hand and in the area between his thumb and pointer finger.
If that was not enough, I had already fired several rounds from the M&P 45 and the Ruger Super Redhawk in .44 Magnum. Scott put ten through the M&P, which brought a smile. He then put 6 through the Ruger Super Redhawk. That also brought a smile. However, soon enough he was back shooting the Ruger Mark III Hunter.
He wanted to try some 9mm so I got out the Browning Hi-Power. He ran two magazines full through the Browning which he liked as well.
But then he was back at the Ruger MK III. I cleaned up a few of the firearms as Scott continued to run through .22 cartridges. I think it was the fact he could load up 4 magazines and deliver 40 rounds in short order that helped with his decision. Then again, it is a pleasant firearm to practice sight picture, breathing and trigger squeeze. At the end of the time at the range, Scott came to the conclusion that he needed to practice his breathing and trigger squeeze. He noticed that whenever the slide locked open and he pulled the trigger, the end of the firearm would dip. You cannot be accurate if the end of you firearm is dropping everytime you fire a round.
The day continued as we drove away from the range. We stopped in a grove of oak trees, washed up and ate our Subway sandwiches that we picked up on the way to the range. We then headed back to home. Scott took several pictures of the Lake Mathews on our way back. We stopped by the plaque and I checked to see if there was a geocache present. There was, so we looked for it. Overall it was a great day for Guns and Geocaching.
