Guns 401: Rifles

Just in time for the end of hunting season; go me!!

We're approaching graduate-level studies in Gun-blog-ology here! Ironic, since sometimes i call them "riffles" just to sound under-educated. :)

Rifles are what most people think of when they think of "long guns." But just because it's a long gun doesn't mean it's a rifle. Shotguns are long too. The primary difference between them is that rifles fire a single projectile (a bullet) where shotguns almost always fire a shotshell, which is a bunch of little bullets all at once. I will get more into that when I post about shotguns, and it will be a long one since i *heart* shotguns the most of all of the guns.

Anyways, back to riffles.

Rifles come in LOTS of different actions. Generally speaking, rifles only have one firing pin, and one chamber that can actually fire a bullet, so there has to be some way of clearing the spent shell casing once a round has been fired. There are rifles with hammers like revolvers, that you have to cock to fire. Usually those rifles also involve some kind of lever-action (a la John Wayne) and you have to lever the old casing out and lever a new bullet in before you can fire again. There are semi-automatic rifles that fling the spent case out and chamber a new one just like semi-auto handguns. There are pump-action rifles that you *rack* just like in the movies, although usually in the movies it's a shotgun. There are break-action rifles that open up like a shotgun--these are usually single-shot and you have to put a new bullet in by hand every time you want to fire. Most hunting rifles are bolt-action, which means there is a goober that sticks out the side of the rifle and you have to physically lift the bolt handle (which is the goober's real name), pull it back towards you (which ejects the old shell case), push it back towards the end of the barrel (which chambers a new round) and fire again. It's not the fastest thing in the world, but it IS the most accurate, which is why it is usually the preferred action for hunting.

Rifles don't HAVE to have a scope, but the hunting-specific ones usually do since they are meant to shoot accurately to 100 yards and beyond. That's farther than i can see very well, and i have decent eyesight (so far). Scopes help you see that far, and they usually have cross-hairs or some other sort of markings in the lens that helps you figure out what you're aiming at and where to aim in order to reach out and touch something over that distance. You want to be as accurate as possible when firing a rifle. Since you are generally firing over longer distances, pesky things like "gravity" and "your heartbeat" come into play, and they all affect the accuracy of your shot. The ballistics of shooting at, um, anything pretty much dictate that once a projectile leaves your firearm, it will start dropping. Stupid gravity. How FAST your bullet falls, though, is dependent on the variables of your cartridge. Lighter projectiles with a larger powder charge are going to go farther than heavier projectiles with less powder pushing them. Here is an example:

The cartridge on the left is a .243 WSSM (Winchester Super Short Magnum). Winchester is the manufacturer of the cartridge, and no, you don't have to match the make of the cartridge to the make of your rifle. You just have to make sure you are shooting the right caliber. ;) Your Ruger firearm will shoot Winchester bullets, just like your Winchester rifle will shoot Remington bullets. What is TRULY annoying is that all guns have a bullet that they like the best, and shoot the best, and you have to try and FIND it. Annoying. It is like having a finicky cat. >:(

Anyways, the cartridge on the right is a standard .243. Oh, and a short explanation of caliber: a .243 bullet (not the whole cartridge, just the actual bullet, the pointy copper part) measures 24/100 of an inch in diameter. A .30-06 measures 30/100 of an inch in diameter. A .410 shotgun shell measures 41/100 of an inch across. Caliber is just a numeric measurement of diameter.

ANYWAYS, these cartridges (and "cartridge" refers to the whole shebang, with the powder and case and everything, where "bullet" literally just means the actual bullet) are the same bullet. But which one do you think goes faster, for longer? Right, the one with the bigger butt. :)

"Magnum" calibers (the bigger butt ones) have more powder. Also they are my favorites simply cuz us fat bottomed girls all have to stick together. :)

Here is a cool and illustrative pic i found online:

From left to right: .22LR (long rifle), .17HMR, .22-250, .25-06, .270 Winchester, .270 Winchester Short Magnum (or WSM), 7mm-08, .284Win., 30-30 Win., 30-06, .300 WSM, .303 British, .358 Win., .45 Colt.

The .22 and the .22-250, the third cartridge in from the left, have approximately the same diameter of bullet. But the .22-250 is the one that is travelling faster, farther, will be more quickly lethal and it will do its job over a greater distance. It should go without saying, but when you are hunting or shooting at a live target, you want to kill the animal as quickly and painlessly as possible. That's not the image of hunters that most people have in their heads, and of course there are slack-jawed loser exceptions to every rule, but that is how the vast majority of us feel.

So the bigger the bullet/the more powder you have, you decrease the animal's suffering. Irony alert!

So here are some pictures of riffles.


I know what you're thinking--

"Serena, these rifles aren't pink!"

"Yeah, I know."

"Well?! WTF?!!"

WTF is something that has been on my mind lately. You hear ALL THE TIME about someone doing something stupid with an "assault" rifle. They're "black" rifles. They're scary. They're bad. Someone should take them away from us. People don't need to have "assault" rifles.

So, can someone DEFINE "assault" rifle for me?

. . .

Exactly.

Usually it is just an aesthetic evaluation. It is black. Probably has a plastic stock. Might have a "pistol" grip instead of a standard rifle grip behind the trigger guard. Looks scary, like the ship in "Aliens." Has a hi-capacity magazine (bullet holder thing) sticking out from the bottom of it. May have a flash suppressor at the end of the barrel. May have a carry handle on top. May have a scope.

So i am putting these pictures up as a representation. The bottom ones are "assault" rifles, right?

Right???

Actually, all of these guns pictured are the SAME kind of gun. It is a Ruger 10-22, which is a .22 rifle. It is semi-automatic, so it chambers a new round every time you pull the trigger. Ruger 10-22s are cheap and plentiful. Seriously, you can get one for $75-$100 if you don't mind dings in the stock or a little bit of rust on the barrel. Brand new, they are less that $300, and they probably have more aftermarket crap that you can slap on them that any other gun out there. You can take the gun on top and buy a new stock and a heavy black barrel and all the scary acoutrements to make it into an "assault" rifle. So I guess i'm just trying to illustrate the fallacy behind banning a gun based on what it looks like. Although i'm hella tired so it probably isn't making too much sense.

(I had a note to myself here to put in a picture of own bad-ass 10-22. I was also going to explain what a "Mannlicher" stock and make obscene jokes about it. But that will have to be another post.)

My other pet peeve: the "high-powered" rifle. What the sam hell is a "high-powered" rifle? The power comes from the cartridge, not the rifle. So why do you hear "high-powered" rifle all the time? What does that even MEAN?? And, pray tell, is there a LOW-powered rifle out there?

Fleh.

I am pretty sure i have some pink rifle pictures but i have gone FAR too long in between posts so i'ma throw this one onto the interwebs right now.

Gun Safes!

So i have FIVE whole readers now! And i don't want them to break up with me, so I had better do a real post.

When we left off ages and ages ago (sorry, work has been kinda-sorta busy), i was promising to talk about gun safes. Because "proper gun storage" means a little more than hiding them under your bed. :) By which i mean MY bed.

So. Gun safes are like anything else--you can pick any size, any color (within reason; i canNOT find a picture of a pink one), any flavor, and someone somewhere will sell it to you. They are also one of those things where you DEFINITELY get what you pay for. You can spend thousands (literally) on the great big practically-walk-in super heavy-duty fireproof fancypants safes or you can spend $65 on the cheap crap tin cabinet from Wal-Mart that basically has a cam-lock and is SO break-innable that me and my trusty crowbar could have all your stuff vacated in like 16 seconds. That being said, a cheap crap tin cabinet is better than nothing. Most gun safes will accomplish their intended purposes for the most part:

1) keep thieving hands off your weapons

2) keep children's sticky little grubby gross boogery hands off your weapons

What is more difficult for the safe to accomplish, and ultimately more expensive, is to keep your weapons safe from fire. This makes a HUGE difference in price so it is important to figure out if it is something you require, or if you maybe just don't like your guns all that much and don't really mind if they melt. The cool thing about fire-resistant safes--ALL your important (non-living) stuff can go in there and be protected in the event of an emergency. Birth certificates, passports, car/truck/trailer titles, horse paperwork, grandma's chocolate chip cookie recipe, whatever. So that makes some level of fire-proofiness worth having, at least in my mind. Everyone thinks that having your house burn down for whatever reason is something that happens to "someone else." That's not very realistic. NO ONE expects bad things to happen, until they do. You are definitely best off being prepared for possible unpleasantness. Here is a link to a good article on fire ratings.

Anyways. Gun safes come in basically two approximate shapes--tall enough for rifles/shotguns (usually with shelving for handguns), and smallish square ones for handgun only. There is an obvious price difference on the sizes. What you purchase depends on you. Do you only own handguns? Are you never ever ever going to own a rifle or a shotgun? I can't imagine that, but then again i am CWAZY for clay pigeons, so i am not the best judge. It comes down to personal preference and affordability and the choice is yours.

Oh yeah, there is a third basic shape--long gun, horizontal. Some manufacturers make safes that replace the box-spring of your bed, or that fit nicely into the bed of your truck/SUV. However they might as well just make them shaped like dollar signs because they are not very affordable for the average Serena.


Safes come with lots of different locking mechanisms, also. Some have electronic keypads, some have a dial, some are keyed, some are a combination of these. Again, personal preference.

Make sure that, if you ARE in the market for a safe, you check eBay. They have quite a few varieties and some of the companies will even ship them. Make sure you know what "shipping" entails--some companies will set it up in your house, some will only get it inside your house, and some (most) will just leave it curbside. And it should go without saying, but safes are hella hella heavy. Quality ones especially, like in the 400-800 lb range for a "normal" sized one (20 guns or less).

I am NOT an expert on gun safes by any means, so definitely do more homework than just this post.

Oh, and a parting thought.

My parents had a pistol when we were growing up. They had rifles too but the rifles were always hidden, (although in actuality, nothing is "hidden" from a child, but we weren't twits enough to go looking for them). My dad kept the pistol, a .22 caliber Ruger Single Six, in a drawer in his nightstand. He thoughtfully installed a cam-lock on the wooden drawer, which any thief with an ounce of motivation could have ripped off of there, but admittedly the pawn-shop payoff for a Ruger Single Six (Possibly The World's Most Common Revolver!!) isn't that great. He NOT-so-thoughtfully stored the key for that drawer IN THE DRAWER UNDERNEATH IT. Now, I was not an idiot during my teen years. I mean, I was, we all were, but i wasn't enough of an idiot to ever get the gun out and play with it to impress my friends, having no idea if it was loaded or not. My SIBLINGS (and you know who you are) weren't blessed with the same amount of foresight. I work in public relations now, and we in the bizness call something like that an "eventual statistic." Works like this: If you have a ton of unsafe sex, eventually you are going to wake up with a disease. If you play with a loaded gun, eventually someone is going to get accidentally shot. Stuff like this happens ALL the TIME and it is a HUGE reason why people who are anti-gun think that all people are too dumb and irresponsible to own any firearms. Nothing bad happened to my family or their friends, but how easy would it have been? Safe and proper firearms storage is NOT SOMETHING THAT YOU SHOULD HALF-ASS. PERIOD. Seriously. Address safe and proper gun storage using your entire ass.

filler!

So i am doing a real post about gun safes, i swears.
Until i get it posted, check this out:

Women of Action

If i thought for one whole second that this channel was actually available here, i might have to rethink my "no-cable" stance.

Weirdest Conversation Ever

So i dropped out of the hemisphere for the first week of May and went and partied like a broke, ugly, talentless rock star in Sydney, Australia. My Marine Corps brother, Scotty, was granted two weeks of sweet sweet leave and his thought process went something like this:

a) spend 2 days of my 14-day leave getting back to the US. Spend not-enough time there, say goodbye to everyone--AGAIN--and spend 2 more days heading back into the war zone.

or

b) fly 6 hours to Sydney.

Um, yeah. So I, the hapless sister, got to spend two days in the air, which is fine because i am the Best Flyer Ever. Srsly, i can sleep anywhere. So we tore the barn doors off of Sydney, although my exploits are nothing compared to Stacey's adventures currently in progress in Korea. Scott and I had a grand old time and i took 1200 pictures (which is good because there are large portions of the evenings and some of the afternoons that I just plain don't remember). We mostly hit up the Irish pubs, which was funny because people actually THOUGHT we were Irish. Um. We're not. We would ask why and the Aussies would usually say it was because of our accents or because of our drink choices (Guinness and Guinness-like, mostly). We finally figured out that people thought we were Irish because we were loud, disorderly, drunk and apparently unemployed (buuuuuuurn!).

I'm just kidding, Ireland. You guys rule, seriously.

But anyways, during one drunken escapade at an Irish pub that was on the first floor of the hotel where we were staying, there was a band. And the band was AWESOME. They were called the Moonshiners and they were a haggly-looking old guy with an acoustic guitar and a younger, buffer guy with a fiddle. They ROCKED! I was singing along and semi-heckling the guitar guy from across the bar and apparently he liked that since he bought me a beer. Hooray!

So during an intermission, he comes over to chat. Over the course of the conversation, he mentions that he comes from a part of Australia that is heavily into mining, mostly cadmium, zinc and lead. So here we go:

Me: "Get the lead mining back in business, shotgun shells (which fire lead pellets, as an aside) are costing me too much money lately."

Him: "You Americans and your guns. We don't have guns in Australia. I don't see the need for them. I don't think anyone should own guns."

Me: *siiiiiiigh* "Yeah, i know. And your crime rates have risen as a RESULT of your gun laws growing more restrictive."

Him: "I don't think so."

Me: "I KNOW so! It is well-documented, and even more so in England. Banning legal ownership of guns leads to MORE crime, not less. You're sheep for the robbing!"

Him: "We don't really need guns here. It's ok if you want to shoot clay pigeons, but people don't need guns for home defence. There is too much personal liability--people really aren't responsible enough to be entrusted with weapons. But that's fine with us here; we're not paranoid like you Americans."

Me: "So what happens when someone actually DOES kick down your door? Then what? They're probably not there for tea time!" (remember i am drinking, which makes me even more rude than usual)

Him: "That doesn't happen often enough for us to worry about it."

Me: "Right, things like that only happen to OTHER PEOPLE. Sorry, but in the States we have tons of crackheads. It seems like everyone uses drugs."

Him: "Drugs aren't so bad."

Me: . . .

Him: "No, really."

Me: *blink*

Him: "Ecstasy is my favorite."

Me: . . . (finding voice) . . . "You think people are too IRRESPONSIBLE to own guns, but DRUGS ARE FINE!??"

Him: "Basically, yes."

He then proceeded to tell me WHY Ecstasy is awesome, how cheap it is, where to get it, HOW to use it, how much fun it could be if i used it with my partner, etc. I was looking around like, dude, i am in the Twilight Zone. Is this conversation really happening? Scott was making friends with a guy from England so i was totally alone to deal with the strange-ity of the whole thing.

It was positively surreal. I guess it is all in how you are raised, but i am SO glad i live out West, where (armed) life is best.

Moral: Australians are weird.

Exactly.

PROPER GUN STORAGE

One thing that you can never ever ever cut corners on, ever, ever ever, is proper gun storage. Guns need to be able to be securely stored in an area INACCESSIBLE to children/thieves/nitwits. You, as a gun owner, carry this heavy burden squarely on your awesome gun-owning shoulders.

That being said, I don't own a gun safe. Yet.

My rationale has traditionally been this:

1) I will never ever have kids, mostly because I can't stand children. I know i'm going to alienate all three of my readers with that revelation, but it's true. I have no maternal instinct whatsoever. I've seriously never even had a child as a visitor in any place I have ever lived. My sister who does have kids has to be pretty damn desperate to ask me to baby-sit, because she knows I will completely half-ass any attempts at child care (example: I do NOT change diapers. Period.) So the safety issue is pretty much nil because my house is more likely to be invaded by elephants than it is by anyone under the age of 21. However, my home IS invaded by nitwits fairly regularly. I call them my "friends." So i guess this excuse doesn't really hold water.

2) I have never owned a home. Home ownership is the time for large, immobile furniture. Home RENTERSHIP is not. Gun safes weigh, like, a trillion pounds. I am simply NOT dragging that from apartment to apartment.

So, you know where this is going. Our new president made the (totally awesome) decision to give me back a bunch of my own tax dollars to buy a house. $8,000? I'm on it! Thanks, Mr. President! I've been waiting 30 years for someone to incent me to be a grown-up and buy a house. So I did. I bought a sweet sweet condo. It is SECOND-FLOOR, so totally defensible against zombie attacks since I only have one point of access.

Problem: I have a home now. It's time to get The Gun Safe.

Bigger Problem: Second floor. A flight of stairs is going to be involved.

Somewhat Similarly-Sized Problem: These fookers are EXPENSIVE. And, like anything else, you get what you pay for.

Guh.

So a couple of years ago, I wheedled a promise of some moolah out of my parents specifically for The Gun Safe once I got a proper place. Moolah has been granted. So it is time to go shopping.

I will keep you posted on what I look at, what i like, and what i dislike. Good times, yeeuh. :D

CWP. or CPP. or CCP. Or whatever.

People call them lots of things, depending on the state that you're in, but whether it's a Concealed Weapons Permit, a Concealed Pistol Permit, a Concealed Carry Permit, a carry card, whut-EVER, it allows you to have a loaded firearm on your person, in your purse, in your car, etc. They are all issued separately for whatever state you live in, usually by either the statewide police agency or your county sheriff's department. Not every state allows concealed carry (cough coughIllinoiscough), which is bad. How are you supposed to be able to defend yourself against muggers/dogs/bears/zombies/whatever if carrying a TOOL to defend yourself is against the law? In Illinois, you have to apply for a card/permit to even PURCHASE a firearm. >:( I am not going all NRA-crazy here, but that sounds suspiciously like "infringing" my "right" to "keep" and "bear" arms, if you ask me.

And i guess i am a little stymied as to how something like that would even purport to work. I mean, me, Law-Abiding Lucy, has to fill out a bunch of forms and pay a bunch of money to purchase a firearm. Great. Fan-freaking-tastic. Does that inconvenience to ME stop Criminal Carl from buying a used gun from some crackhead and mugging people with it? NO. Gun laws like this are well-intentioned but they do NOT stop guns from getting into the hands of people who are going to do something stupid and give guns a bad name. Laws don't stop criminals from doing anything. These people don't follow laws. THAT'S WHY THEY ARE CRIMINALS. Gun laws just get in my way and piss me off. grrr.

Anyways, on to more awesome things.

Some states allow OPEN carry, which is cool. Meaning, if I want to have a gun on my hip, covered by a Carhartt jacket, that is considered "concealed" and i need a permit. But if the state allows open carry, i can have that same gun on my hip NOT covered by a Carhartt jacket, and go swaggering down the street nice and legal. Awesome. Wisconsin is an example of this. They do not issue concealed carry permits but open carry has to be specifically prohibited by the building or place of business.

I got a . . . checking . . . Concealed Weapons LICENSE (whatEVER) when I moved to Idaho because I have guns in my car on a regular basis, and while that alone is perfectly legal, it makes things easier if i were to, for example, get pulled over with three shotguns in the backseat.* John Law likes to see the license because it means that I am not only a law-abiding citizen, but also that I have been photographed, fingerprinted, paid a license fee, and been subjected to a national FBI and local background check to make sure I'm not a felon. Felons in the United States lose their right to keep and bear arms. So don't do crime, kids; it's not worth losing a chance to (legally) play with sweet sweet guns.

*-This is actully pretty likely to happen if I am headed to the gun club. ;)

Here is a kick-ass website that has all the info on what your state issues, along with your state's reciprocity information. Meaning, does your state honor carry permits from OTHER states? Not all of them do, folks! It is one of the vagaries of this wacky nation. There have been legislative attempts to standardize carry laws across state lines, but they are usually fought by most gun-rights organizations for a couple of reasons. 1) Because nationwide standards start us all down a slippery slope to standardized firearm licensing requirements, which are bad, and 2) a nationwide standard has to be voted on by Congress, and the vast majority of Congresspeople come from heavily populated, urban areas. They have generally grown up thinking that guns are bad, and no one has ever taken the time to teach them to shoot and demonstrated that guns are nothing but tools. So who is to say that Congress wouldn't decide to enact a nationwide standard based on, say, Illinois' dumbass position? Nobody, either pro- or anti-gun, wants to fight that fight, and that's why everyone is happy to leave that as it is, as a states' rights issue.

Anyways. Concealed weapons permits! Go get one!

And yes, i am still working on Rifle Post. FEVERISHLY working. Well, not really. But you can pretend.

I WANT THIS SHIRT.

I'm sorry, this is a filler post so people don't get bored of my blog and wander off.

I am writing a post about rifles but it is taking me FOREVER. Coming soon though, i promise!

How I Got Started - Part Two

At some point, Scott and i went out to a piece of our grandparents' property to do some target shooting with the .22-caliber 511 and my dad's 30-06 deer rifle. This deer rifle was my first experience shooting anything with a scope and I could. not. see. through it. The only thing that worked was for me to hold the rifle completely OFF of my face and shoulder, which would have absolutely pummeled me if i had been dumb enough to pull the trigger. It took me a second to figure out what the deal was--I'm LEFT-EYE DOMINANT. Not left-handed, but left-eye dominant. I had no idea. Now that i am old and i have had time to think about it, it makes perfect sense. I am right-handed. The left side of my brain controls basically everything i do. What is connected to my left brain? My left eye. Yeah.

So i was holding the rifle completely off and away from my body because i was trying to look through the scope with my left eye, even though the gun was on my right shoulder. S-M-R-T.

I've looked into this more, though, and i would be willing to bet that MOST people, women especially, are left-eye dominant. There are two schools of thought on how you deal with this when it comes to learning how to shoot, especially with long guns or anything with a scope. 1) Learn to shoot off your left shoulder. 2) Learn to shoot off of your right shoulder, but close your left eye or cover the left lens of your shooting glasses with a patch.

I say learn to shoot off your left shoulder. Look at it this way--it is going to be weird and uncomfortable to learn to shoot a long gun off of either shoulder. So go with the one that is going to work for you in the long run!

I know at the place that i shoot, when they are teaching new shooters, they will patch your shooting glasses and teach you to shoot with your right eye. Different strokes for different folks, i guess.

Next up: shotgun shooting.

Props

Big ol' props to Some E Cards for their sweet artist's rendition of me 150+ years ago.

Guns 301 - Semi-automatics

Sorry everyone! Work has been cracking the whip. But i would like to continue on with my overview of different types of guns and get into a brief discussion of semi-automatic handguns.















"Semi-automatic" refers to the action of the gun, or where the next bullet comes from. There are about a gajillion moving parts in these guns, which is why you have to keep them clean or they jam on you like crazy. I am going to take some indecent liberties with explaining how they actually work, mostly because i am not sure i fully understand it myself and i like to refer to the process as "magic." Basically you load the gun by slapping the magazine into the hole in the bottom of the grip.





















You pull the slide back to chamber a round . . .














and then you point the firearm at something you wish to puncture and pull the trigger. The bullet is fired, just like when you pull the trigger in a revolver, but the gas from the round pushes the slide back on a semi-auto handgun. The slide blows back and ejects the spent shell casing. Once that happens, the (very strong) spring in the magazine pushes the next round up into the chamber. Just like that, you're "automatically" ready to fire again, as many times as there are rounds in the gun.

Here is an exploded view of a semi-auto:


















Oh, and a terminology thing: "Semi-automatic" simply means you have to pull the trigger one time for each bullet. "Fully automatic" means you can theoretically pull the trigger once and then hold the trigger down and spray bullets all over the place. Fully automatic handguns don't exist outside of that dumbass "Underworld" movie because they would be absolutely uncontrollable, and because you would be out of ammunition in like 2 seconds.




















I don't mean to give a political commentary, but sometimes you do hear legislators talking about restricting semi-automatic guns. It baffles me a little as to why, or what crime that would prevent. I know people who can fire revolvers every bit as fast, or faster, than semi-automatic handguns. So it's not really a speed-of-fire issue . . . Legislation of this type is probably proposed by well-meaning people who think that "semi-automatic" sounds scary and so it should be taken away. This is why i am such a big proponent of people learning to shoot. After you have pulled a trigger a time or two, you learn that a gun is not something to be scared of. It is simply a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. Dismounting soap box now.

You don't have to cock the hammer on a semi-auto, generally speaking. They are all double-action. Some of them (Glocks, etc) don't even have an exposed hammer, so you're SOL if you want to fire it single-action. You can cock the hammer if you want on those that do have a hammer, and you see it done a LOT in movies or on TV, but it is pretty much a useless gesture. Just takes "I want to shoot you" to "I REALLY want to shoot you."

Semi-autos are pretty much the concealed carry gun of choice for most of us who carry. Basically we want as many bullets as we can get, available as fast as we can get them, and semi-autos fill this bill pretty well. I will get into that a little more in a separate blog entry, mostly because i have to go to work again. :(

I kind of blew through this entry, and i really really need some coffee, so let me know if there is anything you would like to know more about! I can address it in the comments or edit the entry or whatever.

But i will leave you with some awesome photos I found. :)























































These are pretty fugly even by my standards. And the one with the snakeskin grips is EXPENSIVE, like 4-digit even before you pimp it out. Kind of ironic that guns are considered to be a redneck/yokel/poor bumpkin kind of thing, eh? ;)

In honor of Funder

F Minus.

Pop cans make perfectly fine targets! Just remember to pick them up when you're done.

How I Got Started - Part One

So let's take a break from talking about specific types and functions of firearms and talk about a subject very near and dear to my heart . . . me. :)

I have had a few requests (ok, one) wanting to know more about how exactly i got started shooting and why i've kept at it. Like so many of people's life experiences, it was mostly driven by family. Neither of my parents nor my older sisters were into firearms when i was younger, but baby brother sure was. I remember him begging my mom to "make" him guns out of old wood scraps. I should take a moment here to mention that even though my mom is not particularly into firearms, she IS very hands-on. She is the reason i can chainsaw, crochet, make jerky, nail two boards together, run a router, and work on my own car. So yes, we always had scrap wood around the house, and she would nail two 3" chunks together to approximate the shape of a pistol, and Scott would run around and shoot the hell out of stuff with it. Muzzle safety is a concept that escapes most kids.

But anyways, Scott got older and more wily and he somehow convinced the 'rents to get him a Red Ryder bb gun. We got the very serious lecture about how these guns CAN cause harm, and do not point the gun at anything you don't wish to harm, etc. As far as i can remember, we took this advice to heart and never even annoyed the dogs with the bb gun. I know people who are a little more cavalier with them. I have a friend who actually shot his own kid with one, being funny, and neither him or his 13 year old daughter realized until like 2 hours after the fact that the BB WAS STUCK IN HER LEG and they had to go to the doctor to get it removed. Moral? It IS still a gun, and it demands respect.

But anyways, back to muzzle safety: So Scott and i plinked on pop cans in my parents' driveway (and we lived in a rural enough part of Washington state that no one was going to freak out about kids with a gun) and we never put our eye out or anything. Although Scott DID get the bright idea once to shoot a bumblebee which was on one of my mom's flowers . . . FORGETTING THE PICTURE WINDOW DIRECTLY BEHIND THE FLOWER. Bringing us to another important safety consideration--backstop. Don't shoot at anything if you don't know or can't see what's behind it. The look on Scott's face was pretty priceless, and i think he learned a pretty important lesson. I also think he got massively spanked.

So that was my introduction to guns--the bb variety. I would also plink with Grandpa's old Remington 511, which is a bolt-action .22 rifle and the next logical step up in caliber.

At some point around my 17th or 18th year on this planet, i was introduced to handguns (which i just typoed as 'handfuns')(which sounds kind of dirty). My first handgunning experience was with the previously mentioned Ruger Single Six revolver, during a backpacking trip with my family. My dad always strapped this gun on for hiking, despite the fact that a .22 won't actually kill most of the things you encounter in the backcountry unless you are very very precise with the location of the shot. Think "hitting a cougar in the eyeball" precise. But anyways, we set up an old tin can and shot at it and it were fun.

I was more intimidated by semiautomatic handguns because they are louder and shell-flingier. And because they have external moving parts, there is a margin of error when you shoot them. If your hand is in the wrong place, the gun can hurt you. Actually you can hurt yourself shooting a revolver too but it is easier to do with a semi-auto.

Anyways, around age 20 (the years are all starting to run together), my brother and myself signed up for an introductory handgunning course at the local indoor gun range. The course was a one-day affair, taught by the woman (!) who owned (and still owns) the range. We sat through a classroom session with 6-8 other people and learned about different types of handguns, how they work, different bullets and calibers, muzzle safety, etc. It was fascinating, informative, and fairly inexpensive, particularly in light of the second part of the course, which was a giant free-for-all with all of the range's rental guns. We shot everything from .22 revolvers to .45 semiautomatic Glocks, .357 magnum revolvers to 9mm Sigs like Daun's, it was awesome. We had professional supervision, requisite eye and ear protection, professional instruction on form and function . . . it was a great value. It was not a competition, everyone learned a LOT, and it was a fabulous introduction to modern handgunning. Seriously, i highly recommend calling up your local indoor range and seeing if they are having an introductory handgun class, or even a ladies-only handgun class. It is a safe and sane way to get started in the awesome world of awesome firearms.

I will write more later about long gunning (shotgun/rifle) but for now i have to trot off and earn a living.

Props

Props to alert reader dp (and her husband) for this great picture.


Washington, D.C., circa 1925. "Girls' rifle team of Drexel Institute." National Photo Company Collection glass negative.

This picture should be clickable, but Blogger is weird with pictures sometimes. So if that is the case, you can see the original blog entry this is pirated from here.

So i guess my little ladies' shooting blog is just an old idea with new technology. :)

I was going to save this picture for a post on what to wear when you shoot, but it is just too cool. I might have to find a way to make it into a blog header.

Guns 201 - The Revolver

Revolver post!


Revolvers rock. The first handgun i ever shot was a revolver, a .22-caliber Ruger Single Six (which i just typoed as "Single Sux," which could not be further from the truth). Revolvers are a great learner gun, generally speaking, but more on that later.

So it is probably oversimplifying, but revolvers are so-called because they have a revolving cylinder. The cylinder is where all your bullets live, and the cylinder rotates each bullet so that it lines up with the barrel. That's easy enough. HOW the cylinder works is a little more complicated.

Revolvers come in two different types of actions--single-action and double-action. Single-action is when you have to use your thumb and cock the hammer (the pointy doohickey on the back of the gun, above the grip). Cocking the hammer rotates the cylinder and lines the bullet up with the barrel. Cock hammer (huh huh), aim, squeeze trigger, *bang*, cock hammer again, repeat. It's called a single-action because the trigger is responsible for a single action only--dropping the firing pin onto the bullet.

DOUBLE-action guns don't need you and your feeble thumb to cock the hammer, although you still can if you want. The two actions performed by the trigger are the rotation of the cylinder and the firing of the bullet. I think that's why it's called double-action, anyway. I never really understood that. As far as I'm concerned, the names should be switched, because MY thumb and MY trigger finger perform 2 actions for one type, and only one action for the other type. I don't get to make the rules though, so whatever. >:(

Double-action guns have a really heavy trigger--you have to pull it pretty hard because it is mechanically working the cylinder around. You can shoot a double-action gun as a single-action, though. If you cock the hammer and rotate the cylinder yourself, the trigger gets a LOT lighter and easier to pull.

You most likely won't be able to tell single-action from double-action by looking at them, so make sure you ask before you shoot! It's nice to know so you're not sitting there hauling on an immobile trigger going "WHY. WON'T. YOU. FIRE!!?" and looking like a big dweeb when actually you forgot to cock the hammer. :) The notable exception--hammerless revolvers are always double-action. Also, they are always humpbacked and ugly. Even when they are pink:



Revolvers fire bullets almost exclusively, although they DO make tiny shot-shells in certain calibers for revolvers. The shot-shells are retardedly expensive and have a lethal range of about 3 feet, which is why people pretty much just buy them for shooting rattlesnakes, at least in my part of the world anyway. John Wayne might be able to thwack a rattlesnake with a bullet from like 30 feet, but most of us aren't that good. And no, i have never actually shot a snake, because i loooooooooooooooove snakes. But i am in the minority with that opinion, i think.

They also make blanks, which are basically black powder capped off with wax or paper. No bullet, but the black powder goes *BANG* and flings flaming powder 6-8 feet. THAT's the stuff they use to pop balloons in cowboy-action mounted shooting.


Single-action revolvers are considered very safe to carry and shoot because the gun CANNOT accidentally fire without the hammer being cocked back. This, and historical accuracy, are the reasons single-action firearms are the only ones allowed in cowboy-action mounted shooting ("cowboy" action meaning "single-action").

Most revolvers have room in the cylinder for 5 or 6 rounds. Some of the smaller calibers can hold more but 5 or 6 is pretty standard.

CMSA (Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association) rules state that your revolver has to be a single action .45 caliber, and that you can only load 5 (blank) rounds even though your gun holds 6. The thought process behind this is, if you drop a loaded revolver on a VERY hard surface and it lands on the hammer JUST RIGHT, it can theoretically hit the butt-end of the bullet hard enough to fire it. The chances are like one in a gajillion, but they don't take chances with people's safety, so the chamber underneath the hammer is ALWAYS empty unless you are in the ring running the pattern and actually firing your gun. GunS, there are usually 10 balloons on a course (i think) so it takes 2 guns. I am still a total n00b at mounted shooting, and Roxie sucks out loud at it, but it is fun and I'm going to keep on it!

Revolvers are a really good gun if you are learning how to shoot, for a variety of reasons. One of these is recoil. Most first-time shooters are a little scared of what it's going to feel like to have a thing in your hand go *BANG* and kick backwards. Revolvers are generally pretty heavy for their size, and the rule of thumb with guns (if you're ignoring caliber) is always "heavier gun = less recoil." I'll touch on that more when i talk about long guns.

There is a little bit of a trend in the gun world right now to make handguns out of lightweight material (titanium, alloys, "polymer" which i am pretty sure is just a fancy word for plastic, etc). Lighter-weight materials make a gun a LOT easier to carry, especially in your purse which is already too heavy. The problem is, FIRING A LIGHTWEIGHT GUN IS TOTALLY LAME AND UNCOMFORTABLE. Especially as you get into larger calibers or magnum rounds.

I work in the timber industry, and I know a lot of my foresters like to carry titanium revolvers because they are lightweight and that's a big concern when you have to carry it on your hip or in a vest pocket all day long. But even these big burly dudes complain that actually FIRING the gun sucks because there is a ton of recoil. It's intimidating, and it makes it tougher to get the gun back on target after each pull of the trigger. So that's something to keep in mind if you are learning to shoot or picking out a gun to purchase. Heavier = better, unless you have some experience and/or know what you're getting into.

The Ruger Single Six i was talking about earlier was an AWESOME learner gun. Single action and .22 caliber. When you pulled the trigger, the gun didn't go "bang," it went "pop." Hardly any recoil, and very accurate over short distances. Most pistol ranges have the targets set at 25-30 feet out (although some are pretty adjustable) and that is longer than most distances over which you would actually want to use a handgun. Handgun hunting is an exception, but I won't babble about that just yet.

Anyways, a single-action .22 revolver is a great way to learn to shoot and build confidence.

Revolvers also don't fling an empty shell out of the gun like semi-automatic pistols do. When i was learning to shoot semi-autos in larger calibers, i found the flying empty shells to be a HUGE pain in the butt until i learned better control of my wrist. It's one less thing to think about with a revolver, and personally i am ALL ABOUT lessening the number of things i have to think about. ;)

Loading a revolver is pretty simple. Most of them either have a little gate that swings open so you can rotate the cylinder and stick a bullet in each chamber, or they have a lever or a button you can press to make the whole cylinder swing out of the gun. The above picture is a close-up of the little gate, closed, on a gun that has the hammer cocked back. The swing-out cylinder is easier to work with, although according to Google Image Search it is apparently prone to cracking. The gate-style (i don't think that's really what it is called) is slow to unload because you have to extract each spent case with a push rod on the front of the gun, under the barrel. Some revolvers are break-action, which is cool but you really don't find that too often.

Oh, the other cool thing about revolvers--if you have the hammer cocked and then you decide you don't want to shoot, you hold the hammer with your thumb, pull the trigger, and EASE the hammer back down. Pulling the trigger releases the hammer but your thumb slows it down (hopefully) so you don't actually shoot if you don't want to. Definitely practice that at the range though, and keep the barrel pointed in a safe direction! ("Down range" refers to "towards the targets," and that's a safe direction).

Also, just like anything else, they DO make guns with us in mind:






See??

Gut Check Time

OK, i know, i promised i was going to post about revolvers. I will, i will.

There were a couple of, uh, incidents this weekend that made me really want to do a gut-check on why firearms are a good thing. Here is the first one, which happened Friday night:

Police sergeant stabbed in attack outside restaurant
One suspect in jail; another still sought
From Staff Reports

A Spokane police sergeant was stabbed in the face late Friday, and later two officers investigating the attack were injured in a hit-and-run accident.

One suspect in the stabbing is in custody on a felony assault charge and another, described as a transient, is still at large.

Spokane County Sheriff's Department major crimes detectives are investigating the attack in downtown Spokane.

Sgt. Brad Thoma was stabbed in the jaw outside the Steam Plant Grill about 10 p.m. Thoma was taken to a nearby hospital, where he received stitches and was released.

In a news release this morning, detectives reported how both the assault and hit-and-run unfolded:

Thoma, Spokane police Officer Amy Ross and a civilian female friend were leaving the Steam Plant Grill. They had split up and were getting their individual vehicles from the parking area.

As Ross was pulling up to Lincoln to exit, she was confronted by two men walking southbound on the sidewalk. The men began making rude and sexually inappropriate comments to her, detectives said.

Thoma told investigators that he walked over and told the men to knock it off and to show some respect. The two suspects began advancing on him, and Thoma identified himself and Ross as police officers. He told Ross to get her pistol from her car, and he displayed his identification to the men.

The two men continued to advance on Thoma, and when they were about four feet away, Thomas saw that one of the men, identified as 19-year-old Kenneth James Kheel, was holding a knife in his right hand.

Kheel lunged at Thoma and stabbed the sergeant in the jaw, detectives said.

Thoma was able to grab the suspect's arm, but Kheel tossed the knife to his companion, identified as 23-year-old Gyles "Shannon" Dogskin, who fled the scene with the weapon, detectives said.

Thoma, Ross and a civilian passer-by fought and detained Kheel until patrol officers arrived to arrest him. Kheel was booked into the Spokane County Jail on a first-degree assault charge.

Meanwhile, patrol officers located a man they thought might be the other suspect. Spokane police Officer Cory Lyons drove Ross to the man's location to attempt an identification, but the man detained was not Dogskin.

As Lyons and Ross were driving back to the scene of the assault, their patrol car was broadsided by a hit-and-run driver. Both officers were injured and taken to the hospital. Ross received stitches in one of her legs, and Lyons was treated for an injured wrist.

The Police Department is investigating the collision. Patrol units also are searching for Dogskin, the Sheriff's Department said, "because they best know the downtown haunts where he likely is hiding."

Police say there is probable cause for Dogskin's arrest for rendering criminal assistance. Anyone who knows his location is encouraged to call Crime Check at (509) 456-2233.

So . . . This is cause for a gut-check because Sgt. Thoma and Officer Ross were HANGING OUT WITH ME AT THE RESTAURANT that night. A mutual friend of ours was throwing a "baby shower" to congratulate her husband on his first horse (she's a big black Percheron mare)(awww). So yeah. Matt and i left around 9 and this happens an hour later. How easily could this story have been about us? Only i guarantee the words "hail of gunfire" would have been included if this story was about us.

Downtown Spokane is crawling with transients. Matt and i must have walked past 5 or 6 in the half-block from my car to the restaurant doors. Granted, most of them are relatively harmless, depending on how much it annoys you to be panhandled. But apparently some of them aren't. And i will say that i was thankful that both Matt and myself were carrying handguns. I would rather have one and not need it than need one and not have it. As Funder says, "I'm more important than someone who wants to kill me." I don't mean to sound ultra-paranoid, but there are scary people in the world, and it is best to be prepared.

Second (dumber) thing happened to me last night.

I live in a fairly nice neighborhood but it is an interesting place. It is older and some of the rental homes have been or continue to be drug houses. So you will be driving down the block, looking at the homes, thinking: "nice house, nice house, nice house, crack house, nice house, REALLY nice house, crack house . . ." you get the idea. Oh, i should also mention that i don't really differentiate between types of drugs. Methamphetamine (sp?) is a HUGE problem out here in the rural West, and is generally considered by law enforcement to be the cause/reason for 95% of theft crimes in the region. But anyhoo, if a person is whacked out on drugs, i call them a crackhead. May not be actual crack, but the results are the same. It's still a toothless drug addict and still a crackhead to me. So when i say "crack house," i probably mean "meth house." But whatever.

ANYWAYS, when i moved in to my house (which i rent from my grandmother and which has had a string of . . . tenants of questionable character over the years), I was fairly insistent on having an alarm system installed. Not because i own anything worth stealing, but for my own peace of mind. Being broken into is something i AM paranoid about, majorly. I need to feel comfortable in my own home.

So i am sound asleep at 2:30 a.m. last night and my INCREDIBLY LOUD alarm siren goes off. I am not sure WHY, as a brief and panicked investigation revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

Here is the ideal course of action, for me anyway, when my alarm is triggered in the middle of the night:

1) Grab loaded firearm and cell phone, both kept close at hand for this sort of situation

2) Lock bedroom door

3) call 911

Here is what i ACTUALLY did. If this was a test/dry run, it would have made Failblog.

1) Alarm goes off. Scream.

2) Attempt to leap out of bed, foiled by tangled sheets

3) Stumble over to bedroom keypad, TURN OFF ALARM cuz OMG I can't wake the neighbors!

4) dig around in purse for handgun

5) find handgun

6) unholster handgun

7) THEN think to check alarm pad for notification of WHAT sensor was tripped. Stupid Serena, check that BEFORE you turn off the alarm!!

8) Motion sensor in the living room. Great. Living room attaches to my bedroom. Might have been good to know before i shut off the siren.

9) Check all entry points in the house. Everything checks out, so, false alarm.

10) lay in bed, heart racing. Don't think about going back to sleep as it is physically impossible now. Assess reaction to potential threat, give self a failing grade.

False alarms happen, and used to happen all the time when i had a cat that leapt up on stuff he wasn't supposed to. My motion sensor is infra-red and programmed to ignore small bodies such as dogs and cats, but any heat at a certain height (head high) will trip it. So i don't know if my current cat jumped up on something or what. Still. Trial run, and i sucked. What if an actual crackhead had been in my living room?

Definite food for thought.

I live alone. If my alarm goes off in the middle of the night, i have no one to rely on but me. So what if i had to check all my points of entry without a firearm? What am i going to carry to subdue a crackhead, a baseball bat? A big flashlight? My hunting knife? Nope, nope and nope. This is a fight i want to WIN.

Sorry to delay the revolver post, i have just been thinking about this all since . . . 2:30 this morning.

Guns 101: Handguns - The Derringer

So as a primer, we're going to go through all the different types of gun.

. . .

OK, no we're not. I'm not going to get historical because i don't feel like doing research. But i will be discussing the "Big Three" types of guns--handguns, rifles and shotguns--and talking about their uses and attributes. All together that is a huge topic so for today I am going to stick to one type of handgun.

A handgun is a short-barreled gun that you hold in your hand, obviously. Although ideally with most handguns you hold it with TWO hands. :) Handguns are available in a fairly limited range of action types ("action" meaning, "if/how the next bullet is fed after you pull the trigger and shoot once"). The only three of those that i care enough about to discuss, and probably the only three you will ever encounter, are: break action (derringers), revolvers and semiautomatics.

And I am going to start with derringers. Because they are KYOOT!



awwwwwwww!

Like i plan on doing with lots of my pictures on this blog, I pirated this picture from the interwebs. If it belongs to you, and you want me to take it down, just tell me! kthanx.

"Derringer" is actually a generic term for any 1 or 2 shot, break-action handgun. "Break action" referring to the fact that you load the rounds into the barrels by "breaking" the gun in half. You big meany, you.

These are kind of a classic purse/vest gun because they are tiny, easy to conceal, and deadly enough at 15 feet. And 15 feet is about the average distance from your assailant if you do ever get into a gunfight, btw. :)

They are usually chambered in bullet calibers (.22, .38, .45 etc) but they are commonly found in .410, which is a shotgun round (a shell full of tiny bullets). Here is an awesome picture of a derringer, open, with shotgun shells in it:



For the sake of scale, .410 shotgun shells (like the ones in the picture) are a little bit shorter and thicker than a cigarette.

You get the idea though. Open the gun (flip that little lever near the trigger) and put bullets/shells in it. Close. Aim. Pull trigger. As a point of discussion, i should mention that most derringers are single-action, meaning you have to cock the hammer before you can pull the trigger. This is cool because it functions as a safety (you can't pull the trigger unless you MEAN to pull the trigger because there is a step you have to take prior to pulling the trigger) but it can also be kind of lame if you have, like, .005 seconds to shoot a mugger or a rapist.

Derringers aren't really considered a beginner's gun because they are tough to learn how to shoot since the grip is eeny beeny teeny tiny.



They are also limited on range and accuracy due to their size. But they DO fit nicely in a purse, and some of them are plainly designed with women in mind:



Good choice if you are scared of muggers or carjackers. Not such a good choice if you are scared of bears or . . . bears.

Next up--revolvers!

Handgun cleaning 101

As promised!

Funder posted an excellent entry on her blog a while back on how to clean her handgun, a Smith & Wesson M&P .40 caliber. Tear-down on most every handgun is pretty similar to this, and she got some great pictures, so i am re-posting it here.

It is definitely jumping into this blog's subject matter with both feet, though! Next post won't be so technical, i promise.

Here goes:

So. I have a Smith & Wesson M&P .40. I wanted a .40, and I wanted something lefty-friendly, and that pistol fit my requirements at the gun store I went to. It's got a switch inside it somewhere to swap which side you eject the magazine from. It's a pretty good gun - it's full size, which should make it marginally more accurate and definitely makes it easier to hold with gloves on. It's a bit persnickety; when it's dirty it tends to misfire. This is really annoying but makes me keep it clean! Here's how I clean it.

Make sure it's empty and assemble your stuff. Here's my gun (unloaded), some vile-smelling gun solvent, gun oil, and a screwdriver. Not shown are nitrile gloves and a chunk of an old flannel pillowcase.


WAIT! Stop what you're doing and go open the door. Or do it outside. I'm not kidding about how horrible the solvent smells.

Rack the slide back and pull the Pointy Thing out of the grip.


Look down the top of the gun. See the yellowish thing?


Use the Pointy Thing to flip that down/forward. Also my hands are pretty dry.


Look on the left side of the gun. See the little thing above the trigger that looks like a wing?


Flip it down toward the trigger, and you can move the slide completely forward off of the gun.


This is the underside of the slide. The spring is sitting on top of the actual barrel. To the right of the spring you'll see some golden colored metal - that needs to be cleaned.


Here's the body of the gun after you take the slide off. All the flat surfaces on top of the gun need to be cleaned and lightly oiled.


So, when you buy your gun you're going to buy a cleaning kit with it. Unlike me, you won't immediately lose the cleaning kit. You'll have plastic rods and brushes and pretty white cotton swabs. I, however, can't find half the rods or any of the white cotton swabs. Therefore I am using a screwdriver and part of a flannel blanket. Put your nitrile gloves on. They tell me that gun solvent will eat latex or vinyl gloves. Dip the swab in the (horribly nasty smelling) solvent, so the swab's completely saturated.


Use your cleaning rod to shove the swab completely through the barrel. It'll come out dirty. Repeat, with clean solvent swabs, until it's not dirty anymore (took me three passes).


Take a look down the barrel. It should be pretty clean. The swirls are rifling; they make the bullet spin as it comes out of the barrel and greatly increases accuracy.


Get another swab with some solvent on it and scrub off all the parts that look like they slide together. With some good light you'll see black crud in various spots, just scrub it off with light pressure. Wipe all the bits of dirt off your poor gun, too, you silly redneck.

Now that it's dry, you want to oil it. Less oil is waaaay better than too much oil! The oil lubricates the moving parts a tiny bit, and it keeps the shiny metal from rusting, but it also attracts black crud (GSR) and makes your !$#@$ gun jam.

You can click on this picture and go to "all sizes" on the flickr page - this is oiled enough. I put a drop of oil on either side of the slide, then smear it out with another (clean) swab.


Now look down the handle, where the magazine locks in. Pull the trigger and note where the trigger gears move. Put one drop of oil on the trigger gears and pull it a few more times to distribute the oil. Oil the flat metal pieces on top of the back of the gun while you're there.

Put two drops of oil on the barrel and smear them all around with a swab. It won't look like much, but it's enough. This is half-oiled. The inside of the barrel doesn't need oil.


Here's everybody's favorite car repair manual phrase: "Reassembly is reverse of disassembly." You'll probably want to check the manual! Drop the barrel in the slide, put the spring in (it only goes in correctly one way), get the slide back on the gun locked back, find the Pointy Thing and put the green lever back where it was, and you should be able to rack the slide and NOT have the slide fall off. Put the Pointy Thing back in the grip. Dry fire it (pull the trigger) just to make sure, then you're ready to reload and store it.

Funder raises a couple of good points, possibly to be addressed in future posts. 1) left-handed shooting vs. right-hand shooting, and 2) proper gun storage. I could tackle one or both of those now, but i am off to the barn to see if Roxie's arena is fixed yet.

First!

Hey all!

Welcome to Guns 'n' Glitter. I couldn't think of a snappier title, so we're stuck with that one.

I know just anecdotally that there are a lot of women out there who are interested in getting involved in shooting, be it for self-defense, hunting, target shooting or just to pick up another life skill. I am very much in favor of this, as you may imagine, because more women shooters means "more cool chicks i can hang out with at the gun club."

Hopefully this blog can serve as a non-intimidating place for us gals to discuss some of the things that can seem overwhelming or embarassing to ask if you are going into shooting as a newbie. Thus, this is my attempt at doing a women-specific shooting sports/hunting blog. I hope i can be of some assistance to some of you out there!

Street cred: I have been shooting Red Ryder bb guns and .22 rifles since . . . probably around age 10. Isn't that when most parents decide a kid is old enough for a bb gun? Started in with handguns at 18 and shotguns at 21. Most of the time that I spend shooting is spent with my shotguns, since clay pigeons are FUN FUN FUN to shoot at. I started hunting at 25 (late bloomer, i guess) but i have been making up for lost time in that particular area.

I am not affiliated with the NRA or any particular political party--I just firmly believe that everyone should know how to use a gun because you never know when the need may arise.

Let me know in the comments if you have anything specific you would like me to address. You can also e-mail me (it's in my profile). Otherwise I am going to poach the "How to Clean a Handgun" post from Funder's blog as the first "real" post, since that is where the whole idea for this blog came from.

Also, since most of my readers (all 2 of you maybe??) are crossing over to here from the horseback world, I do plan on doing a post on how to humanely dispatch your horse with a firearm in case of extreme emergency. But don't worry; I will give lots of warning on that one so that the non-horsey or squeamish can just skip right over it.

I also plan to wax poetical about all the cool pink shooting accessories that are out there.

And, we're off!!