Range Day! (or Range lunch break, I guess)

Today I got to take my only friend in Charlotte to the range. I won't call him a first time shooter, but it's been some time since he's shot anything, and by his own admission his last outing was of the "let's shoot those cans with my roommate's Glock" variety.

We met up at Firepower on my lunch break and spent a quality hour in lane #2. After we reviewed the 4 Rules and I was confident he could follow them (and recite them back to me) we started off with the Smith & Wesson 63 to warm up.

I just replaced the J-Frame's factory wood grips with a set of Pachmayr Presentation Grips that I found used for all of $12. This was a major, major improvement to this fine pistol. The factory checkered wood grips look cool and "vintage-y", and the stag grips that came on the pistol look cool too - not so great for the shooting though. Using the budget Federal Bulk-pack ammo I was getting respectable groups all the way to the wall.

My friend warmed up quickly to the revolver, and it turns out he has a bit of an eye for shooting. He'll probably be better than me (not much of a challenge there) before too long, once he gets rid of his flinch and works on his stance and grip. He was getting everything in the 8 ring or better, with a few outliers.

Next up we brought out the G17, and he really took a shine to the Glock. Both of us were shredding the inside of the 9 ring with 2 precious boxes worth of American Eagle FMJ from my cache. My "tacticool" Streamlight TLR-2 laser-flashlight combo turned out to be a little out of adjustment, so we did not use it much, except to get the laser roughly lined up on center.

Then we used the only ammo we bought from Firepower - a box of PMC .38 FMJ ($18.99 - ouch) to see how he did with the S&W 642 that is my current carry pistol. Even after I warned him, he was surprised by the recoil and report, but adjusted quickly and enjoyed the big bang from the lightweight 5-shot revolver. We shot all 50 rounds with the silhouette target at about 15 feet.

After that we switched back to the Model 63, picked up a bullseye target and shot some CCI 22. I am very happy with the new grips on this pistol, and the CCI ammo is much more accurate than the bulk stuff. My friend had some issues adjusting back to the .22, probably the anticipatory flinch - but when he used the last 10 rounds of 9mm in the Glock to finish up our trip he was back on target.