Lucky Shots

My wife and I decided to head over to our local shooting range, Norpoint Shooting and Tactical Training Center, after breakfast this morning. I'd been meaning to try out a couple guns to see how they fit me. Likewise, I wanted her to do the same. One of my goals this year is to start carrying and so I need to choose which sidearm I'll be marrying (so to speak).

We decided to try out a 9mm and a .45 from their case of loaners. They were both Springfield Armory XD's.



After we got our ear and eye protection, guns and ammo, and targets we headed to the firing line. I brought my camera with me and decided to pull it out to try and get a few pictures. Something like this doesn't come along every day. Here's a great muzzle flash from my wife's first shot with the 9mm:



Lucky shot, that. The picture was a little blurry, but not too bad. There's just something sexy about a woman holding a pistol. As Quagmire likes to say, "Gigadee!"

After her clip was empty, we traded cannons. (OK, bad pun. Cannon/Canon... get it?)

Moving on. Here's me shooting the XD9:



I eluded to two lucky shots in my thread title, didn't I? After we finished off the box of 9mm ammunition, I took the XD9 to the counter and traded it for the XD45. Surprisingly the .45 frame wasn't that much bigger than the 9's.

I hung a new target, filled the clip, and took aim. Bang! went the first round. Now, keep in mind that I had never fired this weapon before, let alone anything of this caliber. Here's my first shot:



:mfclap: :rock:

I was grinning ear to ear over that one. Granted, it was only at 15 feet, but I'm not complaining. I finished the clip with a pretty decent grouping (all save one round that went on a walkabout :headscratch.

Now, if you're looking for a great facility to go and try out a couple different guns or a place to knock the cobwebs out of your barrels, I definitely recommend this range. The fellow that helped us "noobs" was great. He spotted us right away and made every effort to get us lined out with everything we needed. I'll definitely be back.

XD's? Me likey! I've never fired a Glock or, well, anything else, for that matter. As for these particluar guns, I was impressed with how they ran, especially since they were their loaners. I'm sure they probably don't get cleaned as often as they should and seemed to work really well. I did like the safety mechanism, too. It just made sense the way it was configured. The mag release was in a funny spot, though. I kept hitting the slide release to eject the clip. :tard:. That problem would, of course, be solved with practice and use. All and all, a good gun. I plan to try others before I make my final purchase, but it's top of the [very short] list.

By chance, are you going to Alger next Sunday? I'm thinking about heading up there with my .22 to sight the scope in and test fire this ancient bolt action and pistol I inherited. I'm definitely interested in shooting the .40.

If not, PM me with where you're at and we'll figure something out.