The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
Not much commentary, just a compilation of video I took at Blackwater:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPKW9T3qGQs[/youtube]
That’s pretty much all of the video I have that’s worth sharing, except for the one where Robb showed up on the range with no pants.
Now that I am home, I might just have to price out how much it would cost to buy a bit of land, and construct my own 360 degree shoot house. Sure, it’ll cost a good bit, but that’s the most fun I’ve had with a gun. Here’s a video of Dave Hardy getting his run started:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yya-yiSoHho[/youtube]
Dave had a big shit eating grin on his face when he came out of the house, and said “That was fun!” On my first run through it, I got that adrenaline going and ended up popping a hostage. Second run I went through, shot it well, except for missing a target Todd had placed off to the side. The more experienced USPSA shooters managed to get it find it, and so did people that had to do a reload in that room. Caleb and I darted right by it.
Thanks to Kevin Baker for taking this video of me shooting one of our stages along with Dave Hardy. Todd Jarrett is the guy coaching me through, and Dan Smith of ICC is the guy coaching Dave.
This was a tough stage. You can to shoot three shots at the steel plate directly in front, then move toward the plates on the side, then six shots in the last plate. If the movers came into view, you had to double tap them.
Time to head back home. After spending a weekend with Superman learning how to fly, it’s going to be awfully hard going back to being Clark Kent again. Trip time is about 6 hours. See you all when I get there.
International Cartridge Corporation provided us with all of our ammunition. It was frangible .45 ACP and 9mm. I had heard bad things about frangible ammunition, but this stuff was pretty tip top. No failures to chamber, no misfires, and it shot just as well as you would expect any good quality commercial ball ammo. As a silhouette shooter who’s been stung by a few bits of jacket flying back from ball ammo, I would never think about blasting away at a steel plate from 5 feet away, but we did, repeatedly and fast The bullets just turns to dust when it comes into contact with hardened steel. Since they are non-toxic, lead free ammunition, this isn’t really a problem. My club stopped doing Bowling Pin shooting because of ricochet fears, but I’m thinking this ammunition could be the solution to the problem of ricochet off bowling pins. The bullet is made from a copper/tin mixture. The only unfortunate thing is they don’t sell bullets for reloaders, since they said a normal reloading press will tend to crack the bullets.
Dan also brought us some .223 ball ammo, which I was told is not a catalog item, but since ICC’s law enforcement customers often have a hard time getting a hold of quality .223 ammo, and they have the equipment to make it, they will do runs of standard .223 to help out their law enforcement customers. The brass they use looks to be pretty high quality stuff, so after we were done shooting the Para TTR I ran around and collected up all the brass to reload it (yay for free once fired brass!). I might have to get some ICC .223 frangible, since it’s a great home defense round, and after seeing Dan’s ammo shoot, I would be willing to bet my life on it.
By the way, International Cartridge is a Pennsylvania company, located in Western Pennsylvania a few miles north of Punxsutawney. But we definitely appreciate Dan Smith of ICC coming out to keep our guns well fed. Anyone who brings down a whole truckload of ammo (literally) is OK with us. Dan was a pretty good shooter too, but you know, I’d probably be a pretty good shooter too if I had my own ammo company. I might have to see about visiting ICC’s facility one day, and writing more about them, since they are a Pennsylvania company. They are making a pretty good product that could solve a lot of problems for the shooting community, especially for those of us being encroached upon by development, and under increasing pressure to deal with lead and minimize the risk of ricochet.
UPDATE: Looks like Dave Hardy thought pretty highly of the ammunition too.