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Feb. 3rd, 2002 10:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaI decided that I was comfortable enough with shooting to try a 9mm.
It was a learning experience.
To begin with: a .22 pistol is not a benign or trivial instrument, but a 9mm pistol is designed solely for killing people. I found myself very aware of that fact. The cartridges are large and heavy. Firing makes a terrible noise. The aura of menace is considerable. I felt armed, which is distinctly different from just the feeling of holding a handgun. If I shot someone with a 9mm pistol, they would die.
Bill taught me to shoot. We began with the .22 for good reason: there's no recoil to speak of, so you have more control. I knew from Bill's teaching that when I shot a higher-caliber gun I'd need to just let the recoil happen, without trying to control it or compensate it. I also knew that I'd be more frightened of a higher-caliber gun - it would be louder, and bigger, and more lethal. I was nervous.
The last time we'd gone to the range together, the owner let me handle about a dozen different 9mm pistols to see which ones best fit my hand. I picked out two I thought fit my hand well: a Smith & Wesson Model 908, and a Ruger P89 series. (I wanted to like the Sig Sauer so I could be like Agent Scully, but it just didn't feel right.) This time I looked at those two again. I chose the Smith & Wesson - it was smaller and a half-pound lighter than the Ruger, and I felt more comfortable with a smaller gun. That turned out to be a mistake.
My first shot was the best I ever managed with the Smith: just inside the X-ring in the very center of the target. The noise shocked me - so loud it was frightening, even with ear protection. I hadn't really known what recoil would feel like, but I hadn't expected to have the horrible sensation that the gun was going to come back and smash me in the face. My next several shots went progressively further from the center of the target. Then I reloaded, set the gun down, took some deep breaths, tried again.
I never got it. I never stopped being scared. I hated it. I was making decent shots, but I hated everything about firing that gun. It took a lot of weight to pull the trigger, and I didn't really want to fire anyway because it felt so bad, and I was scared, and I flinched horribly with every shot, and the only thing I could think of to do was keep firing until I got through the fear. When I looked down and saw that I still had half a box of ammunition, I wanted to cry. I didn't know what I was doing wrong - the only thing I could really think of was that I was too much of a girly wimp to fire a real gun.
Bill tried it. I watched his arm as he fired, and he never seemed to lose control of the gun. He fired, the recoil brought the gun up, he brought it down, he fired. But we pulled the target in and his shots had gone all over the place. That settled it for him: "Why don't you try the other gun?"
I didn't want to. I was having a horrible time.
But I went out and traded in the Smith for the Ruger, and Bill got me a new target. The Ruger was bigger and longer and heavier. Not coincidentally, it had the exact same grip as the Ruger 22/45 I've been firing. I loaded it, I aimed and fired, I was ready to flinch and hate it and have everything be awful. But the recoil carried my hand up smoothly, not in a disconcerting way at all. And I brought my hand down and fired again, and finished off the magazine and loaded it again, and felt utterly in control of the gun the entire time. It didn't even seem as loud as the other one. I had the acute sensation that I was firing something much more powerful than usual, but I wasn't scared. At all. I enjoyed firing my last 25 shots, and I put every one of them into the black.
I'm amazed at what a difference it made, that extra inch-and-a-half of barrel and half-pound of weight, that larger and more substantial grip. It was an entirely different universe. If it hadn't been for Bill, I would have walked away and never tried again, convinced that the flaw was my own. I couldn't see anything wrong with the smaller gun - except for the heavy trigger, it felt good in my hand. I knew I was lining up the shots properly. It just felt awful to fire, and the Ruger felt good to fire, and I still can't break it down better than that. Except to say: small and manageable appearances can be deceptive.
It was a learning experience.
To begin with: a .22 pistol is not a benign or trivial instrument, but a 9mm pistol is designed solely for killing people. I found myself very aware of that fact. The cartridges are large and heavy. Firing makes a terrible noise. The aura of menace is considerable. I felt armed, which is distinctly different from just the feeling of holding a handgun. If I shot someone with a 9mm pistol, they would die.
Bill taught me to shoot. We began with the .22 for good reason: there's no recoil to speak of, so you have more control. I knew from Bill's teaching that when I shot a higher-caliber gun I'd need to just let the recoil happen, without trying to control it or compensate it. I also knew that I'd be more frightened of a higher-caliber gun - it would be louder, and bigger, and more lethal. I was nervous.
The last time we'd gone to the range together, the owner let me handle about a dozen different 9mm pistols to see which ones best fit my hand. I picked out two I thought fit my hand well: a Smith & Wesson Model 908, and a Ruger P89 series. (I wanted to like the Sig Sauer so I could be like Agent Scully, but it just didn't feel right.) This time I looked at those two again. I chose the Smith & Wesson - it was smaller and a half-pound lighter than the Ruger, and I felt more comfortable with a smaller gun. That turned out to be a mistake.
My first shot was the best I ever managed with the Smith: just inside the X-ring in the very center of the target. The noise shocked me - so loud it was frightening, even with ear protection. I hadn't really known what recoil would feel like, but I hadn't expected to have the horrible sensation that the gun was going to come back and smash me in the face. My next several shots went progressively further from the center of the target. Then I reloaded, set the gun down, took some deep breaths, tried again.
I never got it. I never stopped being scared. I hated it. I was making decent shots, but I hated everything about firing that gun. It took a lot of weight to pull the trigger, and I didn't really want to fire anyway because it felt so bad, and I was scared, and I flinched horribly with every shot, and the only thing I could think of to do was keep firing until I got through the fear. When I looked down and saw that I still had half a box of ammunition, I wanted to cry. I didn't know what I was doing wrong - the only thing I could really think of was that I was too much of a girly wimp to fire a real gun.
Bill tried it. I watched his arm as he fired, and he never seemed to lose control of the gun. He fired, the recoil brought the gun up, he brought it down, he fired. But we pulled the target in and his shots had gone all over the place. That settled it for him: "Why don't you try the other gun?"
I didn't want to. I was having a horrible time.
But I went out and traded in the Smith for the Ruger, and Bill got me a new target. The Ruger was bigger and longer and heavier. Not coincidentally, it had the exact same grip as the Ruger 22/45 I've been firing. I loaded it, I aimed and fired, I was ready to flinch and hate it and have everything be awful. But the recoil carried my hand up smoothly, not in a disconcerting way at all. And I brought my hand down and fired again, and finished off the magazine and loaded it again, and felt utterly in control of the gun the entire time. It didn't even seem as loud as the other one. I had the acute sensation that I was firing something much more powerful than usual, but I wasn't scared. At all. I enjoyed firing my last 25 shots, and I put every one of them into the black.
I'm amazed at what a difference it made, that extra inch-and-a-half of barrel and half-pound of weight, that larger and more substantial grip. It was an entirely different universe. If it hadn't been for Bill, I would have walked away and never tried again, convinced that the flaw was my own. I couldn't see anything wrong with the smaller gun - except for the heavy trigger, it felt good in my hand. I knew I was lining up the shots properly. It just felt awful to fire, and the Ruger felt good to fire, and I still can't break it down better than that. Except to say: small and manageable appearances can be deceptive.
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no subject
Date: 2002-02-03 08:57 pm (UTC)Another thing that can help is if the gun can be cocked for single action. Some guns allow you to cock the hammer back, and it makes the triggers much easier to squeeze(since the hammer doesn't have to move the trigger anymore). Since you have less effort being used to squeeze the trigger, you have a bigger surprise when the gun goes off, so you have less chance to flinch at the expectation of the noise.
It sounds like there may have been a problem with that first gun, though, for it to be so loud and so inaccurate. I mean, it may be that I was used to it, or that I had better ear protection, but a 9mm never really bugged me, noisewise. A .357, on the other hand, did... so if you ever fire one of those (using .357 magnum ammunition, obviously - .357s can fire .38 special ammunition, as well.), you'll want to be ready for that.
no subject
Date: 2002-02-04 07:51 am (UTC)When Georg Luger invented the pistol that bears his name and the 9mm cartridge matched to it, he intended that cartridge to have the full length of the 5.5 inch barrel for stabalization before it went airborne. Up until this weekend, I'd had no experience shooting small frame automatics chambered for the 9mm Luger cartridge. I can't comment on them in general, but I think that I'll stick with 9mm handguns that are matched to the cartridge. (Note that Luger's 9mm parabellum cartridge was intended to be more powerful than the .38 Special, and is only slightly less than the .357 Magnum.)
Beyond that, I have some suspicion about the S&W 908 also. Perhaps the barrel bushing is excessively worn, producing that erratic shot to shot pattern. I had no problem holding it on target and controling the recoil, but I couldn't shoot a decent group with it. The Ruger P89 was a whole different story.
no subject
Date: 2002-02-03 09:44 pm (UTC)I actually kind of like the feeling of being able to work on actually shooting with control without having to deal with the "big, dangerous gun" mental block that I have with 9mm. For some reason, even though I *know* .22's are just as dangerous, they don't trigger my "Guns are bad" liberal side.
OTOH, I'm perfectly willing to take all the teasing I got from everyone about shooting a "girly gun," especially since my wrists don't handle the recoil at all well -- ending up with my hand back behind my shoulder somewhere was more than a little disconcerting! ;P
I'm glad you found something you like and are comfortable with -- I'll have to see if I can find a "bigger" 9mm to try the next time someone pushes me to "graduate." :)
no subject
Date: 2002-02-04 07:10 am (UTC)Seriously, the moral of my story is that all guns of a given caliber aren't created equal. I was amazed at how utterly different the shooting experience was for these two guns.
There's really no reason to expect that what works for GP will work for you. If you go to a range that has rentals available, you should be able to try different guns until you find one that feels right. (The range I go to has a flat $8/hour rental fee, no matter how many different guns you try during that time.)
If your hand is really ending up back behind your shoulder, something is definitely wrong. Maybe you should come down and have Bill take you shooting. He's very good at analyzing what's going wrong.