Shooting Range

My  friend sent out a message on WhatsApp on Saturday afternoon asking if anyone was interested in going to the gun range to shoot handguns. His club had an open house and members were allowed to bring guests.

Now I have to say, I'm quite the anti-gun person, but I'm also kind of curious about new things. So, even though I was a bit hesitant, I thought I'd go see what it was all about.

When I went over to his house he gave me a some pointers, few of which I remember. All I know is when you're holding the gun don't put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to shoot; and when you're not using your gun set it on the table with the magazine out, and point it down range. Always point the gun down range.

The shooting range was outdoors. When he messaged about it I had assumed it was indoors. So that was kind of different. It's located way up in East Gwillimbury, off the 404, north of Green Lane on Kennedy Road.

It's pretty basic, there are no facilities there. If you have to go pee there's either a porta-potty or an outhouse. Not sure which since I didn't have to go.

There's a shed for storage and a covered area where you shoot from. As well there are some picnic tables for people to chill out on in between shooting sessions. On this day, the open house, they were adorned with doughnuts and coffee for the guests. Mmm.

The place was busy since it was open house. The grassy area they used for parking was pretty much full. There were quite a few young people there too. I was a little surprised at that, but they were well supervised.

It was a little surreal walking up and hearing gunfire and seeing people shooting (this being Canada where there are relatively few guns). I wasn't used to that.

People had a variety of guns. The younger people (teenage and younger) were using smaller calibre guns (I'm assuming). So they weren't as loud as the other ones.

My friend had his own ear protection and safety glasses. I borrowed a pair from the club out of the shed. Even though the ear muffs squeezed my head like a vice, they worked well dampening the sound.

When our turn came up we were assigned a lane (number 6 out of 10 or so) by the range officer. He oversees all the people shooting to make sure they do things safely.

Upon his command everyone went down the range (25 metres away) and stapled up their targets. Then they returned to the shooting area and prepared to shoot.

Since it was my first time holding a gun and shooting my friend borrowed a .22 calibre pistol from the club. His .22 was at the gunsmith's and his other handgun, a .45, was too powerful.

He gave me a short tutorial about the gun and how to put the magazine into the gun and pull the slide back to get it ready to fire. I let him load the magazine with bullets though. We were supposed to put only 5 bullets each into two magazines.

I shot two sessions. The gun had been used the whole day and was a bit dirty, so it jammed a number of times. No big deal. I had to manually push the slide closed a few times so it would fire.

It was harder to hold my hands steady when firing than I imagined. Still, I did quite well according to my friend, hitting the target close to the centre many times.

The gun wasn't too hard to use since it was small calibre. The recoil was quite manageable and it wasn't too loud. So that was nice.

When my friend took his turn his .45 really kicked. And it was loud! Loud! Too loud as far as I was concerned. I don't think I would have liked using it. I did shoot one bullet just to see what it was like, but I can't say I was a big fan.

Overall, I enjoyed myself. The people were nice and the doughnuts were tasty. It was interesting giving shooting a try. I don't know if I'd go regularly. Once in awhile might be okay though.