Americans love ‘em and so does Steff!
Our friend Olin in California offered to take us to the shooting range to have a go with is WW2 era Mosin Nagant rifle and we were glad to accept.
The firing range let you show up and shoot all day for 5 bucks and have a 100 and 200 yard range to test your skills on.
Another friend showed up with his .22 caliber rifles and, being beginners to this sport, we thought it might be wise to think about having a go with one of those as they’re much more user-friendly; much less recoil and much quieter. As the three of us Olin’s Russian ‘cannon’ went off. He fired and I think all three of us involuntarily ducked. This thing made quite the bang and you can feel the percussion of the blast from 20 feet away.
I had a go with the big rifle too and thought it’d be more gentle than it seemed, but I was wrong. it has a serious kick that has left my shoulder tender. The back of the stock is a piece of curved steel and with no clever modern design to absorb the shock, the brunt of the bullet-firing action is reacted into your shoulder.
As it’s set up for someone else, the risk or getting bumped in the head with the scope is higher. Steff and I both had a small taste of ‘scope bite’ as it’s called, but it’s mostly a matter of getting the thing just right in your shoulder before pulling the trigger, or squeezing it, more precisely so the rifle can’t come back too far or fast and hit you
It was fun but I think we liked the .22 more. Firing that was much more subtle so it allowed you to concentrate of firing accurately. It’s a good caliber for hunting small game which Steff wants to do. I think the Deer-killing power of the larger caliber might be chapter 2 of her hunting journey.
Steff learning a semi-automatic Ruger .22 rifle
Here’s the result. Pretty good for a 100yards on the first time out.
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