Many years back a mate I used to shoot IPSC with was thinking about tearing down the old workers cottage he had on his farm , another mate suggested we use it as a practice range for doing house clearing drills with shotguns as our club was talking about bring in rifle and shotgun IPSC , of course we would have liked to try the same house clearing drills with our IPSC handguns as well but that would have been illegal here in Australia as we are only legal to use them on a licensed range ,
We made up a heap of sand bags and set up targets in all the rooms [ with sandbags behind ] , mate used to change the targets around before every shoot so we went in clean with out knowing where the targets were , was a hell of a lot of fun but the first time I shot it I knocked my ear muffs off as I went through the door way , my ears rang for several days [ already had ear damage before that and had ringing in my ears for a year or so , was much relieved that the ringing went away after a few days ] , would have gone through 20 rounds , bloody lot of fun ,
I found during the next few years that I much preferred the Semi-auto shotgun to the pump , auto was much faster and just as reliable as the pump it also had the added bonus of being usable after a injury , when I fell off the top of a semi-trailer [ about the height of a pantech ] and busted up my arm , collar bone , damaged my neck , fractured my skull and tore up all the tendons and ligaments from my wrist to my shoulder on the left side , I couldn't use a pump gun for over a year , but I could handle a auto fine and could still shoot all my pistols no problem , of course when I damaged the tendons and ligaments in the right elbow and shoulder and wrist a few years later I couldn't shoot my beloved Springfield .45 ACP as I couldn't stiff arm it enough to stop the stove pipe jams and so had to go to a 9mm CZ , lovely gun in it's own right but no .45ACP , also because of the injuries couldn't shoot .357 mag , 45colt or 44 mag , but could shoot 38 sp ,
So what I'm saying in my round about way is that the gun you are using now may be totally useless to you after any sort of injury and as we get older these injuries are getting easier and easier , also you may want to take into account if your wife may be called on to use it ,
My wife can shoot a 45ACP very well and also 357 with full mag loads from a L frame or N frame revolver , in a K frame it was too much for her to shoot accurately , she could shoot hot 300 gn loads in a Ruger Super Redhawk but found standard 44 mag loads in a 4 inch S&W 28 way too much , she can shoot a 410 just fine but finds a 12 gauge too uncomfortable to shoot , she shoots rifles a AR15 and Mini 14 fine but balks at my 30/06 and 303/35 , 44 mag in a lever gun hurts her but she shoots 357 mag and 45 colt in a lever gun fine , so if your wife would considerably ever need to use the gun you need to take these things into account ,
Also a thing to consider is that I would never trust a new pistol for competition until I'd fired at least 1000 rounds through it , by that time I could consider the gun reliable and my self so familiar with it I could just about use it in my sleep , I used to practice with a series of slow fire precision drills at varying ranges out to 100 metres and then fast multiple target IPSC drills , I also used to take the barrel out of any gun pistol I was going to use for competition and drop all my competition rounds into the chamber to make sure they all fed properly and weren't going to hang up for any reason , I would do the same for any ammunition I was going to use for defence as well
Also if your wife or even older children could conceivably ever need to use the gun they should be totally proficient with it as well , and I don't mean just be able to hit the target on the range , they should be able to load the firearm quickly in the dark , be able to shoot from any position , sitting , standing , crouching , kneeling and so on , they should be able to shoot quickly and accurately under stress ,
I always figured the best way for my wife to learn to shoot was for her to shoot IPSC with me , actually we used to shoot IPSC , Practical Pocket Pistol and 10 Pin , Shirley used to come about 7 in the line-up , not bad considering she wasn't really all that interested and only doing it for me ,
There were 35 shooters in the IPSC section , three of them A grade shooters , 25 shooter in the Practical Pocket Pistol and 75 shooters in 10 Pin , what Shirley lacked in interest she made up for in training , she was the only woman in our IPSC club who could strip a 1911A1 in the dark , of course she was actually the only woman in our IPSC club too but as I found out on one of our Christmas shoots when some one organised a comp to field strip and reassemble a 1911A blindfold she was one of only three of us who could do it , she also had the distinction of being the only shooter in our IPSC club never having shot a hostage target in competition [ or practice for that matter ]
One of our two serving Police officers in the club had the distinction of having the record for shooting hostage targets in competition , in one comp he managed to shoot every single hostage target and only managed to get one scoring shot on a shoot target , I said to him after that shoot , " Bloody hell Tony that is frightening , if I'm ever taken hostage and you are called to take the shot , DON"T !!!!!!!!!! " he laughed and said " No Dave , that's not frightening , what is frightening is that I'm the best shot at my station "
Friend of mine likes to go camping , fishing and such , not really a hunter and because of a motorbike smash shattering his right shoulder not able to shoot a large calibre rifle with out pain , can't shoot a bow more than about 25 # and can't hit S#*t with one either , but he wanted a rifle of some sort for several reasons , we knew he had trouble with large calibres and really needed some thing that he could practice with cheap , so that pretty much meant a 22 long rifle or a pistol cartridge , he's shot my 44 mag lever gun several years before and it was way too painful for him , I handed him my 357 lever gun to try and it was fine , his wife had no trouble either , I did all his reloading for him until he got his own setup and he ended up with a 357 trapper carbine , lovely little gun , 16" barrel , still more grunt that a 357 handgun and no real recoil ,
I'm a firm believer that the best firearm to have is some thing you can afford to practice with all the time , old mate of mine has never owned a rifle bigger than a 22 , he bought a Ruger 10/22 about 30 years ago and used to go through 1000 rounds a week , that man was a wizard with that rifle , when he had to get rid of it during the buy back he bought a 22 levergun to replace it , quite honestly I'd rather go up against some of the guys I shot IPSC with that the old mate with his 22
Loved the little Ruger 10/22 I had and if it were still legal I'd have one now
Sorry for the long post but once I get onto the subject of guns I just get carried away
David
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