Neckbone and I finally meshed our schedules and went down to Continental Arms late this afternoon to break in the forty-five I bought last year. Apparently we chose to go at the same time a group of Otakon members did — which was amusing, because I thought Otakon was held in the summer? Never-the-less, a group of about forty geeks freaked out the employees behind the counter and — holy shit, a hot chick working in a gun shop! — the hot girl rounded ‘em all up into the “classroom” and was taking them onto the range in groups.

We actually didn’t have to wait too long before a shooting aisle opened up. They’ve got fifteen or sixteen, and all were in use. The dudes to our left were raining on us with ejected shells from their Glock, and some dude way at the end was going fully-auto with something that made a “braaaa-haaaa-haaaa” noise and turned his target into, uh, well, not much of a target.

Until today, a .357 was the most powerful handgun I’d fired. I was nervous about the kick of the .45, but it wasn’t as bad as I’d been expecting, and if I’d been able to see better (more on this later) my accuracy probably would have been at least slightly better. I fired with a two-handedgrip — one hand is on of the handle and operates the trigger, while the other hand comes up underneath, with the palm against the bottom of the magazine and the fingers against the back of the hand operating the trigger. Although I thought I had the proper grip on the weapon, apparently I didn’t as there’s a nice little cut where the beavertail was on my right hand (which was holding the weapon). I switched posture so that I was holding the gun with my left hand, and while the same area on that hand was red, the skin didn’t break (hoorah!).

I could barely see anything out of the scratched and shitty range-glasses. Neckbone had to shout into my ear (over the din of the shooting and the heavy ear protectors) “MISS!” or “HIT!” or “No, no, you’re not even coming close.” Meanwhile, when it was his turn (we alternated firing in groups of five), he would be specific (”See where it says, ‘instructor sign here’ on the target…?”)

I don’t have a lot of experience with shooting, and what I do have is with my revolver, which doesn’t spit spent shells all over the place. At least a dozen times, a spent .45 casing bounced off my glasses, my face, my forehead, and both shoulders. At one point, we were getting hit with shells from the Glock in the next aisle which kept spitting shells over the half-wall and onto us. One hit my shoulder and I turned around thinking Neckbone was tapping on my shoulder. Stupid Glock.

One hundred and fifty rounds later, the gun warm to the touch — the barrel hot! — we packed up and hurried out of the Shooting Range cum Postal Office before all of the geeks flooded the actual shooting range.