The kids’ gymnasium has a Kids’ Night Out event tonight with pizza and inflatable rides and a zip line and games and so the second I heard about this I signed both of ours up, not registering that it was in fact also Rebecca’s birthday. See what a horrible mother I am! Instead of staying home with us boring adults, she gets to go to the gym and have a party!
Matthew and I took the opportunity to go to the NRA range and practice some more. I did a lot of target practice using both the standard and sub-compact Springfield XDs, skewing towards the sub-compact because even with the shorter barrel length hampering accuracy at greater distances it fits into my hands better.
A very nice NRA employee helped me out a great deal with my stance. I’d been doing Weaver but was constantly, consistently low. After a few adjustments, I was a great deal more on target at 18′ with isosceles than I had ever been with Weaver at 12′.
And then, because I am a glutton for punishment, I picked up the shotgun. Round one, Brenneke K.O. 1 oz slug. Grip tightly and lean into it to avoid recoil as much as possible. BOOM! Shoulder hurts like the dickens. Round two, Remington 1 oz slug. Grip even tighter. BOOM! Shoulder in pain. NRA guy walks up and taps me and asks, “What are you shooting?”
“This stuff,” I point at the boxes on my table.
“You might want to try the Reduced Recoil slugs.” He points at the girl next to me who does not have a bruise the size on Montana growing on her shoulder who was convinced to pick up the shotgun because _I_ was shooting a shotgun.
And so I look at Matthew and ask him very nicely to stop reloading magazines for me and buy a box of the reduced recoil rounds, because at this point I’d really like to be able to take more than two shots (one of which, by the way, I _totally nailed_ at 18′) in any given session before my shoulder gives out and I have to go sit in the viewing area and look pretty. So he stood in line at the front desk and I stayed at the firing line and practiced with the Springfields at 18′ and then he came back with two boxes of rounds and I tried out one. BOOM! Shoulder… well, it wasn’t any worse, but at that point the previous two rounds were happily reminding me of just how much force they’d exerted into my collarbone and I left the firing line mightily peeved that I wasn’t going to get to try the rifle.
We drove back home and picked up the kids, who apparently had such a wonderful time that they’d rather not have left, thank you very much. Matthew reports that Rebecca was busy practicing her flying skills in the game of Red Rover, Red Rover, much to the other team’s chagrin (and ultimate demise).
I spent the rest of the evening icing my shoulder. Lovely.