To Shoot or Not To Shoot

One of the official hobbies on my bucket list is called "Pistol Target Shooting."  I've always enjoyed target shooting.  I've never been a hunter, per se.  Back in my youth, my Dad and I hunted rabbits and such birds as were still able to survive in the cornfield stubble of 1950's Indiana.  We always hoped we would see a single pheasant each year but never did.  Rabbits were relatively plentiful so we hunted them.  Squirrels were another species we hunted.  Luckily, there were few enough rabbits and squirrels that we never had much success and, therefore, didn't have to eat what we shot.  I mention all this to underscore that my enjoyment of firearms has always been about target shooting.  It's quite a lot of fun to shoot at targets.  Unless you've spent time shooting at targets it really would not matter much to you.  You would read what I am writing here and yawn and take a nap.

However, if you've ever been a target shooter, you would know just how much fun it can be.  In any event, I fell out of target shooting for many decades.  What little shooting I did do was simply to maintain a modicum of proficiency in handling the pistols in my ownership and under my care.  There are many rules to pistol ownership, too many to go into here.  One of the main rules, however, is to be able to actually SHOOT whatever pistol or pistols you may own.  It's a mortal sin not to know how to load and fire whatever pistol(s) you may own.  Likewise, it helps a lot to be able to hit at least NEAR something you are aiming for.  What good does it do to have a firearm with which you cannot hit the proverbial broad side of a barn.  (The broad side is the WIDE side.  Few barns are square, most are rectangular.)

Well, this winter as our Dear Friends know, we rediscovered our love of target shooting via the Tuesday Target Shoots near Camp Verde, Arizona.  The group of men and women there were like a whole new galaxy of friends.  They had an easy going ambiance and camaraderie that's priceless.  They helped me learn new ways of shooting that greatly improved my accuracy.  Accuracy really is something that matters if you enjoy target shooting.  Well, I missed those people the moment I drove away from the informal range on that last day, April 19.

When we arrived in Idaho Falls I immediately began searching for a pistol range.  NO luck.  People said there was no such thing.  I finally gave up.  This Thursday (May 12), the local paper ran a couple of paragraphs about pistol shooting this weekend.  It was being staged by some outfit called the South East Idaho Practical Shooters.  I checked out their website and found the location of their range and was really excited.  I drove out there Thursday afternoon and talked with someone who was opening the locked gate to the range.

I learned it was a very exclusive club and that I would need a sponsor and have to be "evaluated."  However, the guy said that the weekend events were open to the public--provided the public showed up with high dollar ear protection and eye protection and minded their manners.  Meanwhile, I studied their website though and though and was pretty excited to go out there today (May 14).

I could see the gate was open and I was even more excited.  The parking lot was nearly full.  I donned my electronic ear protectors and walked over toward the fast and furious shooting.  I noticed that this was a really DOWNTOWN shooting range.  The shooting areas were HUGE.  Each was perhaps 100-150 feet in depth and perhaps 50 feet wide with huge, wide earth berms reaching upwards of 12 feet.  Each shooting area had special targets set up.  Generally there were about 20 or more shooters in each  bay.  I am guessing total participation today was in excess of 75 shooters.  All shooting was strictly supervised by a Range Officer.  It was immediately clear that everyone know and abided by the strict range rules.  I watched the shooters in awe.  Frankly, I've never seen shooting like this in my entire life--not even on TV in make believe movies.  These guys were over the top awesome.

For starters, the vast majority of the shooters were in their late 20's and 30's.  I'm guessing the overall average age couldn't have been above 35 years.  There were very few grey haired people in the crowd.  All of the young men were totally buff male specimens in the prime of their athletic lives.  Each and every shooter carried a VERY high dollar pistol.  I'm guessing the minimum value of each pistol I saw was $2000 and the price went on up easily into the $4000-$6000 range. All of the shooters had vast quantities of expensive supplies and ammunition.  They all wore very expensive holsters, belts and magazine clips.  It was all very impressive.  The star of the show, however, was the raw incredible skill of the shooters themselves.  Each shooting bay had a different array of targets.  I will describe only one bay.

When a shooter was ready to begin, all the other shooters stood back with rapt attention to detail.  The Range Officer held a timer to the shooter's ear.  When it buzzed, the shooter reacted like bottled lightning. He had to go through a series of carefully choreographed moves, shooting through make believe windows, 55 gallon drums and dash hither and yon as fast as he could run to get in position for the next series of targets.  Many of the targets were actually MOVING at a high rate of speed and one in particular seemed impossible to master.  it was a giant six spoke steel wheel with small steel circles affixed to the end of each wheel spoke.  When the first circle was shot the wheel went in motion and the shooter had to pick off the other five circles before moving on to the next ridiculously difficult sector of the match course.  The best shooters were able to complete the course expending less than three clips but the bulk of the shooters used four clips.  Some were unable to finish the course after four clips.  I'd guess each shooter went through nearly 50 rounds.  Since they shot for about four hours, I'm guessing each shooter spent at least $100 in ammo to complete their match.

The Club Secretary was nice enough to talk with me.  He was the only person who talked with me.  I told him I wanted to join but he said that would have to be contingent on shooting 3 matches and then being evaluated by the club members.  If they did not like my shooting skills I could not join the club.  The club's website contains reams of rules and everything is very strict in this outfit.

As I stood there at that range in awe and amazement at what I was witnessing, I realized I had absolutely no business even thinking of joining this particular club, much less participating in these incredibly difficult matches.  Nope, they are totally out of my league.  I am an inferior species compared to these people.  Their shooting skills are greater than I could ever imagine that I might have in this lifetime.

One of the most important things to know about hobbies is how to put your hobby in perspective.  You can collect stamps, for example, but don't fool yourself into thinking you will ever have a world class stamp collection.  Thousands of other much more well-heeled collectors have already been there and done that.  If you were collecting stamps, it should be of utmost importance to focus on YOUR own reward for collection stamps.  Enjoy what you can get out of it and don't hope to be the Einstein of stamp collecting.
So it is with my hobby of Pistol Target Shooting.  I do not plan to attempt to reach for the stars and wind up with a lump of coal.  Nope, I am going to recognize AND CELEBRATE my low level of pistol target  shooting skills.

I am not going to feel badly or sad because I will never have the skills I witnessed today.  I will not go chasing a silly notion that I could acquire those skills.  That's out of the question in this lifetime.  However, that doesn't mean I can't have fun with my hobby of pistol target shooting.  I can have a ball and a delight and a heck of a time shooting with friends and enjoying the simply act of trying to hit the bullseye.  There's a lot of innate pleasure in that simple act.  I don't want to have a pistol that costs more than our Suzuki Samurai.  I don't want to have to shoot any thing more than .22 caliber if I feel like it.  I don't want to have pressure and I don't need competition to bring me pleasure.  I can enjoy myself with a $15 box of .22 shells and a $3 packet of targets.

That's what everyone needs to realize about their hobby, whatever it might be.  You don't need to take your hobby to the next level, a higher level or the highest level.  You just need to have your hobby give you yourself a nice dose of pleasure in return for whatever time and money you have invested to enjoy that pleasurable experience.  That's really what's it's all about.

When I drove away from that pistol range today I was totally at peace.  I harbored no desire to be like them, to have a fancier pistol and burn hundreds of dollars of ammo.  No, all I want to do is go into the sagebrush and shoot saltine crackers with my buddy, Houn' Dawg!

I hope this long blog post helps people who might be thinking their hobby is inferior because it not about the latest, greatest and most best of whatever.  That just doesn't matter.  All that matters is that your hobby brings pleasure to YOU.  Don't worry about what is does for anyone else but yourself.  That's the living, breathing definition of a hobby, anyway.  If you don't believe me, look it up in your Funk and Wagnalls!

Many Cheers!  jp

What Is Hobby?

What is a hobby?  That's what we want to know. That's the search term we used in Google this evening.  Below is what we saw when we entered "what is hobby" in Google.  Note the spelling in the very first search result.  We copied that out into an Open Office Text Document and began experimenting with various fonts.  The above rendition is in a font called Jokerman.  Apt, don't you think?

Let's Hear It for Hobbies

This blog is dedicated to my hobbies.  I actually obtained this blog today with the express purpose of making a book about my hobbies. I plan to use Blog 2 Print to make the book--their platform is so easy to use.  It will be printed as a PDF.  Who knows where this blog will go--heck, maybe I will even try to sell it on Amazon!