Glocks and Groundwork

[tiggymalvern]

We went down to the range this afternoon with a workmate of the SO's who shoots there regularly. It was my first time firing a handgun, an entirely different kind of shooting than the single shot .22 rifle full-length-sprawl shooting I did in college. We were using a Glock 19 9mm, lighter than most handguns of its size because it has a polymer rather than steel frame, but still heavy enough for a thing you hold out at arms' length.

The problem with handguns, is they're not really built for accuracy. The sights on the thing were, um, primitive (you can get better sights for handguns, but this one was stock) - the Glock's a nice user-friendly gun in that any idiot can pick it up and get their shots somewhere in the general vicinity, and it doesn't kick too hard for what it is. And that's really all it's designed for - shooting a person-sized target and hitting them somewhere, not too fussy about where. But for someone who was used to firing target centre accuracy at 50 yards, it's frustrating how difficult it is to keep consistency with a handgun, even at only ten yards. It felt about as accurate as throwing darts. It was definitely fun to do, though - and of course I made a point of licking my finger afterwards for research purposes, because back in my rifle-shooting days, I was still innocently unaware I was going to end up writing gunmen porn XD It was interesting too how much harder it gets to load rounds into the magazine as you reach the last few - details, details!

A group of dickheads young men down in the end lane had rented out the Desert Eagle, .50 calibre. It was like a cannon going off in the range - I was glad we weren't in a lane anywhere near, because even wearing ear protectors twenty-five feet away, I could feel myself going deaf, and I hate to think what they were doing to their wrists. A Dessie makes a really good substitute penis to show to friends, and a pretty good club for hitting people over the head with, but it's a bloody useless gun.

Comments

[pretentioustfu.livejournal.com]

A Dessie makes a really good substitute penis to show to friends, and a pretty good club for hitting people over the head with, but it's a bloody useless gun.

*SNERK* Actually, posts like this are really helpful for the writers like me, who would never ever ever touch a gun in my life (the things fucking scare me senseless, even to see displayed on a wall or something, and I wouldn't want to even begin to develop killer instinct. . . *shudder* nor would I want people thinking I was into guns IRL) but who write a lot about the bishes we do.

Thank you ^_^

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

nor would I want people thinking I was into guns IRL

I wouldn't classify myself as into guns. I did the rifle-shooting for a while in college because it was fun, but I didn't feel anything was missing from my life when I stopped. As I said in a post earlier this week, I can become interested in almost anything - I always have an admiration for skill, and once I start something, I want to do it well. But for me, the skill is in shooting a perfect target. I don't get at all the desire to go out and shot living things - that's also a skill, yes, but one far too destructive IMO to justify that one second of pulling the trigger.

Pistols were very odd to shoot for me, coming to them after rifles. They're so very simple to use from raw - within the first 10 rounds, I'd gone from barely hitting the edge of the target paper to hitting the inner circle. They're easy to correct and compensate. But they're also basically deeply inaccurate compared to a rifle, so getting to the stage where you can shoot target centre consistently instead of one shot in five must be extremely difficult.

The other thing is there's a natural rhythm to continuous firing, using the rise and fall of the kick - the guy who owned the gun actually fired better at about a round a second, pulling off the next shot as the barrel dropped back down, than he did with careful aimed shots. It's almost instinctive, rather than the tensing up and concentrating on firing that leads to some barrel wavering.

Such are the observations of a noobee anyway, and they seem to fit with what I've read!

[pretentioustfu.livejournal.com]

*takes notes*

Actually, I've been interested in target shooting even before I ever heard of any of my fandoms that have involved guns, and I don't see myself as a violent person at all, but as someone who's already pretty scary and weird to most "normal," non-geek people, I don't need another piece of "character evidence" against me should someone decide to try and have me arrested/hauled off to Ye Olde Nuthouse, and due to my hatred for guns as a weapon of violence, I couldn't justify actually buying one at any point in my life.

By the way, I've a question. I'm writing a W/V fic (no, not a KxV shipper anymore, I grew out of my "squick is great and omg Dir en grey is soooo cool" phase).

I'm having a horrible time describing the, ahem, penetration since I've not had said experience and don't want it even if I could get into a relationship, there are some parts of me that are exit only, since I normally write other types of sex, AND since anything that pops into my mind from all the yaoi I've read is a cliche that makes me want to bash my head into the nearest wall (e.g. "one two three fingers" and "one smooth stroke" alike make me cry tears of wangsty emoness) and yet I don't want to squick anyone by being too realistic. I've described the foreplay a bit graphically, so I can't go to euphemisms either. . .

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I'd say don't write something you're not comfortable about, because it will show in the writing. If you don't even want to think about using your own finger to get an idea, you can easily stay clear. Guys are pretty big on blow jobs, and sex doesn't have to be about penetration.

But if you've got yourself into a plot where there has to be penetration because it means something, don't look to yaoi for research (a lot of it's written by teenaged virgins....). Go to the sites by gay men. Go to specific info sources such as Minotaur's site (http://www.squidge.org/~minotaur/classic/eroc.html) and Anal Sexploration. (http://tperkins.com/anal/) Go to the gay porn sites full of badly-written but at least not laughably inaccurate PWPs - google will find you plenty of them!

[pretentioustfu.livejournal.com]

Heh. I'm quite familiar with Minotaur's site (been using it as one of my main research sites to write this so far) and penetration is meaningful to the plot in this fic for a few reasons (i.e. it's the first time Vash has let Wolfwood do that, since I've implied that he's normally been the top when they feel like anal, and I wanted to change it up a little since almost all of my fics have featured non-penetrative sex) and thanks for the other recs. ^_^ I've read through them a little, and this is very helpful. ^_^

Will you be my third beta?

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

The Anal Sexploration site is great - it covers some points that Minotaur's doesn't (and vv) and I find them highly complementary.

Sorry, I'm doing beta work for so many people right now, plus my own writing, and I've got a lot of RL stuff eating into me too - I don't really have the time, and I won't make offers I might not be able to fulfill within a reasonable time-frame when it's finished.

[pretentioustfu.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I'm doing beta work for so many people right now, plus my own writing, and I've got a lot of RL stuff eating into me too - I don't really have the time, and I won't make offers I might not be able to fulfill within a reasonable time-frame when it's finished.

It's all right. ^_^ Thanks for being nice about it. ^_^

[king-chiron.livejournal.com]

Oh cool, sounds like fun, I want to do that sometime.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

But you go and do fun things like curling instead :-) That's far rarer and harder to come by in the US than a spot of pistol-shooting!

[orangewinters.livejournal.com]

(Pardon me while I fangirl various things in here.)

I went shooting with Patrick and his Glock once. It was fun, but yeah, having been the kid who did target practice a bit at home, I would have had a lot more fun if I felt like I was getting somewhere with the accuracy. Probably if I had gone more than once I would have started to feel like I was acomplishing something but still, good times.

I suppose it's wrong that I almost had more fun loading the cartriges right after he'd bought it and beating Patrick at it? XD Why no, I haven't watched too many movies that influence my perception of 'guns as cool'.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

In all the weapons research I've done, I don't think I came across anybody who gave a negative review of a Glock. They seem to be considered good handguns by everybody who knows their stuff, as accurate as any pistol is, and long term reliable.

I would have had a lot more fun if I felt like I was getting somewhere with the accuracy.

Yeah, me too. All my improvement came in the first five minutes, then nothing. I believe getting beyond the stage where you can reliably hit some part of the target takes an expert. I wasn't all that much worse than the guy who owns the gun and shoots it semi-regularly.

Why no, I haven't watched too many movies that influence my perception of 'guns as cool'.

Well, you've seen my fandoms, right? ;-) Fortunately, the good thing about RL shooting is it restricts the 'guns are cool' idea to TV fantasy worlds very nicely. When you're actually shooting, it's a challenge and a 'I need to get this right!', you're not standing (or lying) there thinking, 'How cool must I look?'. Plus one trip to a gun club seeing all the idiots and dorks in adjacent lanes makes it obvious enough....

[orangewinters.livejournal.com]

All my improvement came in the first five minutes, then nothing.

Yep, that was me. I was feeling pretty good and then it just started to slope down and it became obvious things weren't going to pick back up because the gun was getting progressivly heavier and my interest was slowly waining. I'd go again but *shrugs*

Plus one trip to a gun club seeing all the idiots and dorks in adjacent lanes makes it obvious enough....

XD So true.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

I still want to shoot a Colt .45 Peacemaker. Just cause.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

XD I can't imagine it would be any fun. Too much kick, too inaccurate and too few rounds - Vash only uses one 'cos he's special :-)

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not actually planning on killing anyone with it, so I think I can live with that. :D

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Well, no, but it's nice to be able to at least hit the paper that the target's on since it's hanging there in front of you XD

[pretentioustfu.livejournal.com]

I'm not even into guns and I could guess the kick and the inaccuracy from my research. Hmmmm. . . I'm thinking. The too few rounds and inaccuracy kind of balance each other out in an oddly hypocritical way if you wanted to write about that in a fic. As in too few rounds = more time to think, more deliberateness, less temptation to go wildly shooting it off. . . BUT inaccurate as a good excuse if it does actually kill someone.

No, I did not just get a plotbunny.

[imre-nico.livejournal.com]

My dad carries a Glock nine (biology is dangerous business), so it's the handgun I'm most used to. The kick, like you said, is easily absorbed, but also a little erratic, and as far as accuracy goes, good sights are invaluable. You also really have aim a little high, to account for the downward drift of the round, at least in my experience.

It's really a different philosophy dealing with recoil in a handgun than a rifle. Even if it isn't a huge kick, like the Glock, it still has another possible dimension of lateral kinetic movement that can throw off your aim. A rifle kicks back but is semi-stabilized by the brace of your shoulder and isn't out on the lever of your arm, so it doesn't waver from side to side. Once you master the shouldering technique of a rifle or shotgun it can be hard to think in terms of the whole arm. Or at least, I found it so for a while.

Best I can describe it, as soon as the trigger squeezes, the muscles should slacken like the gathering laxity before a ballet leap, and then the gun makes the leap for you. Then it naturally falls back into position for the next shot. So long as you don't try to control it, that is XD

But I know I'm preaching to the choir here, so I'll shut up XDDDDD

OH! The ambystombi are laying right now. There's a window of about three weeks- as well as some other cool stuff out and about. If you fancy a look at some rattlesnakes while they're still sleeeeepy and dormant, my father has a trusty favorite spot he's been going to faithfully for thirty years- a big old warren of the beauties- never fails.

Also, Northwestern and Spadefoot Toads are hatching in a few days, and they are so fucking cute.

Oh, and rubber boas will be nocturnal breeding.

So, fancy a trip across the range? He's eager to impress us with his stuff. Oh, and his experiments on supercooling insects...he may want to show us those. XD

I have to go over in any case, as he collected a praying mantis and a bunch of stick insects for my birthday that I have yet to claim XDD

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Even if it isn't a huge kick, like the Glock, it still has another possible dimension of lateral kinetic movement that can throw off your aim.

That's what I found. I didn't have any problem correcting height issues within a few shots, but I was wildly inconsistent on a horizontal plane, sometimes shooting more right of centre, sometimes more left, and I couldn't seem to fix that anything like as easily.

Oh please, oh please, take me to the reptiles and amphibians! I have a multitude of sources for good information on bird-finding, but herpetologists are harder to come by :-)

[yma2.livejournal.com]

I must admit, I find the thougth of going somewhere to shoot guns, even for practice or recriation or something, a little wierd.
I suppose it's interesting though.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I guess because I did it in college, it never seemed weird to me. The university had a club for just about every form of competitive (and non-competitive) sport going, so of course that included rifle and pistol-shooting (though I'm assuming the pistol-shooting's gone now, since bloody Blair banned pistols even as single shot .22s. Who the hell ever used a single shot .22 in a crime, for fuck's sake?).

I don't see it as any different from archery or playing darts, both of which are also fun. It's a sport about hand-eye coordination and who can be the most consistently accurate about hitting a target. Some people choose to use guns to shoot each other, some people choose to use kitchen knives on their spouses - I don't have issues with slicing up steak because of it.