Tag Archives: pistol

The Danger of Derringers

Posted on by Melissa

I’ve noticed that a popular gun among women has been the derringer because of their small size and easy carry ability. Derringers are usually about the size of a person’s hand. I do not recommend most derringers to anyone except collectors. Most derringers do not have a trigger guard, making it very easy for anything to bump up against the trigger and setting the gun off.
derringer

Fortunately, a lot of derringer manufacturers have been making their guns with trigger guards. If you’re set on a derringer, look for one of these. However, these guns are so small that their ammunition capacity is anywhere from 2 to 5 rounds, and the ammunition sometimes is uncommon therefor hard to come by. The newer derringers come in more common calibers, but the antique ones can come in .41 or .32 caliber.

So if you’re looking for a small gun for personal protection, do yourself a favor and go to your local gun store (that you trust) and talk to the owner, or contact your local firearms instructor and see if you can try out some small guns. If you want to know what small gun I like, see my post on the Sig Sauer P238!

SHOT Show

Posted on by Melissa

Glock
As expected, SHOT show was incredible. It’s very hard to try to describe to someone who hasn’t been there, but I’ll try! It started out with Media Day at the Range in Boulder City. Unfortunately, I missed it because of my 9 to 5 job. We flew in on Tuesday, which was the first day of the actual show. We went on Wednesday, which incidentally was the day the President announced his 23 executive orders for gun control. People asked me if the mood at the show was affected, and it really wasn’t. There was talk about it, of course, but it still was a very upbeat show. Everyone was thrilled to be with 60,000 other gun people, and the networking ability was great. We saw the Law Enforcement section first, which was a lot of fun, and not as overwhelming. We didn’t even realize how big the show was until we found the main room. The main room was unbelievable! The large manufacturers did not have a booth; they had a full store-sized display of their latest and greatest. I have to guess that Glock’s area alone was about 600 square feet, about the size of my old apartment! We did the ADD style of the SHOT show; “Oh look! Smith and Wesson! Lets go over there! Oh, we should go see 5.11! Let’s go see Remington’s new guns!” FYI, this is not a very efficient way to do SHOT! There were 12.5 miles of exhibits, and over 2 days, we probably saw 80% of them. On our second day, there were protesters outside the convention center. All three of them! It was actually pretty funny.
There were a lot of celebrities there as well. I got to meet a few of the Top Shot competitors, including Gabby Franco, Michelle Viscusi, Greg Littlejohn, Terry Vaughn, and Dustin Ellerman, who won season 4. They were all awesome, I got pictures with all of them. I also had the honor of meeting Kim Rhode, our olympic champion in skeet. She was wonderful, when I asked to get a picture with her, she immediately grabbed her London gold medal and put it around my neck and I got a picture with her and her medal.
Something that I was impressed with at the show was all the women who work for the manufacturers. Serious sales-women, not just women all dressed up in club-wear trying to lure men to their booths. There were a couple of those, of course, but not nearly as many as I expected. It gives me hope that the boys club that is the gun community is beginning to let more and more women in and we are starting to be treated as equals. There were also several female gun organizations represented, and after I do a little more research, I will give you some more information.
SHOT was amazing, the next time I go (and there WILL be a next time) I will definitely go to Media Day at the Range. Imagine all those new guns that were inside, but you actually get to shoot them!
Want to see pictures? Check out my Facebook page, I posted a lot of them there.

The Corner Shot

Posted on by Melissa

My husband is an NRA Training Couselor, so he teaches instructor workshops to teach people who want to become an NRA Certified Instructor. It’s a two day class, and it includes range time. Since I’m a Range Safety Officer, he usually asks me if I can come and keep an eye on his students on the range. Last week he had a class, and I asked him if he wanted my help. He said sure, he then told me that one of his students is a Corner Shot instructor, I said I’ll definitely be there!
What is the Corner Shot? It is an amazing rifle developed in Israel that allows a shooter to be safely behind a barrier and engage your target without putting the shooter in the line of fire. I say rifle, but it’s not exactly a rifle. It’s really in a category of its own. It’s a device that holds a Glock 17 and a camera on the front and a small monitor near the rear. The front pivots left or right. Instead of looking down iron sights or optics, you look at the monitor, which is surprisingly accurate.
It was a once in a lifetime experience to shoot this firearm that is only used by military and law enforcement. It was very awkward at first, because when the Corner Shot is angled and you fire it, the recoil is not up and to the rear. It’s up and to the side, so it torques you a little bit. But it makes up for the strange recoil in the fact that you’re only technically shooting a 40 cal Glock pistol, so it has very little recoil. After firing a few rounds, it became very front heavy. The device itself is not that heavy, but then add the Glock 17 with a high-capacity magazine to the front, and that’s where most of the weight is. A traditional rifle is weighted so most of the weight in over your hands, so it’s balanced very well. The Corner Shot isn’t balanced well, mainly because it’s function over comfort. Which is fine, because if I was going into battle, I would definitely want this firearm so that I don’t have to be in the line of fire!

Our Hearts in Colorado are Broken, but We Will Heal

Posted on by Melissa

As most of you know, I live in Colorado in a small town outside of Colorado Springs. We’ve had a rough couple of months, from the fire that destroyed 346 home and damaged countless others, to the senseless shooting in an Aurora movie theater that claimed 12 lives. Whenever a terrible tragedy like this happens, the rhetoric on gun control is always dialed up. Some people demand that we have stricter gun laws, then we would have less gun violence. Disarming the law-abiding population is not the answer. In fact, this particular shooting was an example as to why. All of those people in the movie theater were unarmed, because guns are not allowed in the building. The shooter knew he wasn’t going to have any opposition when he went on his rampage. Criminals, by definition, do not follow the laws/rules. If we have stricter gun control, the criminals will still find ways to get around them.

I’ll admit, if someone in that theater had broken the rules and was armed that night, he or she would have had little to no chance of hitting the shooter. It was dark, the movie was playing, there was tear gas in the air, and there were people screaming and trying to get out of the theater. The shooter was in head-to-toe body armor, and the only place to shoot him to stop him was an area approximately two by three inches on his face. However, if people were allowed to have their guns in more places, maybe criminals would think twice about taking on the public, because they wouldn’t know who was armed and who was not. The only way we can get our society to see this is education. People who are anti-gun are usually just ignorant of the real gun community. All they see is what is shown in the media, which is usually negative. Very rarely do I see a story where a gun has stopped a crime or saved a life. That is not the real gun community, and it is sad that we all have bad reputation because of the criminals that only want to hurt others with their guns.

My hat goes off to our Govenor, John Hickenlooper. First he was dealing with the fires all over our state, and then he has to go in front of the media about this horrific event. What I respect most about him is even though he is generally anti-gun, when asked about stricter gun laws, he didn’t go on the attack at all; “You know, I worry that if we got rid all of the guns, and certainly we have so many guns in this country, we do have a lot more gun violence than many other countries — but even if you didn’t have access to guns, this guy was diabolical. Right? He would have found explosives, he would have found something else, some sort of poisonous gas, he would have done something to create this horror.”

So come to Colorado and see us. We may have a few burn scars and scars on our hearts, but our community is strong. We have wonderful gun laws as I have said in other posts, and a state full of beautiful scenery and great outdoor activities.

Silly boys, guns are for girls!

Posted on by Melissa

So I got the best present from my wonderful husband for our fifth wedding anniversary. He gave me a Remington 870 shotgun, in 20 gauge. I’ve been shooting pistols and rifles since I was about 12, but I could count on one hand how many shotgun cartridges I’d shot. I wanted to round out my skills, so I put a shotgun on my “list.”

When he gave me my shotgun, I decided I would greatly benefit from a recoil pad. So out we went to one of the larger gun stores in my town in search of one. My husband and I wandered off our separate ways in the store, I went to look for my recoil pad, and he went to peruse the pistols. I found the recoil pads, but they were definitely not built for women. So I found my husband looking at a GORGEOUS Kimber 1911. The moment I walked up to the counter and the sales guy realized I was his customer’s wife, he immediately started teasing me, saying he would distract me so my husband could by the pistol. I tried to tell the sales guy that a) I’d just received a new gun, and b) if my husband bought that pistol, I would be the one to shoot it more! The sales guy didn’t seem to understand that girls like guns too, and continued to berate me. So we left, because he was irritating both of us.

There is still a stigma on women that guns are for boys, and girls keep their boys (husband or boyfriend) from buying guns. I hate it. This is primarily why I don’t usually go into the big box stores, because it is mainly a sausage party behind the counter.

I love my small local gun shop, because it is owned by a husband and wife team, and whenever I go there, they love to put guns in my hands! I swear, every time I go in there, I must handle half a dozen guns! The only reason I didn’t go there in the first place was because I knew they didn’t carry recoil pads.

As for my shotgun, I’m going to order a recoil pad online that was designed specifically for women. But I had to try my shotgun out, right? I had a blast (lol) shooting my very first round of trap, but I definitely need a recoil pad. My shoulder had a nice bruise on it, but I didn’t care! I can’t wait to shoot some more trap.

Happy Independence Day! I hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday. A special thanks to the firefighters and emergency personel who came from all over the country to Colorado to protect my beautiful city of Colorado Springs from the Waldo Canyon fire.

Why I love Colorado

Posted on by Melissa
I recently came back from a trip to the east coast. I was there to see my cousin graduate from high school. My aunt, uncle and cousin live in Washington DC, so we spend a few days there and then went down to Atlantic City for a couple days. We had a wonderful time, but spending some time out east made me appreciate home. Don’t get me wrong, the east coast is beautiful, and Washington DC is amazing and full of history, but it’s a different world out there.
I haven’t been to DC in about 15 years. When you’ve been somewhere as a kid, then you go back as an adult, it’s like the first time, because you have a completely different perspective. The first thing that struck me was how claustrophobic that city is. There are a lot of people, in a very small area, compared to where I live, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where we’re very spread out. It was a little uncomfortable, but it wasn’t the biggest culture shock…
The biggest culture shock about Washington DC was their gun laws. Pretty much take all of Colorado gun laws, and turn them up-side down. It’s basically full of CAN’T's. You can’t apply for any type of permit or license to carry a gun. You can’t have a “high capacity” magazine (more than 10 cartridges). You can’t have a fully automatic firearm or suppressors (aka, any fun). You can’t have a taser or stun-gun. And finally, the only way you can transport a gun through Washington DC is unloaded, and neither the gun nor the ammo can be accessible to the passenger compartment.
When people live in an environment with their gun freedoms suppressed like this, they become ignorant about guns, because people assume if the government restricts guns, guns must be evil. They have no idea of the rich gun community in other parts of the country. They don’t understand how the sport enriches people’s lives, young and old. I was at the range with A Girl and A Gun the other day, and I watched a 7 year old girl fall in love with shooting, and see her confidence grow with every shot. I feel sorry for those who cannot see past the anti-gun rhetoric, but I have to admit, it does make me proud to live in a state like Colorado.

No Boys Allowed

Posted on by Melissa

So the Colorado Springs chapter of A Girl and A Gun women’s shooting league officially launched last night, and it was an incredible experience! I walked into the clubhouse at the Pikes Peak Gun club (a little late) and about 15 women had shown up for some sisterly shooting. I had never been in the presence of so many like-minded women. There were women of all experience levels, some who had never shot before, all the way up to one of our facilitators, who is a competitor, as is the creator of the club. We even had a few young ladies with us, too. So in the clubhouse, we listened to the creator of the league and the two facilitators of the Colorado Springs chapter talk about the history of A Girl and A Gun. The creator of the club had only started it about a year and a half ago, and she already has over 40 chapters all over the country! The cool thing is that our chapter was the first to launch outside of Texas.

So after our history lesson, we went though a quick safety briefing, then the ladies announced we were going to shoot steel. All of the experienced shooters started cheering, including myself. I’ve said it before, but I LOVE shooting steel! It is so satisfying; you know right away if you hit your target without waiting for a cease-fire and walking down to your targets. I was there mainly as a Range Safety Officer and an instructor, but I had to have my fun, too. The four of us roamed the firing line, watching the ladies shoot to make sure everyone was being safe, and offering tips. That’s one of the best parts of being with all these women instead of being on a line full of men. When I offer advice, the women take it! Some men look at me and don’t take me seriously, and therefore, don’t listen to me when I try to give advice. Don’t get me wrong, if I see a gross safety violation, man or woman, they don’t have any choice but to listen to me!

After most of the ladies had their fill of shooting, I got my turn and tossed some lead down range. I don’t know if it was all the good juju from being around all these women, but I was just ON. It was a constant ting, ting, ting as I shot the target. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy!

After everyone was done for the day, we went back to the clubhouse for cake. We all hung out for a little while, talking about our experiences, and just generally enjoying the camaraderie.

A Girl and A Gun will hold “Girls Night Out” every Wednesday at the Pikes Peak Gun club from 6-8pm. You don’t have to be a member, and you don’t have to have a gun to come out and have a good time. I’ll be there most Wednesdays working as RSO and instructor, so stop by and get some “group therapy!”

If you’d like to see some pictures from our first Girls Night Out, check out A Girl and A Gun’s facebook page.

Ladies Shooting League!

Posted on by Melissa

I have just discovered a ladies-only shooting league called A Girl and A Gun. It’s mainly in Texas, so I hadn’t heard of it sooner, but they are opening a chapter in Colorado Springs! I was so excited when I found out, because I just haven’t had a lot of opportunities to go shooting lately. unfortunately my world doesn’t revolve around shooting. I do have a regular (non-gun related) job that keeps me pretty busy. I have a wonderful family. I recently decided I’m going to go back to school. But through all that, I still have to make time for what I’m passionate about, and that will always be shooting.

I’m so excited to meet other women who share my passion! There’s just not a lot of us out there, and here in Colorado Springs, before A Girl and A Gun, there wasn’t any way for us to get together. But here’s the best part: not only am I going to be a member, but they’ve asked me to be an instructor! We’re still working out all the details, but I will be at the Pikes Peak Gun Club on June 5 for the chapter launch. It’s going to be a lot of fun, so if you’re in the area, come by between 6 and 8pm. Hope to see you there!

Shoot like a girl if you can! My second trip to Frontsight

Posted on by Melissa

What an awesome week! I just got back from Frontsight Firearms Training Institute. This time I went with all “my boys,” my husband, brother-in-law, and 17 year old nephew. My husband took the four day tactical shotgun class, and my brother-in-law, nephew, and I took the four day defensive handgun class. If you’ve followed my blog before, you’ll know that I’ve already taken the two day defensive handgun class from Frontsight. The four day class goes above and beyond the two day class, and I was excited to review the skills I learned from the two day class, and to learn more advanced skills.

The neat part about this trip to Frontsight was that I was able to experience how easy it is to travel with guns. We had 3 pistols and a tactical shotgun with us. We were traveling with a lot of gear, so we were quite a spectacle! We had the shotgun and my Glock in a (very heavy) rifle case. Each of us had a suitcase, and we also had two carry-ons. We had the other two pistols in a hard sided case in one of our suitcases. You must have the guns in a hard sided case, and they must be padlocked, not TSA locks. So all we had to do was go up to the airline’s ticket counter and let them know we were traveling with firearms. The ticket counter lady’s reaction was the same as if we’d told her we were traveling with clothing. All we had to do was fill out a form that went into the cases, and the lady just wanted to see that the actions were open and the guns were unloaded. Then TSA takes them and x-rays the cases, and then they take the guns and put them in the belly of the plane. The only slight restriction is that you can only have eleven pounds of ammunition per piece of luggage. That’s it! We decided to buy the ammo in Las Vegas so we didn’t have the extra weight, since we needed 600 rounds each, and my husband needed 500 shotgun shells.

The class itself was intense. Our days started at 5:30am. We stayed in Las Vegas, so we had to drive about 45 minutes to get out to Frontsight, which is near Pahrump. We had to be at the range at 8am, except on the first day, we had to be there at 6:30am for check-in. We were on the range from 8am to about 5pm. There were forty students in our class, and we were divided up into two relays. One relay would be shooting, while the second relay lined up behind them acting as coaches. This made the range very safe, with twenty sets of eyes plus our instructors and our rangemaster. The only time someone got hurt was if their gun bit them, so a Band-Aid fixed that right up. Or, if it was me, I was in a hurry doing a tactical reload, and my magazine bit me, and I have a nice blood blister on my thumb.

Out of the forty students in our class, there were about ten women. Not to brag, but the women were out-shooting the men most of the time! At one point, we had a steel target competition. This included a hostage target, and two other “bad guys” behind him, all made of steel. Steel is extremely fun to shoot, because it moves when you hit it, and makes a very satisfying “tink” sound when you hit it. Most of the women in our class out-shot the men in the steel competition. Our rangemaster’s best quote for the entire class was “Shoot like a girl if you can!” Unfortunately I didn’t do as well in the competition, but I only lost because my opponent shot the bad guys faster, but I didn’t shoot the hostage, like a lot of people did!

The best part of this trip to Frontsight was going with my family. Even though my husband wasn’t on the range with me, I got to spend time with my brother-in-law and my nephew. It made our class so much more enjoyable, because we all get along really well. We had a great time on the 45 minute drive back to Vegas because that was our “debrief” time. We would talk about “that guy” on the range, or the funny things our rangemaster said. We also heard about what happened in the shotgun class from my husband. I was so proud of how much my nephew took in all the information and improved his shooting in four days. My brother-in-law wasn’t too shabby either, the last drill we did, he shot five shots within the size of a quarter. This is my biggest tip about going to Frontsight. If you can go with family or friends, it makes the experience more fun.

If you are planning a trip to Frontsight, here are my best tips:

Frontsight is in the middle of nowhere. During lunch, you do not have time to get lunch anywhere except right there. You can order lunch from their food company, but if you are with a large group and are there for four days, it can get expensive. We bought a $6 Styrofoam cooler, and every morning we hit Von’s (aka Safeway) and stocked up on bread, lunch meats, cheese, fruit, chips, drinks, and ice. It was so easy, and much cheaper. Now if you’re by yourself or with one other person, and just want to buy lunch, order it ahead of time; it’s very tasty.

Make sure you bring a lot of high SPF sunscreen. I used 70 SPF. You will be in the desert sun almost constantly. You need to apply in the morning, and reapply often. So have the sunscreen with you in your range bag, along with nail clippers and a nail file. Whether you are a man or woman, you WILL break a nail, if not a couple. Have the nail clippers so you can cut it down so you’re not scratching yourself or catching it on clothing.

Pay close attention to what clothing you bring. Wear high neckline, close-fitting shirts. A couple of women on our range were wearing V-neck blouses. Needless to say, they caught a lot of very hot brass down their shirts. I wore a high necked shirt, and I still caught a piece of brass down my shirt. It will probably still happen, but you’ll lessen your chances. In terms of pants, I suggest tactical pants. I bought 5.11 tactical pants because they are sturdy, and they have lots of pockets, which you will need in the class for storing extra magazines and loose ammo. Check out www.lapolicegear.com, they have lots of styles and sizes, including pants specifically for women. If you don’t want to spend the money on tactical pants, at least get cargo pants. Make sure to wear sturdy, comfortable shoes. You will be on your feet for eight hours a day and they will get dirty. I wore my combat boots, and they worked out great.

My biggest tip to anyone who is going to attend any class at Frontsight for the first time: Go there as a blank slate. I don’t care if you were Army Special Forces for 25 years, go there open to all of their training, and try their way first. If it doesn’t work for you, fine, you can switch back to your training after you leave. If you go there closed minded and don’t want to try any new techniques, there is no reason for you to go, so save your money. Frontsight is the best firearms training you can get in the civilian world, no matter if you are brand new to shooting, or if you have several decades’ worth of experience.

If you’d like to see the pictures from our Frontsight trip, head over to my Facebook page and “like” Women With Firepower.

Next item on my wish list: A Suppressor for my Glock

Posted on by Melissa

I was at an outdoor public range a couple weeks ago with a friend. It was a combination pistol and rifle range, and my friend and I were shooting a couple of my pistols. There was a lot of noise on the range, obviously, with about twenty people shooting their guns. But through all the normal gun shots, I heard something like you hear in an assassin movie. I looked to my left and saw a rifle with a suppressor, and I was so jealous! I would love to have a suppressor, but they are a little difficult to buy.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) categorizes silencers as a National Firearms Act (NFA) firearm. (Silencer is a common term for suppressors, and that is how the ATF refers to them, but I will always call them suppressors, because nothing can really “silence” a gun.) Other weapons categorized as NFA firearms include full-auto guns, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, “destructive devices” including Molotov cocktails and bazookas, and “any other weapon” which includes cane guns and gadget guns.

The process for buying a NFA firearm is pretty lengthy. When you’ve picked out your suppressor, you must fill out an application with the specific serial number for your suppressor. Before you send the application and $200 in taxes to the ATF, you must first have the “Law Enforcement Certification” completed by the chief law enforcement officer. Your gun dealer then holds on to the suppressor while your application is being processed, which could be up to six months! If your application is approved and when it’s sent back to you, then comes the happy day you get to go back to your gun shop and pick up your suppressor. You must do this with each NFA firearm you purchase. From then on out, any time you have the suppressor, you must have a copy of the ATF approval on your person. By the way, if you didn’t know already, I happen to live in Colorado, where suppressors are legal. If you live in state where they are illegal, then you are out of luck.

I don’t understand why suppressors are so restricted. I feel they should be as easy to purchase as any other gun. Suppressors actually make your gun safer. The most obvious way is that suppressors reduce the gun’s report (gunshot noise), which is safer for your hearing, with or without hearing protection. On the range this isn’t such a big deal, but if you’re protecting yourself in the middle of the night, are you really going to have time to put on your hearing protection? Probably not.

When you screw on a suppressor to the end of your barrel, you are adding weight on your gun. Extra weight is always a plus on a gun, and when it’s on the end of your barrel, it will reduce both recoil and muzzle climb, which will make you more accurate. In a home invasion scenario, you need to stop your target as soon as you can so you have less of a chance of you or others in your home getting hurt.

So yes, I really want a suppressor, but I am certainly not looking forward to the process to purchase one. The great part about being a gun-lover in Colorado is that if I want a gun, I go to my local gun shop (usually the Shootin’ Den in Colorado Springs), fill out the application, wait an hour or so, and then go home happy with my new gun. We don’t have a waiting period of several days or weeks. I don’t usually buy things online because I’m very much an instant-gratification kind of girl. So whenever I do go through the process of buying a suppressor, it will be so hard to wait!