Tag Archives: women

Fun at Front Sight

Posted on by Melissa

As some of you know, I will become a parent very soon via domestic adoption. The hubby and I decided that we’d better get the trips done before our baby arrives, and one of the trips included a trip to Front Sight Firearms Training Institute. We decided to take the 4-day practical rifle course. I mainly wanted to take this course to become proficient with my AR-15, because I had very little experience with it. We flew out to Las Vegas on a Thursday. We’ve flown with guns many times, so we knew the drill. When we checked our rifles, we were escorted over to the TSA area where they x-rayed our rifle case. I could have sworn I heard one of the TSA agents mumble, “No way!” Bill (hubby) also heard this. When it came time for them to open the case, Bill told the guy, “Please don’t drool on the rifles.” At this, the TSA agent pretended to wipe the drool off his chin. When he opened the case, the agent actually giggled with delight! He couldn’t get over our awesome Magpuled out guns.
We arrived in Vegas with our 120 pounds of gear total. We stayed at the Marriott for the first few days. Front Sight is a good 45 minute drive from Las Vegas, but it’s worth staying there instead of Pahrump, since Pahrump has nothing to offer. Now granted, after spending the whole day at Front Sight in the sun training hard, when we got back to the hotel, we were not interested in doing anything except taking a shower to wash all the dust, gunpowder, and sweat off, eating something, and going to bed. But at least in Vegas you have a lot of options for food.
We were in a rifle class for returning students, which was great because everyone already knew the drills and the safety rules. We only had one STOP command on the range for the entire 4 days, and it was the instructor’s fault, not a student’s. The other students we had ranged from people like me who shoot mostly as a hobby, to full on special operators. One operator brought out his suppressed rifle. This was so cool because on the first day before we went on break for lunch, the instructor borrowed the rifle and gave a demonstration with it. He told us hearing protection was optional, so I took off my hearing protection since I’d never heard a suppressed weapon without protection before. The instructor fired the rifle at a steel target. I kid you not; the bullet hitting the steel was louder than the actual gunshot!
I’ve talked about the “hot brass boogie” before as being an uncomfortable situation to be in. However, I’ve discovered that I’d much rather take hot 9mm brass all day long before hot .223 brass. .223 brass is larger and much hotter. I took brass twice down the back of my shirt. I’ll tell you, it’s very hard to keep the muzzle of a rifle pointed down range while you are being subjected to 2nd degree burns, fortunately Bill was behind me to grab my rifle and the brass before it did any more damage. I’m writing this a week after the class and the burns are still healing.
Burn
One of the drills we learned was how to go from standing down to the prone position and fire a shot within six and a half seconds at 200 yards. We had knee and elbow pads and we were taught how to do it safely and quickly. I was on the second relay, so while we were waiting for the first relay to walk all the way down range, check their targets, and walk all the way back, I decided to practice getting into prone without my rifle. I did it about a dozen times before the first relay was back and it was our turn to shoot. Well, this was not my shining moment! I’d practiced without the rifle, so the moment I had the rifle in my hand and had to go into prone, the weight distribution was very different. The moment I hit the ground, the butt of my rifle came up and cracked me on the underside of my chin. I still got my shot off when I was supposed to, but it sure did rattle my teeth! I also got a pretty good bruise from it, but I had a lot of bruises by the time I was done.
DSC_0027
The class was incredible. It was physically grueling, but very satisfying. By the fourth day, we were exhausted, but the moment the range master said we were going to have a steel competition, I perked right up. I love shooting steel, and I can get quite competitive. I beat my first opponent, but I lost in the second round. After the competition, we took our skills test for the entire class, and then while they were grading the tests, the range master asked if there were any grudges that needed to be settled. Well, after 4 days, there were quite a few grudges! I went up against my husband who beat me pretty soundly. The grudge match we were all looking forward to was these two men who had been best friends for 38 years. These two had been teasing each other throughout the entire class. While I was watching these two friends go up against each other, I noticed that the instructors were holding a gloved hand over the ejection port of their rifles, intentionally causing a malfunction! They were doing it to everyone to get back at us! That’s one of the things I love about Front Sight; the instructors are not drill sergeants, they have a great sense of humor.
The class was more than worth the trip. The only disappointment I had was that there were only 4 women in the class of over 40 students. In the handgun classes the number of women is much higher; sometimes almost half the class. Rifles can be very intimidating, and just the thought of taking 32 hours of training with one is a pretty daunting task. I was nervous about taking the class for the physical aspect of it, but Front Sight does everything they can to protect their students, but they also do not treat women any differently from the men. That is something I really respect of their program.

DSC_0021

DSC_0035

Steel Competition

Steel Competition

Bill getting ready for his turn at the steel.

Bill getting ready for his turn at the steel.

DSC_0050

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.

My Review of the Sig Sauer P238

Posted on by Melissa

I’d heard a lot of good things about the P238 lately, so my husband and I decided to check one out. When I handled one at the gun store, I was really impressed with how easy it is to pull back the slide. I could literally do it with two fingers, this from a woman who has always had trouble with semi-automatic pistols. I was intrigued to say the least! I looked at some reviews online, and discovered very little complaints, with the exception of some stove-pipe issues. (Stove-pipe is a type of malfunction that after firing a round, the gun fails to eject the spent casing hard enough and it gets stuck in the ejection port, jamming the gun.) I had been interested in a gun I could carry concealed, and the P238 was looking like a good option. I really wanted to shoot it before I bought it, since it came with a pretty hefty price tag of $635. I called up a range in Denver where you can rent guns and shoot them on their range. Unfortunately, they don’t have guns less than 9mm to rent, and the P238 is a .380.

 

So  I decided to take a chance. I was able to sell a gun I had, but didn’t like all that much in order to put some money towards my new toy. Once I sold my Springfield, I went over to the Shootin’ Den in Colorado Springs to get my P238, which I named Rosie due to the rosewood grips, and also after Rosie the Riveter.

I finally found some time that Rosie and I could get to know each other better. The weather was in the 50′s, and I convinced my husband to go to the range with me to try the two new additions to our family. Did I forget to mention that we also are the proud new owners of a Thompson semi-automatic rifle? To those of you who like 30′s gangster movies and shows, that’s a Tommy gun!! It’s not a fully automatic one from the 30′s; those cost about $20k. Ours is a reproduction in semi-auto.   We got out to the range, and I could hardly contain myself. I hadn’t gone shooting in quite a while, and I was excited to shoot the P238 and the Tommy gun. My husband had some trouble at first with the Tommy, because one of the magazines was a little damaged, but once he figured that out and used the other magazine he had, he started having a blast (literally!).

Anyway, back to Rosie. The Sig P238 has a 6 round magazine that was very easy to load. No painful thumbs here. I had dry fired it before we went to the range, and the trigger pull is so much lighter than some other .380′s that I’ve shot. Once I started firing it, I was amazed at how low the recoil is on this gun. It’s a small gun, perfect for concealment, but it has a steel frame, which makes it heavy enough to absorb the recoil. I knew after the first 6 rounds that I was in love and had absolutely no buyers remorse. I let my husband try it out as well, and he really liked it too. Between the two of us, we shot a little less than 100 rounds, and I only had one stove-pipe malfunction. I would say compared to any other gun I’ve shot, that is not abnormal. The only complaint I had about this gun is the ambidextrous safety mechanism. It’s very easy to disengage, but to engage the safety, I have to break my grip on the gun.

In my opinion, this gun is perfect for women who have trouble with semi-automatic handguns. It’s small, has a very easy slide, light trigger pull, and low recoil. I will be recommending this gun to any of my female students, or any man who asks me what handgun is best for women.

I Need to go Shooting!

Posted on by Melissa

So I know I haven’t posted in a while, but I’ve had a lot going on in my life lately. I’ve gone back to school! I didn’t graduate from college, so I decided since I work for an awesome company that pays for me to get my degree, there’s no time like the present. I’m very excited about it, but it has taken up a lot of my free time, which means not a lot of free time for shooting.
The interesting thing about going to college is that every time I go through the doors, is that I’m faced with the “no handguns” sign. But when I first enrolled, I got a copy of the school’s handbook. In the handbook, it talks about the school’s gun policy, and mainly it does say no. However, it does say if a student is a concealed carry permit holder (which I am, of course!), if the student has a good reason for wanting to carry on school property (the 2nd amendment is a good reason, isn’t it?) then the student can ask the dean for permission to carry on campus. I haven’t had the chance to ask yet, but I will.
I was just about to start going through gun powder withdrawals, but this weekend I’m going to see my dad, who owns 60 acres in the middle of the Colorado plains which has a perfect natural berm on the property. We’ll be taking out all kinds of guns for my dad, step-mother, husband, and myself to shoot. I can’t wait, it will be great!

Oh, by the way, did I mention I’m going to SHOT show in January??? Full report to come then!

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.

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!

Rifle Instructor Workshop

Posted on by Melissa

So as you may already know, I’m an NRA Certified Pistol Instructor, and have been for about two years. I decided that I wanted to extend my credentials, and I figured my next step was rifle. Luckily, my husband happens to be an NRA Training Counselor, and he was teaching a Rifle Instructor Workshop this weekend. Now I know what you’re thinking, “Well he’s your husband, so of course he’ll just let you slide though the class and sign your certificate!” That’s not how my husband operates, and that’s definitely not how I operate. I put everything I had into this class, and I learned a lot.

What made our class even more fun was that there were only six of us, and we were all already pistol instructors. We traded off teaching each other the sections from the basic rifle class, so that we can teach our own NRA Basic Rifle class. I already knew two people in the class, so we were joking around, having a great time. The only time we weren’t having a great time was getting into the different shooting positions. On Saturday, we were “teaching” each other how to get into the positions, and on Sunday we were at the range actually shooting from the six different positions. A couple of the positions were VERY uncomfortable. The sitting position, as I’m demonstrating here, was the worst!

By the end of the first day, my back was killing me! But it was worth it, since I passed the class and will soon have my credentials to teach the NRA Basic Rifle class! Next step: SHOTGUN!