Massimo And I Go To The Range!

The other day my friend Massimo and I went to the range to do a little recreational shooting.  This range is outdoors and offers shooting distances up to 100 yards.  The indoor range we have visited only allows up to 25 yards, which is not really adequate for rifle shooting marksmanship.

I asked Massimo to bring along his .30-06, which is the most powerful of the easy to find rifles (it is more than adequate for deer hunting).  The .30-06 is adequate for almost anything found in North America except bears, mountain lions (pumas) and perhaps alligators.  His .30-06 is made by Savage and costs around $450 - $500 plus scope, etc.  It is a bolt action with no magazine.  Massimo's gun has a scope on it that would have been about 6 x.  He also brought along his Sig Sauer 5.56 mm semi-auto.

The below picture shows Massimo shooting his Sig Sauer (Massimo told me it was his favorite gun).  He was a soldier with some kind of advanced training, and he is a very good shot.  He was shooting his at 50 yards and 75 yards and adjusting his scope along the way.  To the left you can see most of Massimo's .30-06 (with a tripod and scope mounted on top).

I then told Massimo that I would like to have him take a similar picture of me.  He told me we were not allowed to take pictures there at the range, that I did not know.  Oh well, I will not be running for political office anyway...

I fired 10 rounds of Massimo's .30-06 at a target placed 100 yards away.  The .30-06 is a powerful gun with a hard recoil!  Even with the rubber recoil pad on the back of the stock it kicks like a mule...  Firing 10 rounds was plenty.  Previous to our visit, I had only fired a .30-06 THREE times in my whole life.  So I was not real familiar with the gun, nor had I ever tried to carefully aim one with a scope, etc.  Of the 10 rounds fired, 6 actually hit the target paper, but only three of those made it into the outer circle (which would roughly be hitting near the center of mass of a man).  None of those three made it into the "black" circle.  So, I am clearly a beginner...

The below picture shows me and Massimo's .30-06 (in the foreground).  I was loading my AK-47 with a magazine (the AK-47 is a semi-automatic similar to Massimo's Sig Sauer, pull the trigger, a bullet comes out, pull it again, a bullet comes out -- that means you can easily fire (not well aimed, but it will fire) about one round per second) when he took the below picture of me.  His gun blocks the view of mine, as he had to take the picture covertly...

I wound up shooting only one "clip" (30 rounds) as my shoulder was getting sore, it had taken a good pounding from the .30-06.  The recoil from the AK-47 is MUCH lighter than a .30-06.

To give you all an idea of the difference between the power of the .30-06, I took the below picture of the three rounds we shot that day.  The two on the right are roughly the size of a man's little finger.  The one in the middle is my 7.62 x 39 (AK-47 ammo), the one on the right is  his 5.52 mm cartridge.  The one on the left is the .30-06...