Friday afternoon we went over to the home of
a dear friend from church. Mr. M is a big outdoorsman and does lots of deer
hunting this time of year. A couple of years ago he had us over to his house to
make summer sausage with a deer he shot. He talked with Mom on Sunday because
he knew how badly Josiah wanted to shoot a gun. He offered to have us over and
let us do some target practice on his property (which is surrounded by woods.)
We readily agreed! Only it wasn’t just Josiah. The rest of us were just going
to “watch” but we ended up shooting as well. J
*For those of you who may have a weak
stomach, you might want to close your eyes and scroll past this next picture.
I’ve tried to pick the least gory one, but a dead deer is a dead deer. J*
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An
hour before we arrived at Mr. M’s house, he shot a 200+ pound, 8 point buck that
was walking through his yard! He had gutted the deer and drained most of the
blood before we got there. But the guys helped hang it up. He was definitely a
beauty!
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Once
we had taken care of the deer, we got onto our shooting lesson. Mr. M gave us a
safety lesson and told us a little bit about the guns we would be shooting. The
first gun we shot was a .22 caliber Browning rifle. I think it was a straight
bolt action rifle (you put the magazine in the bottom and then slide the
mechanism forward which pushes the bullet into the chamber.)
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Josiah
got to take the first shot. He did a great job! We were shooting at the white
papers on the red target towards the left of the picture. We all had the
opportunity to shoot five rounds.
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Ben
got a bulls-eye on one of his shots!!
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Then
we girls took a turn. It was a lot of fun! I had worried that the rifle would
kick back a lot, but it really didn’t at all. I was able to hit the target with
all five bullets, and Rubia came within ½ a centimeter of a bulls-eye.
Photo
Credit: Mark.
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We’d
been outside for about an hour and were quite cold (the temperature was about
33°F.) Mrs. M made delicious hot chocolate for us which we really appreciated!
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After
we had warmed up, we went out to shoot the pistol. It was a revolver that held 9
rounds of .22 bullets. We shot at a can about 20 feet away from us. Rubia
shocked us all with her pistol-shooting abilities! Watch out when this girl has
a gun in her hands! The first 4 shots in a row nailed the can. After that, she
was laughing too hard to make very good shots. J But she’s
definitely a natural!
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The
pistol was a good deal louder than the rifle. I should have asked why that is
because they were both .22’s. Any gun aficionados want to explain that to me?
Photo
Credit: Roma.
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Our
can once we were all finished with it. J One funny shot I made caused the can
to jump 3 to 4 feet in the air! I don’t know how I hit it, but it would have
made a great video!
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After
our shooting adventure, we went home and got cleaned up because Uncle Paul and
his family were coming over for dinner! We enjoyed pizza, breadsticks, popcorn,
crackers with artichoke dip, veggies with dip, and fruit.
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For
dessert we ate ice cream cake!
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We
had such a good time visiting with them again. We are going to miss their
family so much when we leave. L
They have truly become family to us! In fact, they’ve been over to our house
every weekend for the past month!
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We
had to get a big family picture before they left. I’m so glad they were willing
to stay even though it was already 10:00 p.m. by the time we got around to
taking the photo.
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All
the kids.
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This
picture is probably closer to our true personalities. J
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On
Saturday we had some more dear friends visit us, whom I’m sure you’ll recognize
as they’ve been on the blog many times before. We had a delightful time visiting
with them over meatball subs and triple chocolate cake with ice cream.
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We
kids had lots of fun visiting as well. During part of the evening we watched a
few “Beverly Hillbillies” episodes since we all love them!
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Another
family picture. J
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The
kids picture.
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I’m so grateful for our weekend filled with
friends! We are blessed beyond measure by so many kindred spirits!
2 comments:
Tyler says because a pistol has a shorter barrel......
Primarily because most of the energy in the gun powder has been expended by the time the bullet reaches the end of the barrel. As a result, the rifle’s report is inherently much less intense than that of an identical cartridge fired in a short barreled pistol; where much of the energy goes to make a racket.
The secondary reason is because the rifle’s muzzle is usually further from your ears than a pistol’s muzzle. Sound intensity falls off very rapidly with distance and the effect is quite noticeable.
Thank you for the explanation, Tyler! That all makes sense. I learned something new today!
~Bianca
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