Gun fun

A couple of weeks before Christmas, I played hooky at work and spent a day at the shooting range with my colleague Bernhard and two students in the department, Pia and Mike. Here are a few of the pictures - image credit goes to Pia for many of them. For those of you worried I'm putting together a doomsday bunker and planning on going off the grid, let me assure you that my only motivation is to learn how to bag my own game for culinary purposes.

Our nearest shooting range is to the west of the city, in a neighboring municipality called Roodepoort. 

The Durban Deep Rifle Range is built into the backside of an old mine tailings pile, so stray ordinance is absorbed by sand.

The clubhouse features mementos portraying a rather deep and distinguished history. For example, this plaque has competition medals going back to 1919 on it, and another one had medals back to 1909. 

The recent history is far less distinguished. This poor fellow was gunned down on the range while he was checking his targets. Thieves shot him with his own weapon. Since this nastiness, procedures have been changed at the range, but it stands as a good example of the unfortunate violence that touches most everywhere in South Africa.

I'm considering joining the South African hunters association just because of its awesome Dinofelis (sabretooth cat) logo.

But enough about the range, let's review the arsenal! We actually fired three handguns (you'll see Bernhard's snub nose revolver later). These two are a .22 and a .357 revolver, respectively.

A .22 lever-action.

A .357 lever action.

The two game rifles: a .30-06 top, and a .375. The .375 is the minimum calibre legal for use on big game in South Africa. It also kicks like a mule.

We were assigned a few benches at the range and allowed to lay out the weaponry as we saw fit. Here I'm firing the .357 lever action while Bernhard instructs Pia in the finer points of shooting the same-calibre revolver. 

Bernhard lighting up the 10m target with his snub-nosed revolver.

For 'zeroing in' the sights on the game rifles, we used these adjustable stands and sand bags to eliminate user inaccuracy (in my case, flinching due to recoil).

Here I am, popping off a few rounds with Bernhard's revolver. Temptation to shoot from the hip, cowboy-style, was quite high but I valiantly resisted.

And upon inspecting Pia and my own placements on the target, I am firmly resolved that if there is an intruder in my house, I'm going to hand the gun to Pia and ask her to take care of it.

Here's Mike shooting at a rather distant (100m) wildebeest target. He's now using the a tripod rather than the shooting table to simulate proper hunting conditions. Mike, Pia, and Bernhard made every shot in the critical area at this distance - I had decent success as well.

For our last shots, we squared up this charging Cape Buffalo target at about 25m, simulating a dangerous game scenario.

Despite the pumping adrenaline, we were all able to hit the bull between the horns, as it were. My goal this year is to fill our chest freezer (yet to be purchased) with a pile of biltong, droewors, and prime cuts from a bok I've hunted. I'll clearly need to spend a bit more time at the range first.