Sharp Shooter

I can't believe I still haven't posted this. I guess it sorta got lost in the works... it was buried in my completed/unfinished post section even farther down from the Birthday and Independence day posts I started! Sigh.... some day I'll catch up. It's just so hard when I've got current stuff I'm anxious to post. Normally, I probably wouldn't have even told you just how old this event was, but the fleece and hoodies in the pictures clue you into the weather - still cold out. So think back to my first Utah trip post [the second one is still in the works... buried with b-day and 4th of July half-completed posts] from when we went back in April... Yeah, this happened the Wednesday before we left!

So I've had a hankering {yes, I really just wrote hankering} to learn how to shoot for a couple of years now. Then, I find out Christine made plans and went with our grandpa Chuck because she knew it'd be a while before she had time again since she was moving to Utah. Pssshhh. What's up with that?! Well, Lizzy and I decide we want to learn to, so the three of us make plans with grandpa. Of course, we have to do it on a Wednesday when I'm down for work and the first attempt it rained. The next week, though, it was cold but dry. Grandpa first gave us a quick lesson in gun safety and then taught us to shoot several different rifles. We had great fun running down to our targets after each round to see and compare how we did.
At first, Lizzy was a little terrified to even shoot. Once she got over her fear, she shot but didn't even hit the target paper! By the end of the night, though, she'd landed a bulls-eye!


Christine already had one lesson under her belt, so she did very well too! [I think there's a picture of her by target, but it's on her camera.]


This was all very new to me. In fact, I don't think I'd ever held a loaded gun before. Marksmanship agreed with me, though. My very first round of shots all at least landed on the paper and I got better from there. We had started with an open-site rifle and then tried one with a scope on it and that's where I really shined. My target that has the cluster of shots in the orange is from when I shot with the scope. I thought I'd done pretty well, but was a little bummed I hadn't gotten an actual bulls-eye with it. Then my grandpa tells me that the scope was set for 4 times the distance we were shooting from, so lining up with the bulls-eye means your aim is actually a bit high, hence all the shots being clustered just above the center. Oh, and I didn't get a picture of my bulls-eye!

Christine and I also go to shoot a shot-gun {Little bit more kick to it, plus about 20x louder! My ears were ringing.} and the last thing we did, was get a little closer to shoot with the revolver. Yeah, that was way harder to hold steady! It was great to spend some quality time with grandpa Chuck and I'm pretty sure he loved having some of his granddaughters show so much interest in one of his favorite past-times. I just wish we'd gotten a picture with him in it!