Shootin' the Breeze

"No really, it doesn’t hurt - you won’t feel a thing."

It’s been a while since I was a child, but not so long that I’ve forgotten that those words, when uttered by a friend, are invariably followed by pain only marginally below do-it-yourself brain surgery or a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles. When the friend is holding a gun, I’ve learned one should be especially careful. However, in this case, she was right.

Pointing the weapon at my chest, Melissa pulled the trigger and from a range of a little over six feet, fired directly at me. And sure enough, it didn’t hurt although I felt a slight thwack, as the bullet hit home. But, as the gun was of the paintball variety, and the bullet filled with purple goop, I was able to bravely stand my ground with Schwarzenegger-like impunity. Oh, and the heavy canvas coat and Kevlar vest probably helped too.

In fact, I was kitted out in such a way, that a charging rhino would probably have stopped dead in its tracks upon impact with my chest and with my riot helmet and protective goggles I looked like something you’d see on the evening news wielding a baton during a South America soccer riot. That or in a photo on a post-office wall, so I was more than a match for a little paintball. (See here)

Living as we do in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, it’s not uncommon to find houses built precariously on the side of hills, and many of them have large open decks, built on stilts to afford residents the full benefit of the glorious scenery. Another benefit to this elevated vantage is that paintballs fired off the deck go out forever, over and through the trees. I learned this on Christmas Eve which we spent with friends who had opened their gifts early. The hippy in me was a shade concerned as to the ecological bad karma of zinging paintballs into the forest but having been assured that they aren’t really filled with paint, but a food-dye like biodegradable substance, my conscience was salved and I blasted away to my heart's content. After a while I got pretty darn good and once I’d found the range, could ding a beer can off a rock. Yeah, that one – way over there.

I didn’t have quite the same skill with the potato gun, although people who know about these things tell me that the hitting is less important than the noise-making here. In case you’re unfamiliar with this particular form of artillery, a potato gun is a PVC tube, some 5 feet long, down which a raw potato is rammed. Hair spray or some other combustible is squirted into the wider portion at the other end before a cap is screwed on. These ones had triggers fashioned from camping stove lighting mechanisms and a quick flick; similar to a snap of the fingers was all it took to send the spud winging its way into the wild blue yonder with a bang loud enough to satisfy any forty-year old adolescent.

After a few hours of drinking beer and loosing off shots into the night my blood lust was up. I was ready for bigger game; real shootin' with live bullets and everythang. No, not at animals silly, this is me we're talking about. I was up for some target shooting, skeet or clays or something else non-breathing. Again, Melissa was my gal and as she and her partner Robin had been given some freebie passes to a local range, we were soon off down the hill laden with shotguns, shells, ear-protection and other paraphernalia of the hunt. Trap shooting was the game; whereby a little clay disc is flung from a rotating arm out into the blue while the marksman picks it off at will.

Unfortunately, before we got started, I had to confess to affliction, which has plagued me since I first took aim at a moving metal duck while at the funfair on Blackpool seafront. Namely, that although I'm right handed, I can't close my left eye while keeping my right one open. Which means I can't sight a rifle or a shotgun properly. Which means I can't hit a bloody thing. The burden is known as "wrong eye dominance" and I resolved it in my Air Training Cadet days by wearing an eye patch. With that in place, I was a more than passable shot although I didn't stay in the quasi-military environment long enough to learn just how good. But, I had no eye patch today and it was soon evident that I was doing little more than wasting shotgun shells.

"You're shooting low." came the calls from behind as yet again I blootered a shot into open space. The problem was, it didn't seem that way to me and if the shots weren't going where I thought they were, I might as well just close my eyes and hope. Or try and wallop the clay with the blunt end of the gun as it whizzed by. It was Ransom, The Trap Release Guy (Ransom's not his real name, and I'm sure his job title isn't "Trap Release Guy", but as he introduced himself by the nickname and it's his lot in life to hit the remote which springs the clay from the rotating arm, so you're going to have to work with me here) who correctly diagnosed the problem.

"Try shooting with your left hand." he suggested, "You'll be able to sight better." I don't know if you've ever fired a shotgun lined up on your less dominant hand but it feels very weird. However, once I'd been taught to hold the stock further up on my shoulder to avoid cricking my neck over, an amazing thing happened. I started to hit the targets.

Oh not every time, it's true. But the majority of the time and when I missed, it was usually due to the awkwardness of my left index finger on the sensitive trigger, rather than poor aim. Most people nail the clay as soon as it appears out of the trap but I found it easier to wait until it was skyborne and I could get a decent read on it. It's a really quite satisfying feeling to stare down the blue-gray barrel of a shotgun and see the clay shatter into a dozen tiny shards a moment after you pull the trigger.

"Hell, we bought you a fishing rod for Christmas, and now we've got you shooting trap" said Melissa later. "We'll make a redneck out of you yet."