Saturday, the 24th was the Iowa Firearms Coalition's 4th annual Send Amendment rally. A great time was had by all. I dragged my ass out of bed at 0400 and started on the coffee. It's a 50 mile drive to the Brownell's range complex at Searsboro and I had to get there in plenty of time to get my area set up.
Out the door at 0630 to allow time for a couple of stops along the way. The first stop was at the Hy-Vee down the street. Grabbed some drinks and Ice. Then on to Micky D's fora couple breakfast sandwiches. I rolled in the gate at Searsboro at 0800. That gave me a hour to find where I was going to be and get set up.
I run the range called Show and Tell. This area people can come and shoot the gun they brought, shoot their buddy's gun or shoot one of the guns I furnish. Every year I furnish a few gun for people that have either never shot or want to try something different. This year, like the last three, I furnished 4 handguns and 3 rifles. The handguns were, Ruger standard in 22, a Llama IIIA .380, a Ruger Security Six 357 and a Llama X1A .45. The rifles were a Ruger mini 14, a AR-15 A2 and a AR-15 M4.
Brownell's furnished RSO's for every range station. It was nice to have the extra eyes with inexperienced shooters on the line. He was a nice guy, but I can't remember what he said his name was. I'm terrible with names.
The people; So many nice people, all carrying guns and no one was shot all day. Imagine that, all those guns and not one crazy in the bunch. Of course after the two hours of politicians we got to endure, I'm sure some were having thoughts. ;) Well,probably not. There were a few of the shooters that made memorable appearances. There was a older gentleman with what ata glance looked like a model 19 S&W. He stepped up to the line and squeezed of a double action shot, to a click. So he did it again. I'm busy with the shooters watching for proper safety, watching the targets and generally giving instruction and encouragement. I looked up at his gun at the second click and noticed a lot of air between the cylinder and the recoil shield. It was empty. He gave a sheepish grin and told me "they had me unload it when I got here and I forgot to load it". I don't understand how anyone can carry a gun and not know what condition it's in. He loaded up and fired his six and decided he was done.
A very nice young lady came up and by young I'm thinking maybe 20, with a subcompact 9. Her first problem was the fact she was wearing a tank top. I know it was hot, but she should have been wearing a regular T shirt. After the quick safety briefing, she took a pretty good stance and fired a round. The brass did something I have never seen before. It went straight up and came straight back down into the front of her top. Being the trooper that she was, she fired the whole magazine, picking the brass out with every shot.
One lady shot the Llama 45 2 years ago. She fell in love with it, so I had to explain how she could find one. She said she missed last year and this year showed up with a nice Beretta 92. She shot well and really liked her 92.
I saw a quit a few malfunctions, some were ammo issues and some were caused by shooters not using a good grip. One young lady with a small 9 stove piped every round. I got my .380 and let her run a mag through it and she didn't have any issues. I explained grip and keeping your wrists firm. Her second mag in the 9 went off without a hitch.
I saw two different Springfield XD's with failure to feed issues. The first one was just a mag that wasn't seated good enough. The second one, the best we could determine was a faulty magazine. After he changed mags it worked fine.
There were a lot of first time shooters and quit a few wanted to shoot the AR's. I pre-loaded some mags with 10 rounds each. So anyone wanting to shoot one got 1 mag. The M-4 got the most action followed by the Mini-14. Of the 4 handguns, they didn't see a lot of action. I think every one of them got shot once and the 357 got shot 3 or 4 times. I was loading it with 158 grain jacketed flat points in 38 special.
The worst part of the day, near the end was a man that wanted to shoot my A2. After the safety briefing and showing him the controls he started shooting. All of a sudden, 3 rounds went of in what sounded like full auto. From the look on his face I could tell that he wasn't testing out his bump fire technique. He was our last shooter and we about to close the range for the day. I loaded a mag with 20 rounds and fired every one of them with no problem. The last thing I need is a malfunctioning AR.
I never got a chance to try out any of the other ranges. One of the stations on our range had 50 BMG's you could shoot along with some full auto stuff. There was 2 M1919's and a M2. Most were just shooting the 50 single shot rifle. There was a 3 gun set up on one of the ranges. Another had all kinds of machine guns to shoot. Another range had cowboy shooting and suppressor demonstrations. There was also a suppressor demo next to me. Savage had a demo set up and the 300 mag was one of their most popular rifles to shoot.
It was a great day, seeing old friends and making new ones. They tell me we had a attendance of 1250 people. They are also talking about moving the date next year to September. Holding itin a little cooler weather might bring the attendance up.
All of the IFC people that volunteered to work did a great job. IFC is completely run by volunteers, we have no paid positions. I joined them about a month and a half after they were formed as Iowa Carry. That was on June 1st, 2005. I've been a receiving FFL for members and Most recently I've been the Polk county coordinator. It's one of the best jobs I have never been paid for. And a really big thanks to Brownell's for allowing us the use of their beautiful complex for the 4th year. It's nice to have one of the worlds biggest and best gun parts suppliers right here in Iowa.
Out the door at 0630 to allow time for a couple of stops along the way. The first stop was at the Hy-Vee down the street. Grabbed some drinks and Ice. Then on to Micky D's fora couple breakfast sandwiches. I rolled in the gate at Searsboro at 0800. That gave me a hour to find where I was going to be and get set up.
I run the range called Show and Tell. This area people can come and shoot the gun they brought, shoot their buddy's gun or shoot one of the guns I furnish. Every year I furnish a few gun for people that have either never shot or want to try something different. This year, like the last three, I furnished 4 handguns and 3 rifles. The handguns were, Ruger standard in 22, a Llama IIIA .380, a Ruger Security Six 357 and a Llama X1A .45. The rifles were a Ruger mini 14, a AR-15 A2 and a AR-15 M4.
Brownell's furnished RSO's for every range station. It was nice to have the extra eyes with inexperienced shooters on the line. He was a nice guy, but I can't remember what he said his name was. I'm terrible with names.
The people; So many nice people, all carrying guns and no one was shot all day. Imagine that, all those guns and not one crazy in the bunch. Of course after the two hours of politicians we got to endure, I'm sure some were having thoughts. ;) Well,probably not. There were a few of the shooters that made memorable appearances. There was a older gentleman with what ata glance looked like a model 19 S&W. He stepped up to the line and squeezed of a double action shot, to a click. So he did it again. I'm busy with the shooters watching for proper safety, watching the targets and generally giving instruction and encouragement. I looked up at his gun at the second click and noticed a lot of air between the cylinder and the recoil shield. It was empty. He gave a sheepish grin and told me "they had me unload it when I got here and I forgot to load it". I don't understand how anyone can carry a gun and not know what condition it's in. He loaded up and fired his six and decided he was done.
A very nice young lady came up and by young I'm thinking maybe 20, with a subcompact 9. Her first problem was the fact she was wearing a tank top. I know it was hot, but she should have been wearing a regular T shirt. After the quick safety briefing, she took a pretty good stance and fired a round. The brass did something I have never seen before. It went straight up and came straight back down into the front of her top. Being the trooper that she was, she fired the whole magazine, picking the brass out with every shot.
One lady shot the Llama 45 2 years ago. She fell in love with it, so I had to explain how she could find one. She said she missed last year and this year showed up with a nice Beretta 92. She shot well and really liked her 92.
I saw a quit a few malfunctions, some were ammo issues and some were caused by shooters not using a good grip. One young lady with a small 9 stove piped every round. I got my .380 and let her run a mag through it and she didn't have any issues. I explained grip and keeping your wrists firm. Her second mag in the 9 went off without a hitch.
I saw two different Springfield XD's with failure to feed issues. The first one was just a mag that wasn't seated good enough. The second one, the best we could determine was a faulty magazine. After he changed mags it worked fine.
There were a lot of first time shooters and quit a few wanted to shoot the AR's. I pre-loaded some mags with 10 rounds each. So anyone wanting to shoot one got 1 mag. The M-4 got the most action followed by the Mini-14. Of the 4 handguns, they didn't see a lot of action. I think every one of them got shot once and the 357 got shot 3 or 4 times. I was loading it with 158 grain jacketed flat points in 38 special.
The worst part of the day, near the end was a man that wanted to shoot my A2. After the safety briefing and showing him the controls he started shooting. All of a sudden, 3 rounds went of in what sounded like full auto. From the look on his face I could tell that he wasn't testing out his bump fire technique. He was our last shooter and we about to close the range for the day. I loaded a mag with 20 rounds and fired every one of them with no problem. The last thing I need is a malfunctioning AR.
I never got a chance to try out any of the other ranges. One of the stations on our range had 50 BMG's you could shoot along with some full auto stuff. There was 2 M1919's and a M2. Most were just shooting the 50 single shot rifle. There was a 3 gun set up on one of the ranges. Another had all kinds of machine guns to shoot. Another range had cowboy shooting and suppressor demonstrations. There was also a suppressor demo next to me. Savage had a demo set up and the 300 mag was one of their most popular rifles to shoot.
It was a great day, seeing old friends and making new ones. They tell me we had a attendance of 1250 people. They are also talking about moving the date next year to September. Holding itin a little cooler weather might bring the attendance up.
All of the IFC people that volunteered to work did a great job. IFC is completely run by volunteers, we have no paid positions. I joined them about a month and a half after they were formed as Iowa Carry. That was on June 1st, 2005. I've been a receiving FFL for members and Most recently I've been the Polk county coordinator. It's one of the best jobs I have never been paid for. And a really big thanks to Brownell's for allowing us the use of their beautiful complex for the 4th year. It's nice to have one of the worlds biggest and best gun parts suppliers right here in Iowa.
2 comments:
Sorry I didn't stop by and say hello. My wife and I played around on the auto range and watched the 3 gun for a little bit. Unfortunately, she wasn't feeling the greatest so we didn't get to stay very long. I've shown the video of us shooting the MG's to guys at work. Might have a few more people coming next year.
I'll expect you both to come by next year. Too bad she got ill. Was it all the hot air from the politicians?
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