Tuesday was Range Day

I went to the Range on Tuesday (took me three days to post about it, I know). It wasn't so much a day to qualify, more of a 'familiarize yourself with your weapon' day. We went to the range and fired at Targets that were about 25 Meters away. Since there were no foxholes, we fired from the Prone Supported and the Prone Unsupported position.

I can shoot anything in the Prone Supported position, had that rifle confirmed zeroed in 9 shots, but we were on these plywood Thing-A-Ma-Bobs and those are no fun on the elbows. That and we were firing in full flackvest, LBV and Kevlar. I'm not used to firing in a Flackvest. So I managed to get a good site picture in the Prone Supported, but once I got down into the Prone Unsupported position, everything went to hell in a handbasket.

We had to fire 20 rounds at 10 targets, hitting each one twice, in each position. So that's forty rounds for a grand total of 4 hits to each target. In the Prone Supported, I hit 19 targets, missing the 300 Meter target the one time by a couple centimeters.


I get down in the Prone Unsupported position, and by the time I made my way to the bottom of the target, I was rushing through it to get off of my elbows. It would have been a lot better if they just let us fire in the dirt. I doubt there would be Plywood Thing-a-ma-bobs there for us to sit on if we really came under fire.

So anyway, we fired in the prone unsupported. Well, if you looked at my target, you would say I hit six targets. Yeah, I hit six targets if you take into account that I hit a target I wasn't aiming for. That's how far off I was on this thing. Technically I only hit three targets. I was aiming low due to the fact that I was in an unfamiliar position with equipment I've never worn while firing on. Now, with Pop-up joes, I'll know if I'm missing them or not, as they go down or they don't. Then you adjust fire. If you're just firing at a piece of paper that is to far away to see if your hitting or not, you don't know if you are right on target or if you are missing completely.

That's why I loved the SAV-T machine. It will tell you EXACTLY where you hit the moment you hit the target, and you adjust accordingly.

So if we were qualifying with these things, despite the fact that I hit expert in the supported, I did so lousy in the unsupported position that I didn't even qualify! Where's the irony in that?

I saved my target anyway :)

I decided that this is good for familiarizing, but I think I'm going to stick to the Pop Up Joe, the Badass that I'm familiar with when actually qualifying.

I didn't get any pictures of me actually attempting to qualify with my rifle, however, I did get some kick ass pictures of the G36. Not necessarily of me holding it, (for some reason, I came off looking like a retard)

We had a German First Sergeant bring by some weapons from the German Army and we got to fire those badboys.

Commence with Pictures.