Any day at the range is a good day and today was no exception. My department recently completed the legal court process of converting a seized weapon for department use. Basically, it was seized from a bad guy and we notify all parties with a vested interest in the weapon and then file with the court to have it converted to departmental property. This particular weapon was a Glock 19 9mm. It is a medium sized pistol that is good for detective or administrative staff who wear plain clothes. Since we recently transferred our pistols from .40 caliber to 9mm we decided to go through this weapon to ensure it works, upgrade the sights, and issue it to one of our guys.
Since I am the department armorer, I have the fun job of going through the internal nooks and crannies of the pistol to ensure that everything is good to go and arraigning for the sights to be upgraded. With our new pistols, we choose to go with F.A.T. (Fast Acquisition Tactical) sights, so I needed this pistol to be outfitted with the same sights. I ran the gun down to our vendor and had them installed in about 20 minutes.
Today I needed to make sure the weapon would run ammunition without any failures and I needed to ensure that the sights were aligned and not damaged during instillation. I know rough, rough job, but somebody has to do it! One of the local ranges, Atlanta Range and Ordinance, is generous enough to offer all of our officers free range time and they are very accommodating when I have special requests for training or qualifying an officer on short notice. I was able to get to the range just after lunch and had the place to myself for the most part. This is a temperature controlled indoor range with lanes that accommodate anything from pistols up to automatic rifles. They have two or three separate range spaces that can be modified for training situations.
They set me up in a section by myself and I get set up and ready to run the “new” pistol through the paces. First off, it definitely needs a good cleaning and I will get to that before it is issued out. I used the department issued training ammunition and ran 50 rounds through it without even the slightest hiccup. The weapon ran smooth as silk and the sights appeared to be dead on(at least as dead on as my limited skills could achieve…lol)
I also took my duty issued full sized Glock 17 9mm for a bit of extra practice. You can never be too proficient with a tool that has the ability to save my life on a daily basis. I tend to jerk the trigger a bit which causes me to shoot a bit low and to the left, so I worked on smooth trigger pulls and rapid successions of precision pairs. Precision pairs is basically trying to fire a round and then, as quickly as possible, fire anther round as close as possible to the first round. It is an excellent exercise for working on trigger pull, sight alignment, and well as recoil mitigation. All in all I could of done better, but I could have done worse too. Shooting is a lifelong pursuit of perfection and proficiency. I will never be satisfying with the results I get on a range or during a competition.
My duty weapon with tactical light attached. I take it off for off-duty carry.
Do you shoot any firearms? What is your favorite weapon and round? Any tips for an old dog to learn new tricks???? lol
Did I mention I did this regaled in my finest Steemit t-shirt!!!??!!!!
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://papacrusher.vornix.blog/2018/09/12/day-at-the-range/
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A version of this post was previously published on Steemit and is republished here with permission form the author.
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Photo credit: Philip Nelson