Hitesh's Shooting trip to the Public shooting range in Osceola Nat'l Forest in FL.

[Blademaster]

This is a repost from another forum. I am too fricking lazy to put in all the work and type it up so I basically copied my friend's post on this forum, Indians For Guns - Index. I do have my friend's permission to reprint it and use it as my own.


I was in Jacksonville last week and my friend there organised a special treat for me and my friends - a trip to the public shooting range at Osceola with lots of guns! The superstar who got together everyone and pretty much made this happen was Tamil (that's him in the pictures below). He's shooting a DPMS Panther which is a nice sweet rifle. Very strong barrel mounted on a stable tripod. Didn't have to worry too much about recoil and the scope was pretty much spot on. I hit all my targets which was between 50 to 75 yards away at skeet clay targets mounted on the back of a filled up mound that was designed to trap all the bullets flying through it.

[Blademaster]

Second round of pictures.

Guess which is me? Shouldn't be too hard to figure out! The guy in the red shirt is my very good friend visiting from India. He is the owner and moderator of Indians For Guns - Index. It is a nice forum about guns. OOE, I think you would like it. Go give the forum a visit.

You should see me hanging out with my posse. Check out all the guns that I tried out and shot. My favorite handgun was the 1911 .45 Kimber gun. Hot damn, that was a powerful handgun. My favorite rifle to shoot was that DMPS Panther rifle. I also enjoyed shooting the .3030 Winchester. It was a real enjoyment to shoot it.

[Blademaster]

Third round of pictures. The short guy shooting the rifle is my older brother, Shailesh. He is a good guy to know but don't **** around with him. He may be smaller than me, but he can kick my ass any time he wants to.

The guy in the third picture, Gibby, wearing the NY Yankees hat, is a friend of mine and is brother to Tamil, the guy who organized this trip.

The guy hanging out with my brother is Brad. He came along with his wife and had one revolver and a Taurus Model 92 SS 9mm.

[Adux]

The dude in the first two pics looks very lawyerie!!!

[Jay]

nice pics Hitesh...where the fvck are you in those pics? :P

[Blademaster]

Here is the story that my friend Abhijeet wrote:

I was staying at Shailesh's place along with Hitesh (his younger brother) and Tamil had asked us to be ready by 10:30 AM when he would come to pick us up. Tamil, Brad and Pia (Brad's wife) arrived at the designated time and after some minor chit chat all of us piled into Tamil's landy for the drive to Brad's father's place (to pick up Brad's guns). It wasn't too far and on arrival Brad's mom quickly asked which one of us was the "experienced" chap that Brad had told her about... all faces rapidly pointed towards me. What followed was a quick instruction in gun safety by the lady - I really appreciated the way in which she did it, dispensing wisdom without making anyone there feel stupid. She's obviously had a lot of practice with her son's friends

Brad's father (he was not home) I found out is an avid hunter and pretty much made sure that Brad and his siblings grew up shooting and hunting since a very young age. While Brad was packing his guns etc. his mom gave us a brief tour of his gun cabinet... hardly being able to control my drooling impulse, I could not but help think that this personal collection could put to shame most gun shops in India!

Packed and ready to move - next stop the local gun & outdoors store to buy ammo. As soon as I entered I was treated to trophy's of cape buffalo and lions, lined along with more mundane deer, moose etc. While the guys shopped to ammo and ear plugs, Hitesh and I went to the counter to check out the AK's and M16's that were on sale... I literally had to be dragged out of there by the others!

Once we were on our way to the range Shailesh decided that it was time to regale us with some stories from the ER room (he's an eye surgeon). Not very pleasant fare, but it had the desired effect of reinforcing the need to observe gun safety. Twenty minutes out as Tamil was observing the clouds and saying that the weatherman had predicted heavy rains after 4 PM, the rain gods decided to prove their supremacy over humans (& meteorological satellites) by letting loose an almighty rainstorm... thankfully by the time we parked at a small grocery store to wait for Dave and his team the rain had subsided.

The shooting range is actually inside the forest, and is reached by driving through a few miles of dirt road (which was now a mud track). On arrival the first thing I hear is a couple of guys going on full auto with their guns

Besides an intermittent drizzle, the weather pretty much held for the next few hours. The hearing defenders and ear plugs were in place the moment we stepped out - the almighty noise of the shooting going on made sure of that! The second safety precaution everyone rapidly took was a healthy application of insect repellent. Initially I was smirking as my friends quickly sprayed themselves on stepping out of the cars - but the persistent attention of several mosquitoes ensured that within minutes I was lining up for my turn with the spray can

We set up in one corner of the range and out came the goodies! First up were the pistols and as soon as I saw that Dave had a Kimber 1911 in his armoury, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it... so that was the first pistol I tried at the range. Compared to my own ex-GI 1911 the trigger was much crisper, breaking smoothly & predictably each time. As to muzzle flip and recoil - the 1911 actually was one of the most manageable pistols of the lot... in spite of packing the most powerful cartridge of the pack AND being the oldest design... no doubts JM Browning was one hell of a genius!

The next pistol I got to shoot was the Kel-Tec P-3AT pocket pistol. Dave warned me in advance that it was a brand new gun and not really broken in yet, so was prone to jams/ stovepiping. The minute I held this gun the impression was of a tacky plastic toy. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against new materials, but the quality of materials and more so the end finish left something to be desired with this particular gun. The other thing that you immediately realise on holding it is how small this gun really is. I could barely manage to get a grip on it, it's that small - that combined with the light weight meant that in spite of a relatively low powered .380 (9mm short) chambering, it had an evil muzzle flip making it neigh impossible to shoot with any kind of accuracy.

Next up the Kahr, Glock, Taurus and other handguns...

Well if you wish to know more about this trip, take a visit to this thread: Indians For Guns - Osceola national forest - Florida

[Blademaster]

nice pics Hitesh...where the fvck are you in those pics? :P

Try to figure that out! ;)

[Adux]

Photoanalysis of the Second Picture in the Second Post

Woman in yellow tanktop : 'mmm' I like'ee' him,

[Blademaster]

I have two more pictures of an earlier shoot I had back in the Fall of '07 with my friend Dave. Here is a not so good picture of Dave. He's showing my brother, Shailesh, how to aim and fire accurately. Dave is the man of the hour. Most of the guns you see belong to him. He's a real gentleman. When he was there, he showed all of us how to practice gun safety and fire safely without making us feel stupid and he made sure that we all had a good time and would set up the targets and such. Great guy to know.

[Blademaster]

Well I am off to breakfast and after a hearty breakfast we are gonna go shooting down in Delray Beach. I found a shooting range that will allow us to fire an fully automatic machine gun. Whoo hooo!!! I will bring a camera to document our shooting "prowess". :))

[Ray]

I was more keen to see the photos of the target after the firing! ;)

You are the Blue boy?

[Blademaster]

Aw shucks, I am not quite blue from all the shooting I did that day. I did manage to brace the rifle butt against my shoulder properly. No blue or purple spots there, so to speak! At least it is better than being labeled as a yellow boy like that gal wearing that yellow shirt.

I thought I did take a picture of the targets but to no avail. Perhaps next time.

[toemag]

Glad to see you all had some fun, I was always under the impression that Florida was a dry hot place that the retired wealthy moved to for the last few years of their lives sure does look damp on the picture's.

I have relatives that live in that area of Florida and have an open invite. maybe one day, mmmmmmm.

I was also busy putting holes in paper, 95 from a possible 100 at 150m's, was the best I managed with my AR15 with irons.

Tony

[Blademaster]

Glad to see you all had some fun, I was always under the impression that Florida was a dry hot place that the retired wealthy moved to for the last few years of their lives sure does look damp on the picture's.

I have relatives that live in that area of Florida and have an open invite. maybe one day, mmmmmmm.

I was also busy putting holes in paper, 95 from a possible 100 at 150m's, was the best I managed with my AR15 with irons.

Tony

Damn that's impressive. I can only do that with a scope not using the irons.

As for Florida being a dry and hot place? No way in hell. It is a hot and humid place with lush vegetation. Perhaps you are confusing Florida with Arizona. Yes we did had droughts in Florida but hot and dry? No way.

[Tronic]

Nice pics.