GunKid needs something new to complain about, so I will tell you all abut "THE SHOT"
THE SHOT happened long ago when I was a second Lieutenant in the Army. The place was the Machine gun range at Camp Chafee, a place where machingegunners wewre trained in unknown distance firing with belt fed .30-06 Browning machine guns. The range was layed out with a series of small pits behind thick earth berms. The pit crews ran up the targets on the command of the range officer. On this day that was me.
On that day I was carrying my FN Browning Highpower 9mm made in early 1940 in its original flap holster on my pistol belt. It looked enough live a 1911A1 holster that no one noticed. It was loadedn with Canadian Military ammunitopn which I knew was very accurate and which had the same bullet weight and muzzle velocity as the original Belgian Army load.
Why did I take a pistol to a machinegun range? Because my pistol was the Belgian Army Officers Model with an adjustable tangent sight which could be set for ranges as great as 500 meters in 100 meter increments. I had thought about that sight many times wondering if the 300, 400 and 500 meterr settings really worked or were just cosmetic to keep up morale?.
As the range officer I knew that the range to berm D was 440 yards, almost exactly 400 meters. I ordered Pit D to run up a standard target which was a double Army E, two man sized targets sized targets side by side, I drew the pistol, checked to be sure the sight was set for 400 meters, took a two handed hold, aimed carefully at the right hand target and fired one shot.
To my utter amazement when the pit crew spotted the shot the bullet hole was near the center of the target's torso and about two inches to the right, dead on at 440 yards. I only had fired to see if the bullets would hit somewhere on or near the berm.
I have never made another shot like that before or after that one. As my First Seargant said "That was a fine shot LT, but there was a lot of luck in it." and he was right.
THE SHOT happened long ago when I was a second Lieutenant in the Army. The place was the Machine gun range at Camp Chafee, a place where machingegunners wewre trained in unknown distance firing with belt fed .30-06 Browning machine guns. The range was layed out with a series of small pits behind thick earth berms. The pit crews ran up the targets on the command of the range officer. On this day that was me.
On that day I was carrying my FN Browning Highpower 9mm made in early 1940 in its original flap holster on my pistol belt. It looked enough live a 1911A1 holster that no one noticed. It was loadedn with Canadian Military ammunitopn which I knew was very accurate and which had the same bullet weight and muzzle velocity as the original Belgian Army load.
Why did I take a pistol to a machinegun range? Because my pistol was the Belgian Army Officers Model with an adjustable tangent sight which could be set for ranges as great as 500 meters in 100 meter increments. I had thought about that sight many times wondering if the 300, 400 and 500 meterr settings really worked or were just cosmetic to keep up morale?.
As the range officer I knew that the range to berm D was 440 yards, almost exactly 400 meters. I ordered Pit D to run up a standard target which was a double Army E, two man sized targets sized targets side by side, I drew the pistol, checked to be sure the sight was set for 400 meters, took a two handed hold, aimed carefully at the right hand target and fired one shot.
To my utter amazement when the pit crew spotted the shot the bullet hole was near the center of the target's torso and about two inches to the right, dead on at 440 yards. I only had fired to see if the bullets would hit somewhere on or near the berm.
I have never made another shot like that before or after that one. As my First Seargant said "That was a fine shot LT, but there was a lot of luck in it." and he was right.
