As mentioned previously, YAH BOI has a massive love of his shotgun. Admittedly, progress towards my learning goal has been slower than I would’ve ordinarily liked, though part of this is market driven. While Advanced Rifle and conceal-carry oriented classes often become standing-room only, shotgun courses are offered much less frequently due to low demand. Naturally, when the range sent an e-mail regarding the chance to take Shotgun 1 as a structured class, I signed up immediately.
I showed up to the course bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I was the first student to arrive, and thus I waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally, a few other students started to trickle in. The instructor had me sign-in on the class roster; 10 folks had signed up for (read: paid for) the class and the majority no-showed. Whatever; smaller class size meant more individualized attention.
Given that this was an introduction class, there were some elemental basics to go over, though I managed to glean some new bits of knowledge from the classroom time. We got to the range and before long we had some trigger time. We shot a variety of shotguns, most of them had different types of sights. It made me realize one crucial detail; having a bead-only sight is kinda trash and that I needed to upgrade; fucking pronto.
Patient Mossberg
After the class; YAH BOI went home and started scouring the internets for a ghost ring kit to install on my beloved Mossberg 590. A few days later, the kit arrived, and I started performing shotgun surgery on my pine bedroom bureau operating table. Though…there were complications and the operation wasn’t going to plan. Two of the screws on the top of the receiver were made of metal so soft that a precision screwdriver was still cutting into the screws rather than turning them. Seriously, these screws are so soft, they make Chris Brown look tough!
Luckily, YAH BOI managed to get two of the screws at opposing positions off, and had some Blue Loctite handy. Thus, the Picatinny (“pic” for you non-gunners) rail managed to go on flush, solidly, and without any fuss. If I had a nurse, she would’ve been wiping sweat off my forehead! Onto the next part of the scanned PDF instructions (side note for consumer goods CEO’s; if you sell an assembly-needed item and refuse to print off instructions, go chug Clorox). Except there’s one problem; the instructions didn’t include any portions on actually installing the apertures! As someone with five years of technical writing experience, this did little more than drive me up a fucking wall.
The patient was on my pine operating table, laying in stasis as I scrambled for a solution. Then the lightbulb turned on; I had an extra 1x optic that I was no longer using. I snapped that onto my shotgun’s new pic rail and torqued for dear life. This’ll have to do for now. I loaded my AR and made it my home-defense gun as the Loctite cured; Patient Mossberg was on light duty via doctor’s orders!
Three days later, YAH BOI found himself at the range; the patient was ready for some rehab work. I was eager to test out if the pic rail and optic would withstand the force of repeated 12-gauge recoil without shifting. YAH BOI also had to zero his optic. Thus, I opted for the toughest test first; zeroing the optic at 20 yards with slugs! The optic was an immediate and substantial improvement over the bead-sight. No more high-and-right slug shots for this unhinged Libertarian writer! Five slugs hit the head-sized target in a fist-shaped pattern. All were clustered about 2.5 inches below the optics reticule, but there was no horizontal bias. I shrugged and dubbed it height over bore and called the optic zeroed. I tugged the rail and the optic: no movement. Hooray!
Then, I brought the target back in towards a realistic self-defense distance of seven yards. I put some buckshot through to see how the pattern looked now that I can aim far more accurately than I could with a bead. I did the same at 15 yards; all nine pellets still stayed on the target despite some flyers. Zeroing an optic and pattern-testing buckshot can be a nerdy kind of fun as it tickles the analytical part of my brain; the STEM side that craves the loop of tweak-test-observe-repeat. However, when it comes to shotguns, there’s a more primal part of my brain that needs feeding; more rounds, now!
And who am I to stand in the way of true shotgun-love? I ran my favorite drill; shoot 2, load 1. I set the target parameters; seven yards, 3 seconds of face time, 4 seconds of edge time, five reps. YAH BOI was noticeably faster in getting on target, putting two shells into the paper-villain within two seconds from low-ready/safety on, and then loading a replacement shell into the magazine for the next rep. The drill fed the part of my brain that wants to throw dumb lead downrange in a short window. Both sides of my brain were happy. I gave the rail and optic another hard tug; no budge. Patient cleared to resume full duties!
Garlic Jr: Glock
“Damn it, Dan; muh TikTok brain demands more content” shrieks some broccoli-haired Zoomer. “MORE CONTENT, I SAY!” Fine, I heard you loud and clear. If Patient Mossberg was the main saga, consider this some skippable Garlic Jr side courses. During the same range visit, I also got some practice in with my typical carry gun: the Glock 17.
Ever since I took Handgun 2, I’ve been slowly but surely using the trigger reset technique to improve my accuracy. I swear, it’s the Buzzfeed One Weird Trick to boost pistol accuracy immensely. Over my last few range sessions; I’ve been able to consistently hit head shots on a man-shaped paper target at 8-12 yards. My accuracy dips down to about 60% of the time when going for headshots at 14 yards. But here’s the thing; even the misses would be Charlie-zone hits on the torso. This is a definite sign of progress relative to not that long ago.
Static and calm shooting is one thing; it’s another thing entirely to be able to shoot under duress. Thus, just like the shotgun shoot 2, load 1 drill described earlier, I tested myself at the same parameters. This time, I’d start holstered with my arms in the air. When the target faced me, I’d draw from my concealed appendix holster and fire off as many safely accurate shots as possible within the three seconds. Loosening the face time to four seconds allowed me to get a torso shot and a headshot in cleanly before the target reset.
The best part about it was that much of this happened without conscious thought. When the paper target faced me, I could feel the robotic sequence run on auto-pilot as a large part of me remained detached; as if I was watching in third-person. Clear shirt, drop elbow, punch out, controlled trigger press; each three-second cycle ran like this. I’m starting to get semi-competent with the Glock!
Forward and Discussion
It dawned on me as I left the range; in a way, the range is essentially a science lab that resembles Bruce Wayne’s basement. Seriously; gun-smithing is essentially the scientific method, if one were to really think about it. As I alluded to earlier, the feedback loop of tweak-test-observe-repeat is nearly instant when rounds go downrange. And that’s a solid selling point that the firearm industry could make to attract more scientifically-minded customers.
One thing is for certain; I’ll definitely be back for more shotgun instruction. A few days after the Shotgun 1 course I received an e-mail from the range that they added Shotgun 2 to the calendar. Naturally, I couldn’t sign up fast enough Sadly, this’ll have to wait until October; see above-demand for shotgun courses isn’t nearly as high.
To appropriate Ice Cube culture: it was a good day.
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