Bad Day at the Range

I enjoy shooting guns. I have a lot of fond memories going out with my dad on a drive to some remote desert hill. It was neat watching him repeatedly hit some tiny target that was really far away with his .38 revolver while I plinked with a .22 rifle. Now that I'm older, it's much harder to find time to shoot.

I enjoy the challenge of concentrating and controlling my body so that I don't flinch even though I know what's coming when I squeeze the trigger. Mastering the kick and succeeding at hitting the target with a decent grouping is really satisfying.

Last fall I went several times with my Dad to the range, where we had a (literal) blast shooting several different pistols and rifles. We did have some problems following the stringent rules enforced by large, impatient, yet kindly range masters. They didn't have range-masters out in the desert by the hill. We just enforced the safety rules ourselves.

I wonder what those range masters would say about this ridiculous gun. I've shot .357 magnum and .44 magnum pistols with a lot of kick, but nothing like this. I was sent an email with this explanation.

This pistol is basically a "show and tell" custom built on a
Thompson Encore frame. The caliber is a .600 Nitro Express. The guy that built it is some kind of custom gun maker. He built this as an exhibition piece. He takes it to the range just to show it off, and the big guy that shot it in the video had been bugging the builder to let him shoot it.

Now think about this... Only until fairly recently (early-mid '80's) the 600 Nitro Express was hands down the biggest, nastiest, hardest hitting, and heaviest recoiling weapon you could buy. It was designed for one simple purpose... to knock an elephant flat on his butt. This cartridge is known for breaking the collarbones, arms and shoulders of the shooter!

In the gun world they use what is termed as a "recoil index" to give prospective buyers an idea of what a gun kicks like. A 30-06 gets a rating of 1.0, which for many people is about the limit of what they can shoot multiple rounds through comfortably. A 243 is rated at .4, a .270 at .8, etc. The 600 Nitro Express is rated at 9.4... which is 9.4 times more punishing power than a 30-06. Now watch the video.

I hope the man wasn't hurt. This must have been a bad day at the range for him. He didn't have a chance- it just blew right out of his hand!

Watching this made me think of the Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle. I watched a Discovery channel program about it- it's a really big gun. Unlike that pistol, it's actually usable.

The image shows the relative sizes of various shells: From left to right: .50 BMG, 300 Win Mag, .308 Winchester, 7.62 Soviet, 5.56 NATO, .22LR. The .50 caliber is BIG.

Here's a clip from that Discovery channel show. These guys are shooting from 1000 yards at steel plating and cinder block walls. 1000 yards is really far to hit anything and to have any energy left in the bullet. I have a hard enough time shooting accurately at 70 or 100 yards.