by Doug Coulter » Tue Feb 15, 2011 3:33 pm
Yup. We sometimes get that right, although there's quite an anti-gun movement here. We just don't invite them to our parties as a group. We do invite a few, and most of them come away with a completely different picture after one of these There's nothing like blowing something up with a full auto to put a real s__t eating grin on your face. We don't have a minigun at our machine gun shoot, but at least we put the explosives IN The car (or coke machine, or whatever), which is far more impressive. We've tossed body panels several hundred feet into the air that way. We use the legal "tannerite" which is a mix of ammonium nitrate and zirconium hydride, which is legal because each part isn't really dangerous until mixed, and it takes a rifle bullet to detonate it -- a pistol won't do it. It's about as powerful as dynamite with about the same characteristics (lots of heave, not too much shock compared to a real fast HE, like PETN or RDX).
Last time I got to shoot an M2 .50bmg, a tommy gun in .45, an HK-5, an M60, and an Uzi, of which I actually enjoyed the tommy gun the most -- you could actually hit things with it.
It was sure an impressive show down range with 3 guys emptying long belts of .308 down there - the air itself was full of flying brass. Nice to be on the right end of that kind of thing, actually feels pretty good (and it's usually more impressive than the WW II movies in terms of how much is kicked up down range).
We do sniper stuff too, and more often than not, I win those myself, as I build my own guns, and that one happens to be what I'm naturally good at -- it involves judging the wind more than anything else. We use chicken eggs at half a klick though, to make it difficult enough for real competition, no wimpy 4 foot targets for us! They scramble nicely when hit. It's almost time where we can go out and use my range in the back again, too cold just yet here though. I'm not hardcore enough to want to freeze just to shoot some stuff.
I don't think that girl was really shooting a .300 win mag. I've seen big men get tossed back quite a bit off that one and really wince -- it's a lotta recoil. I fill my own .308 with lead, my rifle weighs around 25 lbs, so it's not so hard on this little guy to shoot off a bench.
What they don't mention here, is that machine guns (anything full auto) you can't buy at a gun store, period. You have to go through an extensive FBI background check, pay a few thousand dollars for a license on each purchase, and transfer from another legal owner to have one. Typical prices are in the 30-50,000 dollar range, they are quite pricey due to our laws that only allow grandfathered-in old guns to be legal. Not that there aren't quite a few semi autos that easily modify to full auto -- but any real shooter doesn't do that -- ruins barrels very very quick, you don't hit squat, and so on. Even our own army limits bursts from soldiers guns (M4 carbines) to 3 shots for that reason. Because these are so hard to get ahold of, what you were seeing there was a bunch of rich people with very clean legal records....
Our particular club is full of CIA guys, military guys, and cops, so we get to have a lot of fun there, but usually don't have this much stuff or people. It looks about the same terrain as the movie, just a little less of it and fewer people. A machine gun shoot is something you have to be at to really appreciate it - even that movie can't quite get it across.
We had a Civil war era mortar at our last one, used a pound of black powder per shot, shooting coffee cans full of concrete as the projectile, and somewhere I have pictures of them still rising as they go out of sight. We decided to not do that anymore, as there's a city just a few miles away....you never know.
We own a 12 foot by 6 foot tax form that the government printed for some reason -- like a wall mural. Next time it looks like we might be able to get a good crowd, we'll hang that sucker downrange and have everyone give it .... what ever they brought. Should be fun to watch it shred!
This is why many think our dept of homeland security is utter bull. Even the Japanese in WWII said, gheesh, we'll never invade America, too doggone dangerous -- they all know how to shoot!
This of course isn't true, there's only a tiny fraction of us who are armed and any good at it, especially these days, but there are local concentrations in places where you can do it safely, like the place this movie was made, or where I live. To point that out, check out the movies from security cameras of actual gang banger robberies. It's common to see two people unload a clip at one another at a few paces and no one hits anything at all. Duh. Those "bad boys" are in for a shock if, like the rap song, they think they're coming down to the country to take on farmer brown if things get bad. Goodluckwiththat -- farmer brown knows how to shoot. They don't -- no practice.
I've heard NZ has a not-unreasonable set of gun laws, as in you can own them and have self defense -- our NRA had an article about "cowboy shooting" competitions held there.
Here that's one of the fun things we do -- old guns, period costumes, fast and furious against close in steel plate targets with very light loads. For whatever reason (probably the costumes) it's a total chick magnet -- lots of very attractive women attend and compete. You can count on more girls than guys at one of those, and not the ugly ones either.
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.