Welcome to America – Guns ‘n Cheeseburgers

This is Beate. She said she shot a gun once before. We had brief firearm safety discussion before getting to the good stuff. For some reason, it was really exciting for us Americans to have an Austrian shoot a big “scary” gun. For anyone interested, we actually bought this gun while in Austria, but it was purchased in the USA… saw a good deal online, purchased it and had my Dad pick it up in the USA. Of course… you can’t just order it online, it has to be shipped to a licensed firearm dealer near your house and then you go get it. This is the same type of weapon the military uses, but only semi-auto (no select fire or full auto).

Why do we have it? It’s fun to shoot and very accurate! Out of all the guns we shot, Beate said this AR15 was her favorite. It’s got a holographic sight on the front that helps you hit what you are aiming at just about every time out at 150 yards or more.

Ok, this one is good fun and worth watching the whole way through. Most of our shooting was done in a free public firing range. But we bought this “Reactive Exploding Target” which is basically a bomb you mix together. We were amazed you could buy something like this. It’s supposed to be “safe” because it can’t be ignited with fire, it takes a high velocity round (3000 feet per second) to detonate it.

You’ll notice this video was filmed away from the firing range. They had a rule against exploding targets. So we drove down the road, walked off in the desert with a safe mountain background and shot it there. Arizona (and Utah) are awesome because you can go out in the desert and do just about anything you want.

Here is “Peter Rabbit” — as Oliver calls him. Shooting the 9mm. Funny thing about this gun… the bullet is about twice as heavy as the AR15, but also half as fast. It’s got a nice little kick to it since it’s a compact version for every-day carry, but not too bad.  Karen and Beate didn’t like shooting it.

Marion came along too. We mostly took turns waiting in the car with her. But we took her out when no one was shooting to pose for pictures with the earmuffs on.

Here we are shooting clay pigeons with the 12 gauge shotgun. Karen is usually the best at this. But she didn’t hit a single one. I’m usually ok, but missed them all too. Peter did by far the best, but none of us were that good. Out of 100 clay pigeons (clay discs) we probably hit about 20. I guess if we ever went duck hunting the ducks would be safe! I actually think the issue was we were using a shot which didn’t spread very far…good excuse.

There is something very attractive about this picture to me. Maybe I should just keep these thoughts to myself!?

Here’s another. Notice the shell coming out of the chamber.

Before leaving, we brought the targets in a bit closer and then punished them with the 12 gauge. Shooting targets with a shotgun is actually quite cathartic.

Afterward we went to In-N-Out Burger. I really don’t care for it (burgers too small) but all the Californians and Cali-wanna-bees love it. So I condescended to go with them. Maybe I’ll develop a taste for tiny crusty burgers if I keep going enough with Karen.

The one thing they have going for them is the buns are like soaked in butter and then grilled.

Here we are with our tasty, crusty, small Burgers. Notice the fitting grease stain on the lens over Peter’s face.