Cheap Glock Fun

Even though we had some rain earlier this week today was a really nice day to go shooting, so I did. Recently I have been going shooting on a relative's farmland. I can go there for free but that's not why I do it. Actually this land is an 80 mile drive for me, so counting gas this "free" shooting ends up costing me nearly twice as much as if I just went to the local range. But as I said I don't go for the money, having access to this land gives me more freedom to do things that I wouldn't be allowed to at a public range. I also get the peace and quiet of shooting by myself and at my own leisure. I don't have to wait 20 minutes for the range officer to clear the firing line, I can just walk out and change targets or distances any time I want. And finally I get to miss out on some of the idiocy that you can be exposed to while at a public range. I've lost count of the number of accidental discharges that I have personally witnessed in my years of shooting.

Today I only took my Glock 17 with me. I've had it for months now but haven't had a chance to try it out yet because of the winter weather. I also took the Glock because right now 9mm is the cheapest thing to shoot and I didn't feel like burning up a lot of more costly ammunition today. In center fire 9x19 is about as inexpensive as I can find with the price of 50 rounds of ball ammo hovering in the mid $12 price range.Shooting was done at distances of 7, 10 and 15 yards (21, 30 and 45 feet) and was evenly split between standing with a Weaver stance and firing from cover. As I said being by yourself on private land does have its advantages. I decided to get in some practice firing from a covered position, in this case shooting from behind the back fender of my car.

The Glock performed flawlessly. I only had Remington and Winchester brand 115 grain ball ammunition but the pistol functioned perfectly with both. I have no reason to suspect that it would have been any different if I had been using hollow point rounds.

Firing from a Weaver stance I easily kept all my shots in the "A" zone at 21 and 30 feet. Best group at 21 feet had a spread just under 3 inches and at 30 feet a spread of 5 ½ inches. Even shooting rapid fire at 7 yards (21ft), firing as fast as I could, I was still able to keep all shots in the A with the best group having a maximum spread of 3 ½ inches. As could be expected at 15 yards (45ft) the groups started opening up some. You would think that firing from the stable platform of a Lincoln rear fender would have produced better groups but they didn't. At 15 yards both groups, standing and supported looked nearly the same, almost all shots in the A but two strays landing in the "C".

All told a great day shooting that didn't cost me an arm and a leg. The weather clear and beautiful, and the gun trouble free. What more could anyone ask for?