I Shot the Plates

My husband built a set of targets called, “Falling Plates” beside the shop, in front of a big pile of slag and our raised bed garden.

Here’s a close-up of the targets. They’re metal ‘plates’ with counterweights on a long bar. When you hit a plate, it falls over. When you’ve shot them all, you stop and go set them up again.

He’s been bugging me to go shoot for several weeks now. Today I said, “Okay,” mainly to shut him up. I KNOW it’s important that, if I need to shoot somebody, I can actually hit him – significantly – not just teeing him off.

I started out pretty badly. I managed to load half the magazine before somehow pinching a part of the palm of my hand. The first time I shot, I was high. I again learned that with this gun, I should aim low. I then shot about half the plates with the magazine of bullets.

The second time I hit three of the four plates. I managed to fill half of each of the two magazines. My husband took pity on me and finished filling them up.

The last time I shot, I killed all four plates with two bullets left in the first magazine. My husband pronounced me ‘healed.’ He shot the rest of the first magazine and all of the second. He aimed high at first, too, but quickly corrected.

I should practice more, but I really don’t enjoy shooting. I anticipate the loudness of the shot and feel that it takes forever for me to finally shoot once I start squeezing the trigger.

I do feel better that I was hitting the plates regularly when we stopped for the day.

If you’re a bad guy trying to get me, watch out!!!!