This post got lost in transmission, but is here now.
Well, recently I went rifle shooting for the first time. It's not something I ever would have thought of myself doing, I've never really had the opportunity. So when the social group at work was going small (.22) bore shooting in Brooklyn I thought I'd give it a shot (as it were). And it was fun.
The range in Brooklyn is in amongst a bunch of houses which cling to the side of the hill. Consequently, the road is single lane with parking on the footpath in classic Wellington style before you even get to the place. Then it itself is down an innocuous-looking path which looks just like 150 other household paths I've been down or past over the years. Yet there is a whole 20 meter shooting range down the hill between the houses. It's sort of like someone found an old school prefab and dropped it down the hill with a crane, tacked a few bits onto either end to make it a decent length and then mucked about in the basement in full Wellington diy style to make a very long, low ceilinged place for shooting. It was nice, and distinctively kiwi and wellington.
I was also pleasantly pleased to have 2 women and 2 blokes as our chaperones (they called themselves something else, but chaperones seems appropriate around guns somehow). They had the sort of gender equality which is born of many years of the women being as good as the men. Better often (being female certainly seemed to help in our troup). I think this is probably because women tend to use their ligaments and bones to hold them up, whereas men tend to use their muscles much more. If you are shooting, using your muscles is exactly what you are trying to avoid (the lying down helps). Using your muscles tends to make you twitch when you fire the shot.
For the record, these were my scorecards (the 10.1s are bullseyes):
Scores:
3 sighters: 10.1, 9, 6 then 10 shots:8, 6, 7, 8, 10, 9, 9, 9, 9, 7 (total 81).
3 sighters: 0, 8, 10, then, 10 shots: 7, 10.1, 10.1, 9, 5, 0, 9, 8, 8, 10.1 (total 76.3).