Thursday, September 03, 2009

Back in the World!


Back from a week at U.S. Training Center/Blackwater at the the advanced shotgun seminar put on by Mossberg. Had a wonderful time...any day breaching doors with a shotgun is a good day. Mossberg shotguns are what they are...tanks...the ultimate pieces of debugged self-defense technology. They're also willing to get out there and produce some exotic stuff still available for civilians, like the Roadblocker above or the too-cool Just-In-Case gun in a tube. Yee-haw! We filmed a full day for SHOOTING GALLERY's 10th season, including my personal worst simulation.

I've been trying to think of some excuses for my miserable performance on a ship-storming scenario...the only thing I can claim is that I've been traveling so much that I'm simply exhausted and my brain needs a hard reboot. I found myself in the middle of the sim going, "What the frack?" Jeeeeeez. I somewhat redeemed myself to myself in the final competition, where I was narrowly (2 seconds on a 115 second course) bumped out of first place and winning a gun by Eric Poole from Intermedia, who is in fact a much better shooter than me. Things were going swimmingly on the run-and-gun shotgun/pistol course when I got cocky, missed a close-up plate with the 14-inch NYPD Mossberg 590A1 pump and had to pick the shot up. That was the difference.

Loved the 14-inch NYPD 590, BTW. 3-dot night sights (yeah, I could do without the rear dots) with the rear sight on the rear of the barrel rather than the receiver, shorter fixed Speedfeed stock. I would happily replace my trick Vang 870 with the NYPD gun once I got the tax stamp and had Hans Vang re-do the barrel just on principle. First shot in the competition was a 50-yard slug shot on a 12-inch plate after performing a buckshot to slug ammo transition. I hit it first shot no problemo, despite the shorter sight radius.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Over the years I have watched a number of Rambo's show up at the range with a pistol grip only shotgun like the JIC. Can't recall that any of them actually hit anything. I'll take my shotgun with a buttstock and no geegaws other than a decent set of sights. I would like to have the 14" NYPD gun but ain't willing to go thru the BS to get one.

Anonymous said...

How can I be you when I grow up? That's just too cool for school.

Michael Bane said...

Anon...gotta agree...I love pistol grip shotguns because they're cool, but they are very limited application tools — door breaching and witness protection come to mind.

And Anon#2, I have the bestest job in the world!

mb

Suzi Huntington said...

You shot really well during the competition — the boat-thing was hilarious though.
I won the girl's tier...oh wait, I WAS the girl's tier. Nonetheless, had a great time, even though you posted that hideous pic of me.

Michael Bane said...

I bow to the Queen!

Ridiculous hardly sums it up...perhaps ludicrous...or lunatic...

BTW, Ms. Huntington, you were EXCELLENT on CAMERA!

MB

Anonymous said...

Hey Michael,

I enjoy your blog. Great shooting with you again. Maybe we'll have to go at it again for that 590 SPX I lucked out. I loved the breaching segment, but in real life I still prefer a fixed stock. Can't beat the JIC for teams that carry a lot of gear to the scene though. Makes it nice for the breacher. Besides transitions and the ship simulator, my favorite part of the whole even was shooting the overwatch portion with the Mossberg Night Train. That rifle really impressed me on the unknown distance course (18/20 hits out to 500 yards).

Keep up the good work Michael and we'll run into each other again soon.

Regards,
Eric R. Poole
Intermedia Outdoors