What's your shooting like?

In 1966 my family and I had a holiday in Lido di Jeselo, in Italy.

One evening we all went out to the local fairground and stopped at a shooting booth.

I soon spotted that the rifles being used were very similar to the old Lee Enfield pattern but obviously adapted to load .22 slugs and so when my teenage daughters started geeing me up to demonstrate what a good shot I was I took the bait.

Owen, on this site, once accused me of never throwing anything away. In this case I have to give him right because the target was still pasted in my Holiday Album of that trip !

Given that the light was poor, given that the sights had probably been "doctored", given that I hadn't fired a rifle for at least twenty four years I don't think I did too badly, did I?

 

Ron
That is absolutely brilliant. Glad me and mine were never facing you with your gun!

I am intrigued both by how you store all these wonderful momentoes and how you access them (I admit to books, records, cd's, dvd's and videos etc. in alphabetical order!!!)
Cheers
CTNana
p.s.
thanks for the hint to re-read the Monte Cassino references - made me cry all over again. You are right we MUST NOT forget.
CTN

 

welldone, did you win anything?

Useless at target shooting but done a bit of clay pigeon with 20 and 12 bore,its easy though compared to target. Roughly in the right direction.

Best bit of shooting ive ever seen was on a coordination test on motorcycle rally, its was a air pistol. big queue of biker which had been riding for around 20 hrs and you had a target about 10 yrds away. I think i missed the wall the target was on as did everyone else. My old man who was getting a bit sick of waiting went up grabbed the pistol with one hand didnt even sight it but just pointed and pulled the trigger.

It went straight in the bull.

Kev

 

Hi Ron
With me bundook? OK, but not to sniper standard. With my Bren? A good shot. always a pattern of five, with one in the centre. carrying that blasted Bren across France Belgium and Holland stunted my growth....Well that's my excuse mate. So! my fifteen and half stone is packed into a frame rather like a little tank. Folk bounce off me, rather like those lead botom dolls that were around years ago.
Sapper

 

Hi Sapper

Still on the subject of fairgrounds and shooting booths I thought you might like to see this snap.

It was taken on December 31st 1946 and our Squadron was at Monfalcone, a small town some 14 miles from Trieste.

To coincide with the Xmas and New Year festivities, a small fair blew into town and parked itself on what was usually the open-air roller skating rink.
Seven of the lads, including your’s truly, went out for a meal and a drink, with which to see the New Year in.
After the meal we drifted over to a shooting booth. The prize, if you managed to hit the tiny bulls-eye, was a magnesium flash photograph, taken automatically, and the result is what you now see.

and yes Owen..... that's me smack in the centre

 

Funny that this should come up. This past weekend I went to the indoor shooting range for the first time in my life with my grandfather and my dad. I got to fire a .22 revolver, my grandfather's Luger (which was my favorite, obviously), a 9mm S&W, and a .40 caliber pistol. I had lots of fun and I turn out to be sort of a natural... I had never fired a gun before in my life, and i was hitting dead center with all the pistols except that .40 caliber.

 

my family, for reasons unknown, would never let me near the guns. no idea why. Once tried a rifle range at the fair but never hit the target at all. Checked the gun afterwards and the bloody barrel was ever so slightly bent upwards. You wouldn't notice it unless you were looking. gits.

 

Great thread. I went to Blackpool last October and in the pleasure beach there's a shooting gallery with loads of 'Tommy' guns. Costs £2 for 100 ball bearings which empty in a matter of seconds. There's a red star on the target and you have to shoot all of the red off in order to win a prize.

Unfortunately I didn't keep the target as proof, but I did it!

Another time I went to Catterick Garrison with my college for a weeks army training (never again) and one day we went on the shooting range with .22 rifles. I managed to knock out the drawing pin that held up the target from 100 yrds. or meters. Can't remember. The sergeant couldn't believe it and joked I should become a sniper. haha.

 

I discovered this Smith & Wesson Model 625 under the tree last Christmas.

As you can see, I missed the target comlpletely.:icon-mrgreenbandit:

JT

 

I discovered this Smith & Wesson Model 625 under the tree last Christmas.

As you can see, I missed the target comlpletely.:icon-mrgreenbandit:

JT

That's a nice gun that like mate. Is it airsoft? Is so how do you load it?

 

Ah! I see. Actually looking again, I can see they're real rounds. Soz for saying it looked plastic.

 

Hi

It's me again, this time with a postscript to my fairground stories and a confession regarding my actual lack of shooting experience whilst serving in the wartime Army.

Yes, I certainly did all the preliminary infantry training which included lots of rifle practice and yes I subsequently trained on Sherman tanks that used 75 mm canon but my main job between 1942 and 1945 was always that of a wireless operator and so I was not having to actually fire live ammo at anybody, particularly the Wermacht.

When my Ack Ack Regiment was disbanded at the end of 1944 and I was transferred into the Armoured Corps things altered drastically but I still never had to use small arms as a means of either attack or defence.

That was the situation until one particular Friday the thirteenth when, as my diary reminds me, I nearly killed Hewie.

Friday 13th. April 1945
Moved over Santerno. Some M.G. nuisance and one H.E. about twenty yards away. Bags of prisoners, Kiss from Signora. "Liberatoris !". Chasing after tedeschis with 30 browning blazing!

The Browning machine gun referred to was rarely fired in anger, the exception being on this one occasion when I nearly killed Hewie our Stuart Tank driver.

We had been on the move all day and the Germans were surrendering left, right and centre. To our left, about two hundred yards away, German infantry were climbing out of slit trenches with their hands high and we were gesturing to them to get behind us and to make their way to the rear.

Suddenly someone to our right opened light rifle fire at us and Busty (SSM ‘Busty’ Thomas) lost patience and yelled at me "Let the bastards have it!" Hewie swung the tank to the right so we could face the new threat and I started firing non-stop, without giving Hewie a chance to drop his adjustable seat down below the level of fire belching from the Browning. A horrified Busty yelled: "Get down you stupid bastard!" and to my immediate relief Hewie disappeared from view before I could hit him.

Within seconds the rifle fire was replaced by more hand-raising, and we were able to proceed without further incident.

So there you are, that was the only time I ever got to fire the Browning in anger and, with a little bit of luck, Hewie is still around to tell the tale to his grandchildren.

 

last time I went shooting I had 20 rounds. 10 were (literally) bulls-eyes the other 10 missed the target or hit the edges.

 

had RAF marksman badge

 

Ron:

Fine account. Thank you. It certainly underscores how easily accidents can happen in combat. They happen all too easily off the field of battle as well. A young serviceman from my home state of Massachusetts was killed recently (shot accidently) during a training exercise with the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell.

JT

 

:indexCAXI2NHN: :mxflag[1]:

The only safe place to be when you have a gun is right in front of you

 

Thanks for that Ron.

Kev

 

Hi Ron
With me bundook? OK, but not to sniper standard. With my Bren? A good shot. always a pattern of five, with one in the centre. carrying that blasted Bren across France Belgium and Holland stunted my growth....Well that's my excuse mate. So! my fifteen and half stone is packed into a frame rather like a little tank. Folk bounce off me, rather like those lead botom dolls that were around years ago.
Sapper


Allways kept meaning to ask you Sapper about the Bren is it true that it was 'too' accurate for a machine gun?

I cant imagine how you even shot one, I ve picked (an unloaded) onw up once it was a ton, hard work. Ive heard cases where the accuracy was loreded and it was used as a sniper rifle on single shot? IS this true or even possable??

Kev