Hm. I think I know that guy:
As my mother (who recently out-shot my father with his HK45, much to his chagrin) told some of our Boston relatives, this is what happens when you do not allow children to have realistic-looking toy guns in the house. Bear that in mind. (I still made ones out of LEGOs.)
And apparently I resemble Hugo Weaving. News to me. Though I can live with this observation:
Linoge’s grins were infectious. My daughter started giggling when he grinned at the end.
Although, in all seriousness, I should not have shot the Saiga without eye protection at all times – that thing has enough back-blast to give your non-dominant hand a sunburn, to paraphrase WizardPC. Do not be stupid like Linoge; wear eye protection.
Video courtesy of the inimitable Oleg Volk, who can make even a schlub like me look awesome in front of a camera. Short-barreled Saiga-12 courtesy of Coal Creek Armory. 20-round drum courtesy of MDArms. Single-shot .410 shotgun courtesy of WizardPC. T-shirt courtesy of ENDO Apparel. The holster for a Smith and Wesson 686 SSR is a product of Michael’s Custom Holsters (and I finally managed to take some pictures of it this weekend – look for them this week). Belt courtesy of Endeavor Stitchworks.
Mutton chops courtesy of God (and the long-suffering Better Half).
On a related note, what is a decent, free alternative to Microsoft’s Live Movie Maker? Specifically, I am looking for something that allows second-by-second control over the audio track of a video, and allows for text overlays like counters and such.
I’ve done the eye protection thing before. It’s even on video. Mine was doubly stupid since I was trying to make things go boom.
I’m actually pretty anal about wearing my eyes, but for some reason I spaced on putting them on correctly after working inside. I remembered for the rest of the testing. Come to think of it that’s the only time I can think of that I can actually remember not wearing my eyes.
Buffalo Chops….Mutton does not even begin to cover them
Looks like you guys had a great time. I’ve made that mistake too. Actually, I forgot my ears for one point on the line at Appleseed. I will never make that mistake again.
Hah, I did the same thing Jennifer. And I was right next to the center fires, too!
That thing is just too much fun!
And Linoge…. trees fear you.
Between myopia and astigmatism, my uncorrected eyesight is amazingly poor, to the point that, during a military physical, the eye-checking medic resorted to having me count fingers. :-0
Fortunately, the science of corrective lenses allows me to have corrected eyesight of approximately 20/20 vision, at the cost of needing to remove my eyeglasses when I need to read fine print.
How does that directly relate to wearing eye protection at all times while shooting? After all, eyeglasses are not inherently proof to the kinds of impacts one might experience at a range. Right?
While shopping at the nearest LensCrafters for new eyeglasses, I found that I rather liked a reasonably-priced frame that just happened to meet ANSI standards for safety glasses. Once I specified ANSI-compliant polycarbonate lenses (as I was purchasing ANSI-compliant safety glasses, I had to ask the on-site optometrist to sign off on having the lenses treated with Transition coating), I have had decent eye-protection wherever I go.
The only thing my current eyeglasses lack is detachable sideshields; I plan to address this weakness with my next purchase….
I have no advice on FREE video software, but was pretty happy with Adobe Premiere Elements. I picked up that and Photoshop Elements in a white-box sale for about $50-60. Worth every penny.
@ AuricTech:
ESS* makes prescription goggles and glasses including in their Cross series. I would suggest looking into them.
I do really need to put up my review of them.
*Yes they’ve given me free stuff, but you know, there’s a reason my father-in-law who’s a machinist is getting a prescription set for work. My mother-in-law is getting a set as well for shooting. There’s a reason I’m going to shell out cash for a second set. A couple of the guys at Random Nuclear Strikes have prescription sets and like them as well.
@ Barron Barnett: Pretty much the same circumstances in this instance. As I recall, the clips with me in the sunglasses were filmed earlier in the day, then some cloud cover rolled in and I took a break from shooting. I took off my glasses, forgot about them, then Oleg called me out to do some more shooting.
My fault entirely, and I should do better to wear the proper equipment on film.
@ Miguel: Wookie-chops!
@ Jennifer: That is an immediately self-correcting omission… eye protection, thankfully, is not, but still something that needed to be fixed.
@ Heather: That will grab your attention!
@ Mark@Sea: If you ever have any more saplings that need to be reduced to toothpicks, you let me know
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@ AuricTech: I have correctable 20/80 in one eye and correctable 20/400 in the other – in that case, I was wearing contacts, though, so I did not really think about glasses in that context.
Contacts, however, are sucky eye protection
.
An increasing number of eyeglass stores in my area are stocking ANSI-rated lenses and such, I suppose for contractors and construction workers and whatnot, but a few of the frames featured are in camouflage…
@ ZerCool: Someone recommended LightWorks, so I will be tinkering around with that… I am a cheap bastard, and I know I will not be making anything off the end product, so “free” is about my only speed at the moment.
@ Barron Barnett:
Thanks for the heads-up; if I ever decide to get dedicated prescription eyes for shooting and the like, I’ll keep these folks on my shortlist.
Go figure, Mrs. and I were breaking in her new M&P9c, and for the first few magazines it was ejecting up and straight back, forehead-ways. She was just using her normal glasses, and a case got under her glasses and gave her a nice burn just under her right eye. Lesson learned, prescription eyes bumped up to the top of the list for her.
Maybe this is just me — being a rifle/pistol guy, not a shotgunner — but did it strike anyone else that that berm or backstop contained a lot of large rocks exposed at the surface? As in “ricochet-inducing” rocks?
From the state of the target, it looked as if the individual shot-pellets weren’t very large. But if I were shooting even a .22 on this range, I think I’d want to get a lot more packed dirt — at least two feet — on top of the backstop, and bury those rocks deep, deep.
@ Ted N: Bingo.
This thing was covering your non-dominant hand with charred… something. If any of that splashed back far enough to hit my face, my eyes would have been very… annoyed with me.
@ Robert: Those rocks were less solid than they looked – predominantly shale and compressed something. We were wailing on the berm for about four hours with everything from .22 up to .308, and no one noticed any kind of ricochet that would have posed a significant problem. My understanding is that thing gets shelled at least once a week, so I would imagine any large “threats” had been dealt with.