Cousin Mike
Member
Well, on December 26 I bought my first rifle... A 1944 Mosin Nagant M44. I saw it in a local gun shop while shopping for accessories for my new carry gun, a G33... For the price, I simply could not pass it up. So I walked out with my pockets about $80 lighter, and my shoulder about 9lbs. heavier.
For about a week, I've been reading here, trying to find as much information on these rifles before going out to shoot it for the first time. Many thanks are in order to all of you guys, but especially Cosmoline - for all of your accurate information about these rifles, what to expect, how to take care of them, myths & rumors vs. facts, etc. I learned a lot about my first rifle before taking it to the range.
So yesterday, I decide I've had enough of looking at this thing, and I need to shoot it. I call my range to see if milsurp ammo is okay, and to make a long story short, it wasn't. I had to run all over town to find name brand ammo, and when I did find it, it ended up costing me about $.90/round... I wasn't happy about that, after reading how some of you seem to be paying about $5 for a 20 box of ammo... My 20 boxes cost $17, so I only bought three.
Now my girlfriend and I are pistol shooters, and pretty damn good at it if I do say so myself... But when it came to shooting this rifle, I'd never seen her so intimidated by the idea of shooting something. It's almost like she had a phobia of long guns, regardless of caliber or guage... The idea of shooting a rifle or shotgun simply scared the hell out of her. I would try to explain to her that shooting a long gun is in fact easier than shooting a pistol, but she was just scared to death of something that she couldn't articulate. I think she thought it was going to hurt her, or that she wouldn't be able to handle the recoil...
I tried to explain that there was nothing to be afraid of, but during one conversation tears started to fall. That shocked me... this girl's never been afraid of anything, but even the thought of shooting a rifle had brought her to tears. The crying was due to her knowing how irrational her fear was, and that made her feel bad... but the fact remained that she was still scared to try and shoot it for reasons she couldn't explain. I'd never seen her do that before, so we decided then and there that I would go alone when I finally went out to shoot my M44... For her, we'd start with a small rifle in .22lr, and work up from there.
Sounded good to me - But I have to admit, my girlfriends fear of long guns had gotten to me a little... I really wanted to share a new experience with her, and I was confident that she would love shooting rifles just as much as she likes shooting pistols... but I'd never seen her cry, or be so afraid at the thought of shooting a gun, and I didn't want to push the issue. Since it was obvious she wasn't coming along, I decided to get some trigger time in yesterday, and we could introduce her to rifles at a later time when she was more comfortable with the idea.
So yesterday I'm sitting around making calls, trying to find name brand ammo. I find it, pack my bags up, and I notice that my girlfriend has this look on her face... She's sad about something. I pretend not to notice, and make small talk as I pack up my range bags. I finish packing, and get ready to go, and she's just staring off into the TV, smoking a cigarette. I think I know what the problem is... I never leave her here alone when I go to the range. I figure this is my chance, so I ask one last time...
"Are you sure you don't want to come, sweetie?" I ask... "You can just watch and hang out if you don't want to shoot... There's food there, and we can look at some of those concealed-carry purses you've been thinking about."
"Yeah, I'll go..."
"What?!" I think to myself, wondering what's changed since the night before... I try not to show my happiness at the new decision, and instead go with,
"Are you sure?"
She looks back at the T.V., and takes another puff from her cigarette.
"I need to get over my fear anyway - so #@%! it... Let's go... I'll go and get ready."
WOW.... She gets ready, and we go. I'm pleasantly surprised, and wondering what the day will have in store. We get to the range, buy a few accessories for our handguns while waiting for a lane, while we're waiting, we strike up a conversation with one of the range employees... My girlfriend's anxiety about shooting a rifle comes up, and he tells her there's nothing to worry about. He starts to tell her what to expect, but he assumes she's never shot before. When I let him know that she is quite the accomplished pistol shooter, he laughs - and insures her that she has nothing to worry about. She tells him her first time shooting was with my 1911, in .45ACP.
He laughs even harder, and reassures her again... She has nothing to worry about. He points to a tiny little girl on the range, blasting away with an AR-15. I can see her confidence building as she talks to him about it... Then he says something I've been saying all along...
"You know," he says... "shooting a rifle is a lot easier than shooting a pistol."
"That's what I've been telling her!" I reply, happy to see that someone else is getting through to her... It's amazing how sometimes people will listen to complete strangers, but this guy knew how to reassure her in ways that I wasn't able to.
"I'm going to go smoke a cigarette... YOU talk to her - I'm taking a break!"
We all have a laugh, and I go off to smoke my cig. About halfway into my smoke, we get called. There's a lane available, and it's our time to go and shoot. She looks confident now, as if talking to the range officer has helped some. I ask her one last time,
"Are you sure you want to shoot this thing? You don't have to..."
She nods, repeating that it's important to her to get over her fear of long guns. She reminds me that she was afraid of pistols until I took her to the range the first time. "Fair enough," I say, and we head on out to our lane. We walk in, and there's a group of young kids shooting AR-15's. The sound is definitely new to my girlfriend, and I see her flinching (and smiling a little) everytime one of the .223's sound off. I see it on her face... she's wondering what it will be like to shoot the M44. She's not the only one. We've both read about the tremendous sound and muzzle flash associated with the M44, and even I'm wondering if this isn't going to be a little too much.
I send my target downrange 20 yards (it only goes out to 25 yards at this particular indoor rifle range), and load up my rifle. I'm wondering what shooting this will be like. Before coming into the range, I asked one of the salesmen... "I've heard these things are loud... as in, really loud... Do you think I should give a warning to the patrons on the other lanes before I shoot it?"
He looks at me and says "If they don't like noise, tell them to go hang out at the library... This is a shooting range," and smiles...
"My thoughts exactly," I reply. "I just wasn't going to be the one to say it out loud, that's all."
With that thought fresh in my mind, and these kids blasting away with no rhyme or reason, I figure "Screw a warning... Let me see what this thing is all about." I took my Winchester 7.62x54R out of the box, and set it next to the rifle, and proceed to load it. I look at my target, pick up the rifle, find my sight picture and start in on the trigger.
BOOM!
Now I'm a little confused... My M44 isn't really any louder than the .223's going off in the other lanes. Nobody stopped shooting... Nobody's looking. Nobody thinks I blew up my gun... And, to top it all off...
WHERE THE HELL IS ALL THIS TERRIBLE RECOIL I HEARD ABOUT?!
I put the rifle down and start laughing... All this stuff I've been reading here on THR about how painful it is to shoot a Mosin... How hard the recoil slams you, how bright and huge the muzzle flash is, and how much louder the M44 is, compared to other rifles... I can't help but laugh, and wonder... Are some of you guys just wimps, or is exaggerating on the internet just a fun way to pass the time?
I pick my rifle up, put my sights back on the target, and squeeze of 4 more aimed shots. I pull my target back, and find my shots are a little low, but still in a nice group a little under 2" - nice! I haven't shot a rifle in years, and this is some pretty okay shooting for a newbie if you ask me. Now it's the girlfriends turn. I load her one round, and tell her not to worry... it's nothing like we've been reading on the internet.
She aims, and takes her shot. You could see the recoil of a rifle was new to her, because it sort of pushed her a little to one side. She puts the rifle down, and turns around with a smile on her face that stretches from ear to ear...
Success!
"Oh.... my..... GAWD!!!!!" She says, with little beads of sweat starting to form on her head... "That was #@$%!&@ AWESOME!"
Mission accomplished. She loves it, just like I thought she would. She wants to shoot more. I couldn't be happier. We spent the rest of the time going over sighting and proper hold (for her), and for me, I had some flinching starting to occur that needed some fixing... My groups start to shrink down to about one inch, using irons at 25 yards. Nice...
We finished off 2 boxes of ammo, and by the end of those 40 rounds my shoulder was starting to ache a little.
So that's what you guys were talking about... Ahhh, I see.
I offered her the last 20 rounds. I'd shot about 30 rounds, and she'd shot about 10. She declined, saying that her arms were tired and she could taste a little lead... Time to go. We wash our hands, pay for our time and targets, and go.
The whole drive home, she's talking about how much fun she had... How the experience was surreal, and how she could almost feel the internal parts working as she squeezed the trigger... How she could feel the bullet leaving the barrel, and how she could almost see it, before she even heard the sound. I laugh, as this was my exact same experience my first time shooting a rifle... We go home, break it down, and she orders Chinese food while I clean my guns.
She spent the rest of the night talking about how much fun she had... I also had one hell of a time. My shoulder is really sore, but everytime I feel it I smile... I'm pretty dark-skinned, so you can't see a bruise, but I can sure feel it... My girlfriends shoulder has a pretty big bruise that she's quite proud of.
I love this rifle. I need to find better prices on name-brand ammo, but when I do I'll probably be taking this thing out every week to let off a few rounds. It was a great day, and I'm thankful again to some of the members here for letting me know what to expect. Mosinitis is setting in... I think my cure will be a new 91/30... for now.
For about a week, I've been reading here, trying to find as much information on these rifles before going out to shoot it for the first time. Many thanks are in order to all of you guys, but especially Cosmoline - for all of your accurate information about these rifles, what to expect, how to take care of them, myths & rumors vs. facts, etc. I learned a lot about my first rifle before taking it to the range.
So yesterday, I decide I've had enough of looking at this thing, and I need to shoot it. I call my range to see if milsurp ammo is okay, and to make a long story short, it wasn't. I had to run all over town to find name brand ammo, and when I did find it, it ended up costing me about $.90/round... I wasn't happy about that, after reading how some of you seem to be paying about $5 for a 20 box of ammo... My 20 boxes cost $17, so I only bought three.
Now my girlfriend and I are pistol shooters, and pretty damn good at it if I do say so myself... But when it came to shooting this rifle, I'd never seen her so intimidated by the idea of shooting something. It's almost like she had a phobia of long guns, regardless of caliber or guage... The idea of shooting a rifle or shotgun simply scared the hell out of her. I would try to explain to her that shooting a long gun is in fact easier than shooting a pistol, but she was just scared to death of something that she couldn't articulate. I think she thought it was going to hurt her, or that she wouldn't be able to handle the recoil...
I tried to explain that there was nothing to be afraid of, but during one conversation tears started to fall. That shocked me... this girl's never been afraid of anything, but even the thought of shooting a rifle had brought her to tears. The crying was due to her knowing how irrational her fear was, and that made her feel bad... but the fact remained that she was still scared to try and shoot it for reasons she couldn't explain. I'd never seen her do that before, so we decided then and there that I would go alone when I finally went out to shoot my M44... For her, we'd start with a small rifle in .22lr, and work up from there.
Sounded good to me - But I have to admit, my girlfriends fear of long guns had gotten to me a little... I really wanted to share a new experience with her, and I was confident that she would love shooting rifles just as much as she likes shooting pistols... but I'd never seen her cry, or be so afraid at the thought of shooting a gun, and I didn't want to push the issue. Since it was obvious she wasn't coming along, I decided to get some trigger time in yesterday, and we could introduce her to rifles at a later time when she was more comfortable with the idea.
So yesterday I'm sitting around making calls, trying to find name brand ammo. I find it, pack my bags up, and I notice that my girlfriend has this look on her face... She's sad about something. I pretend not to notice, and make small talk as I pack up my range bags. I finish packing, and get ready to go, and she's just staring off into the TV, smoking a cigarette. I think I know what the problem is... I never leave her here alone when I go to the range. I figure this is my chance, so I ask one last time...
"Are you sure you don't want to come, sweetie?" I ask... "You can just watch and hang out if you don't want to shoot... There's food there, and we can look at some of those concealed-carry purses you've been thinking about."
"Yeah, I'll go..."
"What?!" I think to myself, wondering what's changed since the night before... I try not to show my happiness at the new decision, and instead go with,
"Are you sure?"
She looks back at the T.V., and takes another puff from her cigarette.
"I need to get over my fear anyway - so #@%! it... Let's go... I'll go and get ready."
WOW.... She gets ready, and we go. I'm pleasantly surprised, and wondering what the day will have in store. We get to the range, buy a few accessories for our handguns while waiting for a lane, while we're waiting, we strike up a conversation with one of the range employees... My girlfriend's anxiety about shooting a rifle comes up, and he tells her there's nothing to worry about. He starts to tell her what to expect, but he assumes she's never shot before. When I let him know that she is quite the accomplished pistol shooter, he laughs - and insures her that she has nothing to worry about. She tells him her first time shooting was with my 1911, in .45ACP.
He laughs even harder, and reassures her again... She has nothing to worry about. He points to a tiny little girl on the range, blasting away with an AR-15. I can see her confidence building as she talks to him about it... Then he says something I've been saying all along...
"You know," he says... "shooting a rifle is a lot easier than shooting a pistol."
"That's what I've been telling her!" I reply, happy to see that someone else is getting through to her... It's amazing how sometimes people will listen to complete strangers, but this guy knew how to reassure her in ways that I wasn't able to.
"I'm going to go smoke a cigarette... YOU talk to her - I'm taking a break!"
We all have a laugh, and I go off to smoke my cig. About halfway into my smoke, we get called. There's a lane available, and it's our time to go and shoot. She looks confident now, as if talking to the range officer has helped some. I ask her one last time,
"Are you sure you want to shoot this thing? You don't have to..."
She nods, repeating that it's important to her to get over her fear of long guns. She reminds me that she was afraid of pistols until I took her to the range the first time. "Fair enough," I say, and we head on out to our lane. We walk in, and there's a group of young kids shooting AR-15's. The sound is definitely new to my girlfriend, and I see her flinching (and smiling a little) everytime one of the .223's sound off. I see it on her face... she's wondering what it will be like to shoot the M44. She's not the only one. We've both read about the tremendous sound and muzzle flash associated with the M44, and even I'm wondering if this isn't going to be a little too much.
I send my target downrange 20 yards (it only goes out to 25 yards at this particular indoor rifle range), and load up my rifle. I'm wondering what shooting this will be like. Before coming into the range, I asked one of the salesmen... "I've heard these things are loud... as in, really loud... Do you think I should give a warning to the patrons on the other lanes before I shoot it?"
He looks at me and says "If they don't like noise, tell them to go hang out at the library... This is a shooting range," and smiles...
"My thoughts exactly," I reply. "I just wasn't going to be the one to say it out loud, that's all."
With that thought fresh in my mind, and these kids blasting away with no rhyme or reason, I figure "Screw a warning... Let me see what this thing is all about." I took my Winchester 7.62x54R out of the box, and set it next to the rifle, and proceed to load it. I look at my target, pick up the rifle, find my sight picture and start in on the trigger.
BOOM!
Now I'm a little confused... My M44 isn't really any louder than the .223's going off in the other lanes. Nobody stopped shooting... Nobody's looking. Nobody thinks I blew up my gun... And, to top it all off...
WHERE THE HELL IS ALL THIS TERRIBLE RECOIL I HEARD ABOUT?!
I put the rifle down and start laughing... All this stuff I've been reading here on THR about how painful it is to shoot a Mosin... How hard the recoil slams you, how bright and huge the muzzle flash is, and how much louder the M44 is, compared to other rifles... I can't help but laugh, and wonder... Are some of you guys just wimps, or is exaggerating on the internet just a fun way to pass the time?
I pick my rifle up, put my sights back on the target, and squeeze of 4 more aimed shots. I pull my target back, and find my shots are a little low, but still in a nice group a little under 2" - nice! I haven't shot a rifle in years, and this is some pretty okay shooting for a newbie if you ask me. Now it's the girlfriends turn. I load her one round, and tell her not to worry... it's nothing like we've been reading on the internet.
She aims, and takes her shot. You could see the recoil of a rifle was new to her, because it sort of pushed her a little to one side. She puts the rifle down, and turns around with a smile on her face that stretches from ear to ear...
Success!
"Oh.... my..... GAWD!!!!!" She says, with little beads of sweat starting to form on her head... "That was #@$%!&@ AWESOME!"
Mission accomplished. She loves it, just like I thought she would. She wants to shoot more. I couldn't be happier. We spent the rest of the time going over sighting and proper hold (for her), and for me, I had some flinching starting to occur that needed some fixing... My groups start to shrink down to about one inch, using irons at 25 yards. Nice...
We finished off 2 boxes of ammo, and by the end of those 40 rounds my shoulder was starting to ache a little.
So that's what you guys were talking about... Ahhh, I see.
I offered her the last 20 rounds. I'd shot about 30 rounds, and she'd shot about 10. She declined, saying that her arms were tired and she could taste a little lead... Time to go. We wash our hands, pay for our time and targets, and go.
The whole drive home, she's talking about how much fun she had... How the experience was surreal, and how she could almost feel the internal parts working as she squeezed the trigger... How she could feel the bullet leaving the barrel, and how she could almost see it, before she even heard the sound. I laugh, as this was my exact same experience my first time shooting a rifle... We go home, break it down, and she orders Chinese food while I clean my guns.
She spent the rest of the night talking about how much fun she had... I also had one hell of a time. My shoulder is really sore, but everytime I feel it I smile... I'm pretty dark-skinned, so you can't see a bruise, but I can sure feel it... My girlfriends shoulder has a pretty big bruise that she's quite proud of.
I love this rifle. I need to find better prices on name-brand ammo, but when I do I'll probably be taking this thing out every week to let off a few rounds. It was a great day, and I'm thankful again to some of the members here for letting me know what to expect. Mosinitis is setting in... I think my cure will be a new 91/30... for now.
