Apologies for the long silence, its been a bit of a tough year. With increased work pressures, and even MORE restrictions related to firearms in my country, I have not been able to write much. Mea Maxima Culpa!

I have been thinking of the wide parallels between my country and the United States as related to firearms ownership, and I continue to envy you guys in the US.

Here are a few updates for you all, including my last trip to the US for vacation in the summer of 2016.

Extreme Trigger-finger safety…
I have for some time now become very careful when it comes to keeping my finger off the triggers of firearms. I have gotten to the stage now where my index finger is instinctively outstretched when I pick up a Hair Dryer, or a Power Tool, or even a toy gun. Talk about muscle memory…
It has become part of my psyche now: not to ever put your finger on the trigger until you are ready to DRILL. Hahaha…
I told a workman not to point his spray paint-gun muzzle at me the other day, and to take his finger off the trigger – he must have been wondering where I could have gotten what I must have smoked that day…

But seriously, this is something that means a lot to me, and I am glad that I have been able to teach my kids this. You should see their stance, muzzle control, and trigger discipline when having Nerf battles: and they are 7 and 5-year-olds. My eldest is 12 going on 13 years old, and he even teaches the younger brothers firearms safety, especially when they forget… He has been shooting a bit, he started with my shotgun when he was about 7 years old [With me holding on tight, of course.], and since then has fired my 12-ga shotgun Mathilda a few times and recently had also been getting some practice with a Benjamin Trail NP .177 Air Pistol we have access to. This helps both of us keep our hands in while living within city area, in a country where we almost do not get to shoot real firearms. What am I saying? START THEM YOUNG, and you will have a generation that understands and respects safety with firearms.

Has any of you had experiences relating to instinctive trigger discipline, even on non-firearm activities that you would like to share?

Family US Trip Summer 2016
My eldest son recently got the chance to fire some real Pistols, a SMG and an AK47 on a family vacation trip to Atlanta this past summer. While the wife and others where shopping their hearts and wallets out, my eldest and I went to the Stoddard’s Range and Guns: visiting both their locations. They have exceptional facilities in the Downtown as well as the Douglasville areas of Atlanta, and I am sure anyone visiting would have a good time.

After the usual warm welcome, we got to shoot some good old fun firearms: the HK MP5 full auto, Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm Compact, the Ruger .22 pistol which my son loved, and the CZ 75 in 9mm. With the latter, he took one shot and then BEGGED me to let him stop: I guess 9mm recoil shocked him in a pistol. We then shot the same 9mm in a HK MP5, and he just could not get enough of it – semi-auto fire only though. I personally fired auto, but the staff there seemed disappointed that I did not do mag-dumps, and kept firing only 2 or 3-round bursts…
Then when my son fired ONE shot out of an AK47 – 7.62×39, you could see the SHOCK in his face. He then calmly “safetied” the rifle [Just like I taught him] and carefully placed the gun [pointed downrange, like I taught him] on the counter. He turned to me, mouthed “Never!” and practically forced his way out to wait in the store seating area – to watch me through the bullet-proof glass. Hahaha! He will come right round soon; I know…

One shot of 7.62×39…

Picture shows surprise on his face…

It was all fun: especially being able to tour the Gun Repair and Building shop at Stoddard’s Downtown Atlanta store, and witnessing their first edition of the Zero-Hour shooting competition. This had teams of 4 shooters, shooting Pistol, Rifle, Shotgun, and Machine Gun [RPD] at very challenging targets, including a 75-foot shot at a balloon as a hostage taker right behind his hostage [Don’t hit the hostage!].
Good one all the way.

We really had fun hanging out with Gun owners…
We enjoyed hanging out with a lot of nice shooters and firearms owners at the ranges: they let us shoot their firearms, and took time to even coach my son… NOICE!
On the way back to the hotel, we had a further reminder of what we are missing back home. The taxi guy who picked us up, a nice gentleman named Jake, was really knowledgeable about firearms, and we had a very good 25-minute drive. We talked about home defense, and he told me stories from his experiences from 35 years of driving a cab [He owns his own cab company now – THE AMERICAN DREAM!]. My son and I looked open-mouthed as Jake [SAFELY] showed us his EDC: a nice handy semi-auto pistol in .32 ACP caliber. I still wonder where he pulled it out from, and so fast too. He carries this caliber in expanding bullets so as to avoid over-penetration to the fuel tank, if he has to use it. These experiences got me thinking, and the lighter weight of my wallet also.

I would say it was a good vacation, and a good trip as always: I think we might have boosted the finances of Sears, Macy’s, Walmart and Amazon more than just a little bit…

Now back to the Air Pistol.
We [My kids and I] have had a LOT of practice in the accuracy department with this Benjamin Trail NP .177 Air Pistol we have, it gives us .177 [4.5mm] pellets, single-shot capacity at up to 500fps to practice INSIDE the house. We shoot into a padded steel box pellet trap, and collect the expended pellets for recycling. We have a lot of the “Splatter” visible targets, which we bought quite a lot of in the US.
The Benjamin Trail NP Air Pistol came with crappy [For me!] sights, and I did not really enjoy using it as a pistol. Sometimes I could hit NOTHING as large as 12 inches wide even at 15 feet. ALL me, not the pistol, and not the pellets…

So, in my typical “McGyver” fashion, I did some modifications to the air pistol:
I added a stainless steel sleeve on the barrel, then fixed some home-made front sights and adjustable rear sights from an old, hoarded set from a Ghost-ring sight that I never used…
I have also turned the pistol into a sort of “carbine” with an improvised stock. The stock is made of light steel, as there is no recoil to worry about.
It shoots GREAT now… I kid you not: I was able to shoot the eye out of a dove at 30 feet. [Okay, okay – I was plain lucky – though I WAS aiming for the head, though…] And before the PETA guys get their panties in a bunch – I ate the dove for dinner: it tasted like chicken… Haha!

Original Benjamin Trail NP:

After my improvised modifications:

The Steel Pellet trap I use indoors…

KARMA can be a B****…
There’s this little trick I have been playing on my cousins and friends for about two years now, and it finally backfired on me. A few times a year, I would go up north to my hometown, and I normally would go out shooting on the farm with some friends and or cousins… For most of these outings, I would usually shoot slugs – and be hitting my targets and making big, single, powerful holes in them… Time after time…
When it would come to the turn of my friends or cousins to shoot, I would then surreptitiously load birdshot shells instead of slugs for them to fire. Especially for those who do not know much about shotguns and firearms in general. I would load the shotgun, and hand it over, then step back after making sure they were following the 4 rules of firearms safety.

What they do not realize is that I have a RIFLED barrel on my shotgun…

Everyone knows that birdshot fired out of a rifled barrel forms a doughnut spread of pellets that would practically never hit the actual target of up to 2 feet dimension at 30 yards. The pellets would spread out into a doughnut shape, with no pellets in the center – so all pellets would normally hit AROUND the target, and nowhere directly ON the target itself!
So my friends and cousins would always leave the range dejected that they did not hit any of the targets.
So on my last trip shooting back at the farm in the village, I played the same trick again. I forgot I had my GoPro Hero 4 camera placed about two yards from the targets at a bit of an angle. So at a point while my cousin was shooting [And “missing”!], a 5mm birdshot pellet hit the view screen of the camera, and broke it, but was stopped by the metal back of the camera.
It still works! Barely.

The view screen is a loss there, but with a lot of fiddling, it does shoot videos still…

Lessons learnt –
1. I will continue to play this same trick as long as I can get away with it. [My cousins don’t read TFB!]
2. In future; target-cams will be protected by some wood or something…
3. GoPro cams are TOUGH…

No animals were harmed in the writing of this update. Well, I did shoot the dove… [And I ate it!]