rigger fired this volley in
ups.com:

On Aug 20, 9:01 am, "Lloyd E. Sponenburgh"
lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote:
I audited an NRA handgun safety course Saturday that my wife was
attending for her concealed permit.

I was appalled. The instructor was a really nice fellow, and
obviously an experienced shooter, but his course was inadequate to
the nth degree.

The sum-total of ALL safety instruction in the course consisted of
his reading a poster twice. The poster had three safety rules --
"always point the weapon in a safe direction", "keep your finger off
the trigger until ready to fire", and "don't load the weapon until
ready to fire".

All in all, those ARE the bases for safe handling, but this was a
class of 50-ish women and soft-handed men who'd never picked up a gun
before. They couldn't extrapolate from that scant reading anything
about safe transfer of weapons from one to another, safe cleaning
practices, routine muscle-memory checking of every weapon you touch,
safe transport, etc., etc.

Then he left me puzzled when he told the class that a revolver is NOT
a pistol; only slide-action automatics are pistols. (so, what do you
call a muzzle-loading lock-fired handgun? And, does that mean that a
cylinder- fed rifle isn't a rifle?)

He spent exactly twenty seconds describing a sight picture. And his
drawing was wrong for short range pistol.

The rest of the four hour classroom session consisted of
recollections, instructions to immediately shoot to kill any home
invader, and rants about the local liberal newspaper, then finally a
full half hour devoted to how to answer the questions on the
application.

Can it really BE that gun classes have devolved to this level? If
so, what hope have we that the liberalocrats won't finally strip all
the metal from our hands?

LLoyd

Handguns: pistol...revolver....It's just a matter of common usage.
Take
a look at Auction Arms or one of the other online arms sales locations
and you'll see hundreds of handguns differentiated in this manner

"But these folks were being taught to aim at a 50-yard repair target
from 7 yards. He had the whole ball on the post. That would be
roughly "about right" for 50-yard iron sights. That's about six
inches low at 7 yards."

I'm not familiar with the sight you're describing. If you raise the
rear of
your weapon this will bring the POI downward, not only on a 7 yard
target but also on a 50 yard target. Could you explain in more
detail?
IIRC drop at 50 yards is only an inch or so, even on a slow mover like
a .45.

dennis
in nca
I'm sure you're familiar with the "pumpkin on the post" analogy for an
iron sights view.

At seven yards, the "pumpkin" would be the tiny white X marking the dead
center of the bull.

Although a good shooter would do that same picture at 50, 100, or 500
yards, most recreational shooters I've worked with put the entire black
spot on the post at longer ranges, simply because they can't really see
it that well -- the bullseye substends such a small angle, that they
cannot discern where "center" on the bull really is. It's just an easier
picture to develop and hold. They make up for the three or four inches
low they're actually shooting by adjusting sight elevation.

But with his (that) picture at 21 feet, anybody who was capable of doing
what he taught was painting the bottom edge of the black, not the center.
Not a one of them had ever adjusted the sights on any weapon and the
revolver they were using didn't have adjustable sights.

FWIW, most of them "got it" about ten rounds into the shooting, and
adjusted their own sighting to make it work. That was nice to see.

One poor guy never put it on the paper, much less the black. And the
instructor gave him his certificate, anyway. I don't think he should
have denied him, but he should have worked with him to get it right. The
first time this fellow uses a weapon in anger, it's going to be a scene
right out of Mark Twain's story "Those Extraordinary Twins".

LLoyd


LLoyd