I swear, shooting sports are filled with more grossly overinflated stories of misplaced machismo than any other activity on the planet (including fishing). It seems like I can't talk about shooting for more than five minutes without finding someone who is completely full of crap, but still wants to peddle their "knowledge", while supposedly showing off their alleged expertise.
Here are three fine examples of this BS, and two of them involve other police officers I work with:
1) One of our guys is also a fairly high ranking officer in the Air National Guard, and a huge bragger. He went off to training for a couple of weeks, and came back bragging about the great new M4 he was issued, and how accurate it was. He claimed he was shooting "quarter sized groups at 300 yards all day long", with "10 or more shots inside of a quarter at any given time". Further explanation indicated that this was with a box-stock military issued gun, open sights, while shooting various positions (no bipod, of course). By the way, this guy's military job has something to do with intelligence or translation, or something like that... he isn't a professional shooter.
2) Another one of our guys heard me talking about precision shooting with another officer this evening. He chimed in about how he doesn't need to practice since he "hit a coyote on the run at 850 yards with my .30-06 this fall". Further conversation revealed he's shooting what appears to be a stock Remington 700 hunting rifle, with unknown optics. Also sounds like he doesn't shoot from a bipod or bench. Regardless, some quick math in JBM puts that at about 7.2 mils of elevation, and around 10.9 mils of lead (assuming a conservative 15mph target speed). Now, I'm not saying that there aren't some shooters out there who *might* pull that shot off, but they're few and far between, and are certainly not the guys who shoot stock hunting rifles that they 'don't need to practice with'.
3) The guy working at my local Bass Pro Shops is so full of crap that he doesn't even come close to sounding legitimate. He claims that he shoots dimes "all day long" at 500-600 yards from a standing unsupported position using the Savage rifle he bought for $350. He thinks the rest of us are foolish for spending real money on guns.
Seriously, people sure are stupid. Now, I'll freely admit that I'm not a betting man. Nevertheless, I've yet to have any of these INCREDIBLE shooters take me up on an offer for a complementary $100 bill if they were able to demonstrate this skill for me.
Talk is cheap, but there sure seems to be a lot of it in this sport.
Am I the only one who has noticed this?
Here are three fine examples of this BS, and two of them involve other police officers I work with:
1) One of our guys is also a fairly high ranking officer in the Air National Guard, and a huge bragger. He went off to training for a couple of weeks, and came back bragging about the great new M4 he was issued, and how accurate it was. He claimed he was shooting "quarter sized groups at 300 yards all day long", with "10 or more shots inside of a quarter at any given time". Further explanation indicated that this was with a box-stock military issued gun, open sights, while shooting various positions (no bipod, of course). By the way, this guy's military job has something to do with intelligence or translation, or something like that... he isn't a professional shooter.
2) Another one of our guys heard me talking about precision shooting with another officer this evening. He chimed in about how he doesn't need to practice since he "hit a coyote on the run at 850 yards with my .30-06 this fall". Further conversation revealed he's shooting what appears to be a stock Remington 700 hunting rifle, with unknown optics. Also sounds like he doesn't shoot from a bipod or bench. Regardless, some quick math in JBM puts that at about 7.2 mils of elevation, and around 10.9 mils of lead (assuming a conservative 15mph target speed). Now, I'm not saying that there aren't some shooters out there who *might* pull that shot off, but they're few and far between, and are certainly not the guys who shoot stock hunting rifles that they 'don't need to practice with'.
3) The guy working at my local Bass Pro Shops is so full of crap that he doesn't even come close to sounding legitimate. He claims that he shoots dimes "all day long" at 500-600 yards from a standing unsupported position using the Savage rifle he bought for $350. He thinks the rest of us are foolish for spending real money on guns.
Seriously, people sure are stupid. Now, I'll freely admit that I'm not a betting man. Nevertheless, I've yet to have any of these INCREDIBLE shooters take me up on an offer for a complementary $100 bill if they were able to demonstrate this skill for me.
Talk is cheap, but there sure seems to be a lot of it in this sport.
Am I the only one who has noticed this?
