John in AR

This one is several years old, and I suspect I've posted it here before; I just came across it when saving the musical targets video above. Smith M&P full size, with 115 fmj ammo. Starting from low ready with safety on, not from the holster. I'm not particularly fast from the holster.

12" is bigger than I really like for practice, but this is as close as I want to be when shooting steel with a pistol. Using a 12" plate at this range gives the same relative target size as an 8" target at 7-8 yards.

John in AR

A first attempt at ‘Amazing Grace’. There’s a pause just five or six notes into it, where I was mentally debating (going from the "A" it’s a “G”, no it’s an “F”, no it’s a “G”), and in the middle there’s some ‘clacking’ noises; that’s where I had to reload because the song has more notes than my gun has bullets.

I still need to work on it, for some reason it's a lot harder than the 'happy birthday' above was.

John in AR

In light of May coming up and all the Star Wars fans who geek out about May 4th ("May the 4th be with you"), this is the "Imperial Storm Troopers March".

This one isn't perfect. I haven't been able to get the timing down; for whatever reason, the note pattern on this one's been a lot harder than the earlier ones. When I focus on the notes, I don't get the timing quite right, and when I focus on the timing, I mess up a note or two. Decided to go with correct notes, at the sacrifice of being off on the musical timing. So not real happy with the timing, or with the made-up ending for that matter - the song really jumps into a whole orchestral wildness at the point I ended it, and there's no way I can do that with a 25-shot .22 and an 8-note xylophone.

Anyway, early "Happy May the Fourth" to all the Star Wars fans, and I apologize for treating your song less than perfectly...

John in AR

For my sister-in-law’s grandson, who loves ‘Baby Shark’.

Only one iteration, as it takes a drum mag for even one, and with the weird angle and two-piece plastic construction of the only drums I have, I’m not going to try (at least yet) to speed reload them. So with a 50-rd drum, one iteration is all I can get.

https://youtu.be/rAykZfFbop0

John in AR

"Majesty", really just the first half. Haven't learned the second half of the verse yet; haven't found a score that will fit in a single C-based octave, but will figure it out gradually by ear if need be.

John in AR

The second octave of notes arrived in time for Independence Day, otherwise I couldn't do "My Country, Tis of Thee"; as it runs higher than the "C" that the original octave ended in.

One comment; the “B” notes in the song are all written as B-flats, and since the musical targets don’t have sharps & flats, these were all played as B naturals. (As a wise man once told me, “All you can do is all you can do.”)

Hope everyone enjoys it as much as I enjoy doing it. Be sure to do something fun, positive and memorable when celebrating our country’s birthday later this week.

John in AR

When one of my brothers saw the My Country Tis of Thee vid, he texted me asking what kind of rifle I was using, and included "and don't try to tell me it was a pistol". Got me to thinking, could I do anything with a normal pistol on them, so last night I grabbed a 22 pistol & popped a suppressor on it, and did 'happy birthday' out of curiosity. (While the suppressor is about the size of most 22 silencers, it's actually a 9mm unit, so it's not as quiet as a dedicated 22 suppressor would be.)

The video is kind of hazy looking; it was just before sunset and the sun was almost directly behind the target above the trees.

First time I'd used a normal pistol; it'd always been a rifle or braced pistol before. And I confess up front it took me four tries to get it right. I'd never used the suppressor on this gun before and didn't know how much it would throw off the POI, so I was initially shooting left some, missing between plates. (Contrary to the pontifications of some, adding a suppressor - even to a fixed-barrel gun like this one - can absolutely change POI "enough to matter".) Once I figured out where it was shooting with the suppressor on it and held to the right edge of the plates, it did fine.