Machinegun madness!

Doc · June 23, 2007 15:43

I drove over to Oklahoma today (by way of Missouri) at the invite of iamaclone_2 for the semi-annual machinegun shoot. It was a four hour drive for me but I have never even so much as touched a machinegun and I figured I should do it at least once in my life.

The drive was OK except the last leg was down about 5 miles of dirt road. Well normally it's dirt but it rained all morning so it was deep mud. I was really worried that I would get stuck with my little truck with its 2-wheel drive and highway gears but it made it fine. What a mess though! See the photo which really doesn't do justice to the 500 pounds of mud caked on the truck.

There were hundreds of shooters with maybe thousands of guns. I was surprised at how many Browning .30s were in attendance. I didn't realize so many people had these. There were almost as many .50 BMGs on hand. Many were available for rent and the cost was dirt cheap. I saw one guy offering a 20 round belt through his Ma Duece for $40. At $2 per round I think he was losing money, no?

There were two Mini-Guns there and when they fired up it was an intense thing to hear. You can't discern the individual reports because it shoots so fast. It sounds like fabric ripping. very loudly.

Not too many classic subguns. A number of Thompsons, but I only saw one MP40, one M3 "Greasegun" and one STEN and I would have figured to see more of these types of guns.

iamaclone_2 and his charming wife were gracious and generous hosts allowing me to shoot a couple of their guns. I started with the 5.56 FNC. Now I admit to loads of ignorance on MGs so I think this is made by FN of Belgium and it's sort of in the M16 class? I also tried a Ruger (is this called the AC556?) in stainless with a folding stock. The barrel seemed short, too.

I shot a pair of subguns in 45 ACP. One was some kind of MAC and the other I didn't recognize at all but it really ripped. iamaclone_2 said it had a cycle rate of 1,100 RPM and I believe it. It goes zip and a 30 round magazine is gone. I probably shot up about $100 in ammo.

It was great meeting iamaclone_2 and his lovely wife. I also had great fun with the machine guns. I don't think I want to own one, though. They are so pricey and it's a lot of work to feed and maintain them. I saw a lot of the tripod-mounted guns breaking down and needing service. I think owning a machine gun is like owning an Italian sports car. It looks great, and is very impressive when running well, but it requires a lot of time and effort to keep it going. But I did enjoy the experience of shooting them once.

Here I am firing a subgun. Yes, I'm a big fat guy and yes I always brightly colored shirts to the range. When guns are going off I want everyone to know exactly where I am at a glance. You can tell that I am very refined by my grip on the gun. Pinkies up! Pinkies up!

iamaclone_2 maybe shooting the same gun. I saw a lot of guys wearing handguns but that seemed unnecessary with all the high-powered hardware laying about.

Mrs. iamaclone_2 shooting the Ruger.

I thought this was cute. This girl was maybe 10 years old and she was shooting a full-auto Ruger with a 22 kit.

Here is one of the old cars used for targets. Resale is for crap at this point. I especially liked it when the tire caught fire.

Oh, here's a shot of the truck after its romp in the mud. The picture doesn't capture how much crud was caked on the body and wheel-wells.

Machinegun madness!

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