Long Range Perforation – A Personal Tradition

Christmas – the year I was 14.  My brother and I both received a rectangular package that year.  We tore into them and found that we were the proud owners of Daisy 880 BB/Pellet guns.  This model would shoot either BB’s or .177 caliber pellets.  BB’s as a repeater and pellets single loaded.  They were duly packed up and included in our luggage upon the family’s return to Brazil, along with a generous supply of BB’s and a few pellets.  Back in Brazil we found that the national brands of pellets were as close to useless as one could imagine.  They were simple cup shaped pellets with skirts reminiscent of a gypsy queen – all ragged and uneven.  About the only use I found for them was to load four or five in the barrel at once and proceed to shoot them as a shotgun.    10 pumps and they’d give a satisfying THUMP on the side of stray mongrels without breaking the skin.  But I digress.

There were plenty of reasons for stress in my life at the time, as if the stress of teenage growth and maturation were not enough.  And I found in that pellet gun a means of release.  I could step out the back door with a fist full of pellets and commence to make the can I’d set up at the other end of the yard dance around.  With constant practice I was able to hit about anything I so desired out to any reasonable (and even unreasonable) range.  At one time I purposely left the sights offset, kind of like a carnival gun.  I could hit anything I could see using “kentucky windage” but anyone else was hopelessly lost.    One time I even plinked one of the family dogs.  Two pumps in the old Daisy was not much velocity and the BB was light steel.  And yet I was able to drop that BB right on old Bolão at a distance of close to a city block.  The BB probably picked up more velocity as it gained speed dropping back to earth than it had when it left the barrel.  Anyway, Mom saw that I’d broken one of the cardinal rules (DON’T point that gun at ANYTHING you do not intend to destroy) and the Daisy was confiscated for a month.  Bolão was non the worse for the experience, just a bit startled – and I was a bit wiser for the punishment.

That old Daisy showed me that if you will take time to concentrate on centering your sights properly and squeezing the trigger correctly that you can consistently hit your target.  And while you’re concentrating on this simple physical exercise your  mind will focus on the task at hand rather than on the problems surrounding you.  We also had a couple of firearms around and ammo as well.  They were never locked up and they were loaded or the ammo was next to them at all times.  At no time did I ever think of taking one of them and using it to vent my frustrations and anger by taking a human life.  And even my experiment with Bolão was not a result of anger or frustration but rather the idle thought of “I wonder if…”.  If I’d wanted to cause him harm I’d have used the full power of the Daisy at 10 pumps and I’d have gotten closer and put one in his head.

Children and firearms are not a problem – as long as those children are taught respect and discipline.  We carried our Daisy 880’s all over the place, and never used them to harm anyone or anything.  We hunted with them, it’s true, but we ate everything we shot – with the exception of the iguanas that raided the fruit trees and chicken pen.  I skinned one once but the odor was so bad that it ended up fertilizing the garden rather than gracing the dinner table.

Now, all these years later, I find myself using the old “long range perforation” therapy from my youth.  The local shooting club receives my monthly dues and when chance or necessity affords the opportunity, off to the range I hie myself with a Gamo CFX and a Crosman 1377 in tow.  There I can set up out to 50 meters and the wonders of concentrating on the sites and the target and the trigger squeeze work their magic.  After a few initial rounds to settle in a bit the groups start to tighten and the tension starts to ease.  Since midweek is about the only time I can make it up there, the range is almost always deserted.  This makes it even better since I can sit there and listen to the birds and read my Bible and talk to God between targets.

The world would be a better place if more folks would learn to use long range perforation to take out their frustrations and to concentrate their mind on something other than doing harm to others.