My wife wrote in her journal, “Over the weekend my husband asked me to shoot his custom 1911. I prefer rifles, and avoid high caliber pistols when shooting for recreation, but I humored him. For the first time in my life I put five .45 rounds in the ten-ring from 30 feet. Beautiful. For a fleeting second I thought about bringing my target to work, then thought better of it. My husband e-mailed a picture of me and my target to his dad because I had out-shot the men in the family.”
Like she said, my wife will not shoot pistols for fun. It’s her weak wrists, she says, and then she jams my Glock (which NEVER jammed before she came along) as if to make her point. I coax her out to the firing range for the sake of practice, in the event she needs to protect herself or our children.
She agreed that I had done a beautiful job on my 1911, but she remained unconvinced that this shooting experience would be any different. I believed if she could shoot my gun accurately, I had truly done something. Probably to prove that she wasn’t ever going to enjoy pistols, she finally stepped outside for the real test of my work. And she had fun. She shot better than my dad and brother-in-law had a few weeks before.
Although my wife doesn’t bother herself with the engineering and physics behind my trade, she has become a believer and advocate for trigger jobs and other alterations that can transform your shooting experience. Changing parts and accessories, such as the type of grip on your gun, can make a noticable difference.
When your gun fits you and works like it’s a part of you, your shooting experience improves significantly.
