The day I almost died

A few months ago, I had a co-worker fly in from out of the country. He needed a ride to the SLC airport, so I drove him. As we were driving (my co-worker) Rik mentioned how many gun stores we had passed on I-15.  We began talking about guns and he told me in his country they were not able to own guns AND he had never shot a gun. Ever!  However it was on his bucket list to do. I said we should go shooting the next time he was in town.

Rik was in Provo all this week for some training, so I invited him over for dinner and then to go Shotgun shooting.

Syd had indoor soccer training from 5pm to 6pm.  After soccer, Syd and I headed back to work to pick up Rik.   Dinner was amazing, as usual.  Then we headed off to the Gun Club to do some shooting. It's obviously January in Utah. 7:30pm, dark, snowy, and cold, but we were the only ones shooting, so it was great.

I borrowed two shotguns from my Dad.  One of the two guns is my favorite gun.  It is a break barrel single shot shotgun with  no padding.  Just a simple shotgun which happened to be my Grandpa Berger's.  I've been shooting this gun for years. Because there is no padding, when I shoot it, it always gives me little bruises on my left shoulder from the kick.   Matter of fact, when I was in Jr High school, I removed all the wood from the gun, sanded it down, stained it and added a clear coat and then put it back together.

I took the first shot with my Grandpa's gun.  I didn't even get to shoot at the first clay pigeon that was thrown, as the gun had a hard time pulling the external hammer back. (which was odd, as that had never happened to me).  After a few times of pulling the external hammer back, I pulled it back and it clicked into to place.  I yelled 'pull' and hit the clay pigeon dead center and it exploded into dust.  It felt good to shoot and hit the first thrown clay pigeon.  My next few shots were the same, I was on a roll. We took turns shooting, every other shot.

At about my 5th shot, I yelled 'pull', aimed and pulled the trigger.  I'm not sure I hit that one, because as soon as I pulled the trigger and the gun went off, I felt the barrel of the gun in my right hand fall to the right, while the stock in my left hand go the opposite way.  The gun was now in two different pieces.

I was shocked. This isn't supposed to happen. The metal cast just blew apart.  Even more shocking, was that I wasn't harmed.  I stood there for a few seconds (which felt like a few minutes) looking at the gun and replaying the event in my head.  After I realized the gun was beyond repair.  I went ahead and set the gun down and continued with the 2nd gun the rest of the night.

We each got about 20 shots in.  After a bit, Rik honed in his shooting skills and began hitting the clay pigeons. Impressive for his first time shooting, but then again he had a great teacher. :)

After shooting, I drove Rik back to his Provo hotel.  I forgot how much I really like shooting shotguns. I need to get out more.