On the wings of skepticism
Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:32 pm
This year I made a bet to myself, not just this year but since the last two years. My goal was to discover how rocky is the path to being a shooter in the current scenario.
The trick was not to grease palms use connections etc. in other words to be like the normal jhonny on the street who has his eyes set on the X ring or the clay.
It has been a strange ride, I began by competing in air pistol and quickly learnt that yes it is a doable sport atleast around Delhi. The Siri fort complex has the air rifles, pistols and gas and air that you need. So without even importing an air rifle or pistol you can shoot your socks off till you hit the mark that you desire. This chapter has improved even more thanks to the enlightened govt. allowing the import of .177 duty free.
So I decided to move to the cartridge or firearm level. To begin you have to be a member of the Dr.Karni Singh range, its a 'catch 22" situation cause to join you have to have a firearms license. Okay since I have my humble .22 license I decided to make a go for it. We have spent several weekends just shooting for fun and blowing up our own ammo. Now, we in our group decided okay lets compete in something and so .22 prone ISSF it was. This weekend I discovered I still couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with iron sights (Mack The Knife I can hear ye chuckling), all right blame was quickly passed to the non-match nature of the Marlin etc and so we went and got our hands on an Anshutz .22 rifle. Cost of hire is Rs 20 per hour, pretty fair so far but there were three or four of us with two rifles and eighteen bullets. So we think," happy times" since we are DSRA members we can buy cartridges at the range. And so high on the smell of Stingers we get to the armoury.
Here is where the fun begins the DSRA rep ain't coming cause he says that there is no ammo and puts the blame squarely on the NRAI. So we sing ,"Hopeless romantics here we go again...Jhonny come lately..." And then the range in-charge informs us that the President of the DSRA is at the skeet range. So feeling like Lobsang Rampa when he is under his Lama's tutelage we hike over to Mr. Bedi.
Spying us he leaves what he is doing and ambles our way. We talk about the sad state of affairs and he informs us about his plans for the DSRA. Lot of good ideas that I shall write about next. In between I look at the lucky guys breaking clays and comment," That looks like fun." Mr. Bedi reacts like I had touched a common chord, he says that it is fun and inquires whether we had experienced it ever. Since we sadly sighed," Once maybe..." He springs into action.
Urging us to follow him he takes his own ammo and shotgun and takes all of us to a station. Here he coaches me on what to do and lets me have the gun, I holler pull and just see the orange disc and without realising it pull the trigger. Damn! I dusted that bird pretty good. Getting pumped by Mr. Bedi I try another one and miss. I confess that my eyes had wandered off the target. Anyway then Ollie gets a try and dusts one bird and misses the next. Then Nishant steps up to the plate and does us proud. He shatters both the birds.
We leave after thanking Mr. Bedi and walk to the .22 range. Sadly, OUP and Sid were left doing dry fires with the .22. I am still bowled over by the kindness I had experienced. There definitely is something to this sport, it reveals both the good and the bad side of the organization. So I am going to research this some more heck will prolly try what Mundaire had been suggesting all along ," Lets go bust some clays and have fun, screw the MQS."
The trick was not to grease palms use connections etc. in other words to be like the normal jhonny on the street who has his eyes set on the X ring or the clay.
It has been a strange ride, I began by competing in air pistol and quickly learnt that yes it is a doable sport atleast around Delhi. The Siri fort complex has the air rifles, pistols and gas and air that you need. So without even importing an air rifle or pistol you can shoot your socks off till you hit the mark that you desire. This chapter has improved even more thanks to the enlightened govt. allowing the import of .177 duty free.
So I decided to move to the cartridge or firearm level. To begin you have to be a member of the Dr.Karni Singh range, its a 'catch 22" situation cause to join you have to have a firearms license. Okay since I have my humble .22 license I decided to make a go for it. We have spent several weekends just shooting for fun and blowing up our own ammo. Now, we in our group decided okay lets compete in something and so .22 prone ISSF it was. This weekend I discovered I still couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with iron sights (Mack The Knife I can hear ye chuckling), all right blame was quickly passed to the non-match nature of the Marlin etc and so we went and got our hands on an Anshutz .22 rifle. Cost of hire is Rs 20 per hour, pretty fair so far but there were three or four of us with two rifles and eighteen bullets. So we think," happy times" since we are DSRA members we can buy cartridges at the range. And so high on the smell of Stingers we get to the armoury.
Here is where the fun begins the DSRA rep ain't coming cause he says that there is no ammo and puts the blame squarely on the NRAI. So we sing ,"Hopeless romantics here we go again...Jhonny come lately..." And then the range in-charge informs us that the President of the DSRA is at the skeet range. So feeling like Lobsang Rampa when he is under his Lama's tutelage we hike over to Mr. Bedi.
Spying us he leaves what he is doing and ambles our way. We talk about the sad state of affairs and he informs us about his plans for the DSRA. Lot of good ideas that I shall write about next. In between I look at the lucky guys breaking clays and comment," That looks like fun." Mr. Bedi reacts like I had touched a common chord, he says that it is fun and inquires whether we had experienced it ever. Since we sadly sighed," Once maybe..." He springs into action.
Urging us to follow him he takes his own ammo and shotgun and takes all of us to a station. Here he coaches me on what to do and lets me have the gun, I holler pull and just see the orange disc and without realising it pull the trigger. Damn! I dusted that bird pretty good. Getting pumped by Mr. Bedi I try another one and miss. I confess that my eyes had wandered off the target. Anyway then Ollie gets a try and dusts one bird and misses the next. Then Nishant steps up to the plate and does us proud. He shatters both the birds.
We leave after thanking Mr. Bedi and walk to the .22 range. Sadly, OUP and Sid were left doing dry fires with the .22. I am still bowled over by the kindness I had experienced. There definitely is something to this sport, it reveals both the good and the bad side of the organization. So I am going to research this some more heck will prolly try what Mundaire had been suggesting all along ," Lets go bust some clays and have fun, screw the MQS."
and the pictures good on him. 
. Shame I cant have them both...YET 
). best of luck for your venture, and keep us posted
