One of the more aggravating things to have to deal with in the gun trade are the aphorisms that are repeated Ad Nauseum from people coming in to buy, sell, trade, shoot guns. Pithy pronouncements such as: “The pistol is what you use to fight your way back to the rifle/shotgun you left behind” or “If I knew someone was coming to do me harm, then I would carry a rifle/shotgun, rocket launcher, etc”. Seemingly, these nuggets of wisdom are usually uttered by either a morbidly obese individual, who sweats just talking to you or some geeky, socially inept gun store/range rat, both of whom seem to be buying stock in 5.11 Tactical to judge by their sartorial splendor. Irony being lost on much of the gun toting crowd, they can’t seem to appreciate the intent of the axioms to highlight the compromise one has to make in being legally armed without drawing attention. With legal concealed carry being a longtime fact in many states, reality and practicality have worked their cognitive dissonan
Living as I do in Southern California, there are very few opportunities or places to shoot a rifle. Most ranges will be of the indoor variety and by virtue of that you mostly see pistols and the odd home defense shotgun. To shoot a rifle means taking it out to one of three outdoor ranges that are within reasonable driving distance, that said, once you press the trigger on a rifle and see your shot impact some 200 yards downrange, it’s hard not to get hooked. Sitting down and thinking about it, it’s not very likely that I’m going to reach out to a 1,000 yards because of the restrictions on time, equipment and money. Long range shooting is simply not going to be practical. I find it odd that a lot of sniper rifles are sold. Just so we are clear, I am not referring to heavy barreled varmint rifles in the various .22 bores typified by calibers like the .220 Swift. .223 Remington or .22-250, but rather synthetic stocked rifles in .308 Winchester, .300 Winchester Magnum, 6.5 Cre