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SMPTactical

Wow what a hobby

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Hello All,

New here form New Jersey and new to firearms, got my FPID back in Sept 2020.  ~2mo from application to receiving permit in the mail.  So far spent over $2k on training classes ~30 hours and shooting nearly 5000 rounds and counting.  Traded in one range (golf) for another range and trying to go at least once a week either for a class or if not, for range time.  I was an avid golfer and haven’t touched a golf club at all in 2020.  Maybe 2021 is the year to get back in but running around timed drills has got me hooked.  

Would love to post pictures but fear it’ll just get inventoried when ATF comes knocking.  It seems after becoming a responsible firearms owner, I feel like I’ve become a second class citizen fearful of becoming a criminal just because I own such items, which can become illegal tomorrow.  Maybe banning guns will not be a good thing, look at how prohibition turned out.

Mainly focused the most popular calibers .308Win/7.62NATO, .223Rem/5.56NATO, .45ACP, 9mm Luger and .22LR.  Favorite brands, HK, FN, LWRC, V Seven, ZEV.

Stay Health and Stay Safe

 

B669111B-7718-4C4B-9A6B-3243331E543D.jpeg

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Good for you.  And welcome aboard.  

I started out wanting just one pistol.  I'm now in the middle of redoing my garage so I can continue playing with firearms on my lathe and milling machine.  So yeah, it goes that way.  

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4 hours ago, SMPTactical said:

Hello All,

New here form New Jersey and new to firearms, got my FPID back in Sept 2020.  ~2mo from application to receiving permit in the mail.  So far spent over $2k on training classes ~30 hours and shooting nearly 5000 rounds and counting.  Traded in one range (golf) for another range and trying to go at least once a week either for a class or if not, for range time.  I was an avid golfer and haven’t touched a golf club at all in 2020.  Maybe 2021 is the year to get back in but running around timed drills has got me hooked.  

Would love to post pictures but fear it’ll just get inventoried when ATF comes knocking.  It seems after becoming a responsible firearms owner, I feel like I’ve become a second class citizen fearful of becoming a criminal just because I own such items, which can become illegal tomorrow.  Maybe banning guns will not be a good thing, look at how prohibition turned out.

Mainly focused the most popular calibers .308Win/7.62NATO, .223Rem/5.56NATO, .45ACP, 9mm Luger and .22LR.  Favorite brands, HK, FN, LWRC, V Seven, ZEV.

Stay Health and Stay Safe

 

B669111B-7718-4C4B-9A6B-3243331E543D.jpeg

Who's classes?

And these times drills you speak of, where? how were they? What did you shoot?

:popcorn:

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1 hour ago, CAL. .30 M1 said:

Who's classes?

And these times drills you speak of, where? how were they? What did you shoot?

:popcorn:

RTSP offered Tactical Rifle/Pistol classes every week starting back in early October 2020.  They also offer Defense handgun, Tactical handgun and Tactical rifle.  You also needed a prerequisite class like drawing from a holster.  

The Tactical Rifle/Pistol class was my favorite, attendance was very strong from Oct-Nov and tapered towards end of Dec, and sadly is now offered once a month.  I’m guessing ammo shortage, prices driving people to conserve.  The class was setup differently every week with various shoot/don’t shoot targets and you needed to use rifle, transition to handgun and transitions back and forth based on how they ask you to shoot at the various targets where shots and accuracy counts, with deductions for mishits.

I shot mostly my LWRC IC-SPR w/RDS (good balance) and HK VP9 w/RMR holstered,  but I also brought in various rifles in exchange, an HK MR556 w/LPVO (slower and heavy, better for longer distances), HK MR762 w/3-15x44 (talk about Mack truck at a Nascar race, but still fun to shoot) and HK USC .45 w/MRO (no compensator, recovery from recoil slow, but again fun to shoot and my holes are hard to miss while everyone else was shooting effectively .22 holes).  

You quickly learn what works, what does, and you get you gear tested in the rigorous movement slings, optics etc.  I learn not just my failures but from others as well.  I’ve had optics come loose, I also learned my VP9 doesn’t like to shoot steel cased 9mm the hard way, FTE leading to DNF and I later found out from page 14 of the manual “not recommended” (who reads those?...).  

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2 hours ago, Bully said:

I started out wanting just one pistol.  

Wow very cool! I started wanting only a handgun myself ordered an HK VP9 and shipped it to an FFL I’ve gone to in the past RTSP Randolph.  While picking it up and doing NICS, I asked if I could look at a rifle.  They had two on the wall, LWRC IC-SPR and HK MR556 and thus began the spiral.

 I have access to a nice lathe and milling machine at another club I”m a member of, maybe I’ll try it some time.  

 

 

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Welcome. One heck of a way to start out. It seems you've gone all in. 

While I'm hesitant to refer to firearms ownership and practice as a hobby, since it is much more than that, I do understand many people see it as a hobby. With that said, just out of curiosity, which hobby do you feel is more expensive, golf or firearms/shooting?

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4 hours ago, kc17 said:

Welcome. One heck of a way to start out. It seems you've gone all in. 

While I'm hesitant to refer to firearms ownership and practice as a hobby, since it is much more than that, I do understand many people see it as a hobby. With that said, just out of curiosity, which hobby do you feel is more expensive, golf or firearms/shooting?

Right it really is more than a hobby.

It initially started as home defense.  My wife convinced me to get my permit and she would get hers.  She has friends who shoot as a sport and also very much into it.  The irony here is that she’s still waiting for her permit.  She e-mailed PD and they’re saying they’re backed up, I applied for my permit and already got it.  Same PD, we live in the same household, and background check already went through so not sure..

Anyway after going in, I thought proficiency is key to self defense.  So I started taking intro classes which lead to more advanced classes.  All of this within a very short time period.  I’ve been playing The Division 2 since March 2019 and what unfolded in 2020 felt so surreal as if the events from The Division 2 came to life.   And what I’ve been doing there in virtual, now all makes sense in real life, calibers, optics, operating systems etc. 

With any hobby you can have extremes, golf clubs, memberships, outings etc.  For me personally the firearms/shooting has been more expensive.  Other more expensive hobbies for me has been audio.  

 

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