First time shooting the .45

My friend, Bruce, who works out at the Lee Kay Center, had taken the .45 (which I had never shot) out to see why it wouldn't fire. I had tried to fire it out in the desert in the spring and hadn't had another chance to figure it out. When Bruce took it, he couldn't get it to fire either, and after showing it to a couple of experts at the range, it was pretty much assumed that the magazine wasn't seating properly in the gun.
When I borrowed this gun for an indefinite period from my mom (hint, I'm keeping it, Mom, until you need it, ha ha), it had no magazine with it. A few weeks ago I finally made it to Gallenson's and purchased a new magazine for it.  Previously I had purchased one from Impact Guns in Kearns. This was the one that didn't fit properly. I don't know if the guy who sold it to me didn't know what he was doing, or what, but that may be a reason I don't go back to that store again.
Anyway, Thursday, I finally made it out to the Lee Kay Center to shoot. The magazine seated properly and I was ready to fire. Here is what my target looked like when it was finished.

I took the first 8 shots from 7 yards, four at the middle bulls-eye and one at each of the corners. The two shots circled are the ones I fired from Bruce's gun, also a .45, that he let me shoot.
I then moved the target back to 15 yards and fired seven more rounds, all at the middle. You can see that I was pulling slightly to the right with the gun I brought. This was the first time I've ever fired a semi-auto, and the first time I've fired a handgun in at least 25 years. It was pretty darned fun! I don't think I did too badly for a self-taught first timer. Of course, I've had lots of practice rifle shooting over the years, so that helps. I'd like to do this more frequently, but the cost of ammo is prohibitive. Maybe I'll find a smaller gun with cheaper ammo to do the majority of my practicing.

Do I look stupid?

A few months ago, I decided that I needed to become more familiar with a .45 auto that was in my possession. Being a little nervous about firing it for the first time, and not wanting to look like an idiot if I couldn't figure it out (I had never actually fired a semi-auto handgun), I went out into the desert, found a nice hillside, and put up my target.

Walking back about 25 feet, I turned and pulled the action back on the gun which should've loaded a cartridge into the chamber, and I thought it did. I aimed and pulled the trigger. Nothing. I tried over and over to figure out what was happening, pulling the action back repeatedly and repeatedly trying to fire the gun. Still nothing. In frustration, I walked back to my vehicle and got in, then went and did some other things while I was out there.

The thing with  the gun is that I had taken it many times on campouts just in case there was a bear rampaging through the camp. Luckily for me, there was no bear, or I would've had the nicest gun-shaped club in existence with which to fight it off.

In talking to a friend, I decided that I might take the gun to a gunsmith to find out if something was wrong with it, but instead I just put it away to wait for spring or to wait for someone who knew guns to take a look at it for me. Finally, I approached another friend of mine who I found out happened to work at the Lee Kay Center, a local gun range. He offered to take the gun with him to work and to try and fire it.

Here's what he found out. He too was unable to fire the weapon. After talking to several people there who know guns, they deduced that it was because the magazine wasn't long enough and the mechanism wasn't grabbing a cartridge out of it because of that. When I had acquired the gun from a family member, the magazine had been missing. I had taken the gun into a local gun store and asked them to match up a magazine that would work with this gun. I had bought the one they suggested. I didn't know that the particular guy wouldn't know what he was talking about.

But at least it wasn't anything I did, so if I looked stupid out in the desert, it was because someone sold me the wrong part. Now I just need to get the right one.