We had a really busy day at the gun store today. I was waddling from customer to customer showing Sigs, 1911s, Glocks, XDs, Walther PPKs, finding ammo, explaining ammo, demonstrating disassemblies and reassemblies, talking about triggers, explaining the difference between DA/SA, DAO, SAO, and striker-fired, going over brief gun histories and ideals behind certain designs.
But it wasn't until I was called in to show, not only the customer but the clerk working with me, how to disassemble and reassemble a Kimber that I finally got to appreciate just how much I've learned and how far I've come in the last, oh, two years.
It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that I was asking JD why he kept calling so many different guns 1911s and why those numbers were important (yeah, you should have seen the look on his face).
I remember trying to reassemble my Kimber Stainless Ultra Carry for the first time. I COULD NOT get that stupid slide stop into the take-down notch to save my life and it was a good thing we bought it used with a good "stupid scratch" on the slide already because I just made it deeper the first couple of times.
I didn't know a Glock from a Sig and I certainly couldn't distinguish between a 21 and a 19 or a 23 and a 36.
I didn't know a majority of gun manufacturers even existed. If you had told me you had bought a Stoeger I would have assumed you just picked up a new exotic pet. A Benelli sounded like a cool car and when my husband said I should get a Kimber I said, "What do they make?"
I thought Ruger and Luger were synonymous.
I constantly confused double-action and single-action.
I was AMAZED to find you could put .38 spls into a revolver chambered for .357 Magnum, and I would have been the idiot who tried to stuff those magnums into a .357 Sig. Aren't all .357s created equal?
I have by no means arrived anywhere. I still know much less about rifles and shotguns than I'd like and some calibers really confuse the living fire out of me; especially when you get to talking about muzzle energy, velocity, grain weight and all that jazz.
I still don't know the inner workings of a LOT of handguns and what actually happens when you press the trigger to result in the firing of said handgun, not to mention how their safeties, decockers and internal locking systems work.
And then there's all the new stuff pouring out every day, it seems.
But I find myself being pulled in to counsel about this gun or that one, giving advice on a personal, rather than hear-say, level and generally being happy to have a working blanket knowledge of how things work when it comes to firearms.
And I owe it all to the people who were, and still are, willing to graciously answer all of my questions and show me what I don't even know I don't know.
My old manager used to say he loved working with me because I wanted to know how EVERYTHING worked and I was never done learning something new. He knew that if he came around the corner and said, "Hey, do you want to learn something?" I'd respond with an enthusiastic, "YEAH!" and follow after him to learn how to break down a Ruger MK I or learn the difference between smooth bore and rifled shotguns and what ammo they can and can't take and so on.
By the time I was on my fourth run through explaining the technique on just how to get that slide stop into the take down notch of an Ultra CDP II I wanted to find anyone who'd every patiently taught me and give them a hug. I wouldn't be standing there passing on my knowledge without them.
We all start somewhere, and sometimes it takes a few of us some trial and error before we understand, but it's the people who can patiently repeat steps 1 through 6 for the fourteenth time that really stand out and move us all forward.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
