imported post
Semper Paratus wrote:
Two things come to mind.
#1 at my first unit in the Coast Guard we had to shoot a practical shotgun course. We shoot a 870 Rem. Part of the course of fire is to fire from the hip. One guy put the but of the shotgun on his hip bone, and then with 00 buckshot pulled the trigger.
#2 me and my buddy went to watch Bob Munden put on a fast draw demo. After witch when we went camping he thought he could be a fast draw. The bullet was a .22 that went through 3 inches of calf muscle.
SP:
There were a few "goofs with guns" in the Coast Guard, but not many. They had a habit of getting thrown off the range for doing sillychit. We had a very low tolerance for idiocy at the range.
The CG shotgun course was called the "RSC" (Riot Shotgun Course). The last part shooting from the hip was supposed to be held against above the hip, with theweapon clamped against the stock of the 870, keeping it parallel to the ground.
After you'd done it a few times (every 6 months for a few years), you usually got pretty good at it. You could "feel" when the SG was parallel to the deck and you were only shooting from 10 yards away anyway. Kinda hard to miss, actually. If you didn't have that SG clamped hard enough against your side, it was certain to put you in the hurt locker!
When they came out with the "new" 870 with the 14" rifled barrel and the ACOG sight, they did away with the hip position. That nylon stock and pistol grip were also an improvement over the old wood stock. Same 4-round magazine capacity, though... Combat Load for every course of fire: shoot 2, chamber the 3rd, combat load one round through the loading port on the bottom and then shoot the last 3... OR... Shoot 4 (till its empty) and lock action to the rear, and combat load one through the loading port and close the action, shooting the last one.
I miss those days, sometimes. I don't miss shooting the 3 1/2" copper-jacketed hollow point magnum rounds, though. They were an "interim" round for stopping BG's boat engines.
