Since graduating four years ago and finally moving into a job better suited toward getting me on an actual career path, I’ve decided to work at becoming a better writer. To that end I’ve embraced the idea of exposing myself to situations where I could potentially learn something that might help me better enrich the worlds I shape. Initially this began with travel, but has since been broadened out to a variety of other activities.

So when a good friend of my ended up having his bachelor’s party involving a trip out to a shooting range, how could I resist?

You see I’ve pretty much lived all my life in Toronto, and have been thoroughly urbanized as a result. Despite the fact that the University until recently had a range through their Gun club open to the public, guns haven’t really been present in my life, and though I do have a great fondness for the action-movie genre, but had never handled one myself. Arranged by the Best Men, we drove just outside of the city to Gormley, where with a piece of ID (Driver’s License or Passport preferred) and a short tutorial on gun safety, Target Sports Canada will let you unload all the hot lead you can afford.

Going in I knew about things like recoil, and the kick back you could experience from a gun, but when actually firing something like a shotgun, it was amazing just how much you needed to compensate in order to get a nicely lined up shot. It also gave me an appreciation for just how ridiculous one-handed use of a pump-shotgun really is. But more importantly, given my showing, proves that I’m prepared for any zombie apocalypses that may befall mankind. The facility amusingly enough has zombie inspired targets for the shotgun station, and at the cashier even sell a zombie survival kit – seems like the owners have a really good sense of who their clientele are.

Remarkably there was more competition with one’s self to do better at the next target, than in truly comparing accuracy with any of the other shooters. Though all of us gave a good showing, managing to keep the majority of our bullets inside the targets – likely the result of us all being huge geeks and fans of first person shooters. All in all we were given the opportunity to fire off four handguns, one shotgun, and a scoped-rifle. Interestingly it was the rifle that gave off the most noise, and for those standing behind the shooter even a little concussive force. Despite there being seven of us in total working three stations, we were there for almost an hour and a half, which ended up costing us each $110.

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