fandomhighdorms | Gun Range, Tuesday morning

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Gun Range, Tuesday morning

Scully's progress at the gun range was going well; although she was feeling restless. Maybe it was time for a visit off-island? Just to see her mom? And play a prank on the Lone Gunmen?... and maybe check up on Mulder?

In the meantime, there was shooting. Which helped. And showing Claudia how to do so.

[for

notmyownage, but open to all]

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"Right, so." Claudia looked around the gun range. "I have no idea where to start, here. I need those big headphoney things, right?"

Scully rubbed a smile off her lips with the side of her wrist, and said, "Yes. And the eye protection too. No reason to go deaf or worry about smoke or gunpowder in your eyes when you don't have to." She handed over a set to Claudia, and cocked her head. "Have you ever been around guns before?"

"A couple of my foster dads had them, but I mostly just made sure I wasn't near it."

"Smart." Scully unloaded the clip, and popped the last cartridge out of the slide. "Here. Get a feel for the weight. And take a look at the workings. You'll be more comfortable with it that way."

"Sweet!" Claudia took the gun, weighing it in her hand. "Is it a lot heavier loaded?"

"Depending on the gun, and the caliber, yes. After a while you'll definitely be able to tell the difference between a loaded and unloaded piece." Scully snorted. "Anyone who says they didn't know a gun was loaded either knows nothing about guns, or is lying. Either way, always assume it is. There could still be one bullet left in the chamber, and that won't weigh much."

"And I'm guessing leave the safety on unless you're, like, really sure you wanna shoot something?" Claudia had located the safety on the side of the gun and switched it back and forth a few times.

"Definitely. As well as not pointing it at anything you don't want to shoot. They're precision devices, but accidents can happen." Scully picked up another gun, and then a cartridge. "Load it like this--" She showed how to insert the clip, and then snapped a bullet into the slide, pointing it away the whole time. "An automatic like this, you have the bullets feed into the slide, without having to re-cock the gun every time. They can jam if you don't keep them clean enough, though." She smiled suddenly. "You probably can theorize as to why."

"I'll spare you the details." Claudia continued to look over the various moving parts of the gun before picking up the clip, keeping it pointed down the range, and carefully loaded it. "So you just need to cock it the first time."

"Right." Scully aimed the gun down the range, and turned her head toward Claudia. "This is the stance you should be using. Two-handed." She nodded downward. "Legs braced apart. Knees bent. There's going to be recoil, and your hands are going to shake after the first few times." She took aim, and shot down the alley, hitting the inner ring of the target.

It was... strange, to be giving the FBI entry-level agent orientation to someone here. Good, in a way. And she trusted Claudia to take this seriously. But still weird.

Claudia was suitably impressed by how confident Scully was with her weapon. She made an attempt to copy her stance. It was a little awkward. "Am I doing it right? When they've got a gun newb on TV they're always holding the gun way wrong through, like, the wrist."

Scully put her weapon down, and checked Claudia's hands; she'd almost had it right. "You've got your hands in the right place-- tuck your thumbs down to brace it, though," she said, picking up hers to show Claudia what she meant. "And straighten your wrists another-- oh, ten degrees, upward?" She nudged Claudia's joined hands upward, carefully. "So the recoil goes all the way up your arms, then dissipates. Do you see it?"

"Why doesn't anyone else ever explain things in terms of transference of force and momentum?" Claudia made the adjustments to her stance.

Scully couldn't help but flash a grin at that, and said, "My grandfather didn't teach me like this. But I wanted to become better at it, and my-- uncles, were completely unhelpful." She snorted, remembering Will's comments on her joining the FBI. "So I found someone at the practice range who could break it down." She mimicked Claudia's stance again, almost mirror images of each other-- with a five inch height differential.

"Do you see the notches on the top of the gun, at the end of the barrel, and right over the grip? Look through those to aim."

"Notches to aim. Gotcha." Claudia closed one eye automatically, then frowned, realizing that would distort the perspective. She opened the other and tried not to let her eyes cross. "Okay, aiming is slightly harder than it looks."

"It is, otherwise everyone would be a crack shot." Scully lined hers up again, and fired, hitting high in the inner ring. "It's kind of like... those 3-D pictures. You focus on the sight at the end of the barrel when firing; and the target beyond is slightly fuzzy then." It had been ages since she'd had to think about these things, but it was probably good to re-visit them. "That's why you line it up first, concentrate on a small area of the big target to get a good aim." She checked with Claudia. "Make sense?"

Claudia nodded slowly, taking her time with lining up her shot. "How long did it take you to learn this stuff?"

Scully had to stop and think back, then tentatively said, "About two months? To be adequate. Hit the target, hit inside the inner rings most of the time. Once I got serious about it." She considered. "I wanted to be better than that, and that took about six months, I think."

"So no shame if I'm not automatically awesome, right?"

Scully had to grin again. "Uh. Right. The only shame is if you shoot your foot off. And then it's my shame for not stopping you, probably."

Her father's voice still echoed in her head reminding her to keep up her practice on a fairly regular basis. So after spending some time working out in the gym, Dru cleaned up and headed over to the range.

She nodded at the other girls before loading her gun and settling in for some target shooting. While she wasn't an expert marksman, it was pretty obvious that she was comfortable with what she was doing.

"That'd be a hell of a trajectory, right there." Claudia had hesitated long enough, she decided. She stared down the range, held her stance, and squeezed the trigger.

. . . Right, it helped if she took the safety off, first.

"Everybody does that a least once," Scully said.

On a break in between shooting, Scully watched Dru for a while. Then commented, "You're pretty proficient at this."

"Good to know." Claudia flipped the safety off, then spent a few moments making sure her stance was still good, then another few moments lining up her shot again. She took a deep breath, and squeezed the trigger.

BANG!

"Oh holy crap!"

Yeah, she hadn't been entirely prepared for the reality of firing a gun. She also hadn't managed to shoot anywhere near the center of the target.

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Gun Range, Tuesday morning

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