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Son_of_Belial

I have never owned my own firearm before, but have used them in the past. I'm a member of the DURC in Trinity College and am also in the RDF where I have fired the Steyr, Bren, GPMG and the BAP. I'm interested in getting the new Sig Sauer .22RL "Mosquito" (what a beautiful weapon!) and get into pistol shooting but I don't even know where to begin. Any advice on how to get the ball rolling would be greatly appreciated. This might count as a side-arm though which I understand the authorities are a bit jittery about...

Gun Shy

Good choice will give a range report sometime after the 28th of July when I expect to have mine.

The choice of gun would largly depend on what type of competition you would like to get involved in (or perhaps you just want some fun shooting)?

For example if you wanted to shoot practical pistol then the smallest cal would be 9mm.

Others can fill you in on their sport, guns etc.

http://sigforum.com/eve/ubb.x?a=frm&s=674608412&f=430601935

The sig forum will give you range reports on the Mosquito

Son_of_Belial

9mm is smallest? Why did I think that .22 was smaller? :rolleyes: It's a mix really Gun Shy, I want some fun shooting and I want to get into .22 pistol target shooting. I thought the Mosquito would be a good choice too, apart from the lines of the thing, it has no less than three safety settings on it such as the automatic drop safety, and magazine lock out which I'm hoping will keep the gardaí more than happy and will give me a bit more peace of mind. I'm no expert but as far as I can see I'd be hard pressed to find a better and more reliable .22 pistol and so reasonably priced as well. Am I wrong? I've never had a gun license before, how do I set about doing this? A range report on the mosquito would be great Gun Shy, I look forward to reading it!

macnas

Your right the mosquito is a great .22 pistol but some policemen are more jittery than others and even a .22, which is smaller than 9mm, might raise an eyebrow in the station. You should be good to yourself and buy a full size 226 in 9mm.

civdef

Your best approach is to contact a club and to talk to them. There are several threads in this forum of late about suitable clubs. Without membership of a club, you won't get far.

This will also give you the opportunity to decide what gun suits your requirements. The Mosquito isn't a dedicated "target pistol", for example in the usual sense, being more intended for casual "plinking" use. If you are intending to compete, you might decide on somethinge lse.

You are correct that .22lr is a smaller calibre than 9mm, but 9mm is the minimum for practical shooting competitions.

Son_of_Belial

OK, thanks Civdef. I am in a club, I'm in the DURC in Trinity. Haven't been up on the range that often though... Hm, I'm a bit wary of getting a 9mm, that's getting sort of a bit too close to the full-blown will do a lot of damage to someone... I mean the military BAP takes 9mm ammunition. Dammit, so if I want to get into competitions it has to be 9mm you say? Under what circumstances would .22LR be viable? They wouldn't use .22 pistols in competitions at all?

Sparks

SoB, there's no way you can shoot pistols in DURC at the moment. Our range doesn't have standing targets for anything other than air rifle and the prone targets are only good for up to .22lr. Air pistols may be introduced in the future, but for now the club's Range Officers aren't trained on them so until that happens, you won't be seeing air pistols there yet either. I'm afraid that if you want to shoot pistol you need another range as well as DURC

Son_of_Belial

I thought as much Sparks. That was to be my next question to the DURC, when are we going to be able to use pistols cos I'm sick to my back teeth with "long guns." Anyone who has had to haul a Bren machine-gun through some gluey bog up in the Glen of Imaal or down in Kilworth will understand me when I say this!!

Sparks

I'd like to see them brought in myself SoB, but the Range Officers need to be trained - safety can't be comprimised, even for ISSF air pistols (you could pick up a nasty eye injury with those things, after all). And the committee would have to decide to do it first as there'd be a fair bit of effort and money involved with building stalls from plexiglass, sending ROs for training, buying the pistols and so on. And with the CJB still up in the air, and club resources not exactly brimming over, there's no great rush at the moment to go near the idea. I know UCD is bringing them in though, so we'll see how that goes.

Son_of_Belial

I getcha. Don't get me wrong, I know safety is paramount. It's one of the main factors why I want to go with a Sig Sauer. Btw, the manual for the Mosquito is available for download here in .pdf format from the Sigarms website if anyone is interested.

2112

Try www.fassaroe.com for contact details. We shoot shotgun,22 target,22 sils and pistols both 22 and centrefire. We shoot every Sunday and you are more that welcome to come down. I think some of our members are in DURC as well.

Son_of_Belial

Thanks 2112, that's really cool of you. I'll check it out. Nice one.