[Rapier]

I think we have all gone to the range enough to see the folks that can pick up a pea shooter and shoot it just as well as a shotgun or handgun. I was interested in learning how many regulars on the board were that way. I suspected the percentage was fairly high. I like several of you was raised on a farm. I was taught to shoot when 5 years of age, now about 60 years ago. Started with a 22 revolver, then a 22 rifle and then a single barrel 12ga. By 7 years I was shooting English sparrows on the wing in the chicken yard (they liked chicken feed) with rat shot in the 22 rifle. Then at night I was shooting rats with a head lamp and the 22 rifle at the same feed trough. My grandfather taught me the basics of shooting and taught me well, at least well enough that I have never found a gun of any kind I could not master in short order. Most times I can just watch a shooter for a few minutes and do a pretty fair job of duplicating what ever they do. I guess it is similar to a musician hearing music and playing the tune. I watched an expert rated machinegunner with an M-60 machine gun once, picked up the gun for the first time and duplicated his score, including his trick of firing single rounds into the target, like a rifle, by trigger control.

But it is just about the only "gift" that I can at least think I might have. I sure can not play a musical instrument unless you figure a radio is such.
Ed