It was a hot, still morning when my great uncle Courtney and I arrived at the gun range.

We were the only people there, with seven ranges to choose from. We chose a 100 yard rifle range to sight in the two rifles we’d brought with us: my Ruger .243 bolt-action, and my cousin’s brand new $1500 A17 bolt-action wedding gift. I had the honor of shooting it for the very first time. 

But, before I shot my cousin’s coyote killer, I was eager to sight-in my own rifle, which I hadn’t shot since going to the range with my great uncle Courtney over a year before. The day before going up to Greeley, I’d gone to Walmart and purchased two boxes of Winchester rounds for my rifle (they were expensive, but worth it). That night, I could hardly sleep I was so excited to go to my range and shoot my favorite rifle. Now that I was at the range, my cousin’s A17 could wait for me to get bored of my .243. 

As eager to shoot as I was, I didn’t neglect to go through my strict gun safety check routine. I didn’t take my rifle out of its case till it was already on the concrete table, aimed downrange. As I was taking it out of its case, I made sure to keep the muzzle aimed downrange at all times. And, once the rifle was completely out of its case, I immediately popped out the magazine, opened the chamber, then pulled the bolt out so I could look down the barrel safely. 

“You’re on it this morning!” my great uncle complemented as he set down a box on the next concrete table over. 

“I am!” I nodded, “I’ve got this stuff down to a science!”

Inside the box were a couple pairs of earmuffs, a tripod for the rifle’s barrel, and several leather cornhole bags to help support the rifle on the tripod and against the table. After carefully setting down the rifle on the concrete table, I worked to position the tripod and leather bags to support the rifle’s barrel. Then, great uncle Courtney handed me a staple-gun and two targets to nail to the wooden boards 100 yards away. 

“I think we shot one of these once.” I chuckled while I waved the staple-gun around. 

“Shot one?” great uncle Courtney asked with a scowl. 

“Yeah! Don’t ya remember?” I nodded, “2016 or 2017, we were in North Dakota shooting targets, and we left one of the staple-guns downrange on a tree stump, right below the targets we were shooting.”

“Oh, now I remember!” great uncle Courtney laughed, “We didn’t even know we’d left the staple-gun out there till we went to retrieve our used targets, and I found it on the ground with a bullethole through the handle!”

“I promise I won’t leave this one downrange this time.” I laughed as I began to walk down to the wooden boards, where I stapled two paper targets next to each other.