Had lots of handguns, rifles, shotguns. And a 3 pounder cannon.

Reloaded his own shotgun shells (I helped him once).

He almost killed himself (luckily the bullet just grazed his index finger) once when he was cleaning his rifles and a rifle that he was sure was unloaded actually wasn't...

:-/

One summer during college I visited him and he took me and a friend out to shoot his handguns at a friend of his farm in the country where they had a backstop made of railroad ties.

44 Magnum, 45, and a few other things.

We had hearing protection, so I don't know how loud they were.

Yeah, they're big, heavy, well-balanced machines. And one can see the appeal.

But, man, are they dangerous!

We were maybe 50 feet from the backstop? I shot the 44 and the slug came flying back at us and landed at my feet. It was all mangled and spread out into a jagged sculpture maybe 2" wide. We backed up another 10-20 feet.

I shot another gun and once nothing happened. Pulled the trigger again, nothing. My uncle very carefully took the gun from my hand and unloaded it and we buried the dud shell. I don't know how common delayed explosions are and am very glad we didn't find out.

And we heard later that his friends' parents were upset because our shots were flying over the backstop and coming close to their house (apparently because the gun sights weren't "dialed in")....

And that was just an hour or so in the country with a guy who knew what he was doing!

Be careful, please. :-)

Best wishes,
Scott.