Before I was tied down one of my favorite weekend afternoon activities was plinking.  Plinking is going out and informally shooting at cans and what not for fun.  They say it’s for fun but it also good practice to develop your shooting skills.  I’d usually bring a few guns to shoot and the rules of the group (mostly family) meant you could borrow what other people had brought.  But I usually spent the majority of my time with one gun.

My favorite plinker was my Browning Buckmark.  This is a 22 LR Pistol.  Ammunition is cheap, it’s accurate, fits well in my hand and it’s a lot of fun. 

I fired thousands of rounds through that gun, how many I don’t know.  I do know that most days I’d go through well more than a brick of 22’s (500 rounds).

Well finally a wear piece on that gun, a plastic buffer, fell apart.  I was going to replace it but about that time I got married, got a house and kids soon came along.  I still got out to shoot a bit, but didn’t get around to getting the parts for my old plinker.

Well now my son’s old enough to learn to shoot.  This year he’s getting really excited about getting out there.  So finally I got around to taking care of the old Buckmark.  A quick check of the Brownell’s website found that my part was available for a reasonable price.  So I ordered a new buffer and a spare as well as the recoil spring assembly.  In less than a week the parts came, I got them installed and this weekend we got a chance to run out to the country where I can shoot.

I don’t consider myself anything more than an adequate shooter, but the muscle memory for that gun came back to me.  The first three shots were on steel.  I can line the gun up and the sights on target.

So we had a great afternoon blowing through a brick of 22’s. 

My son thanked me for taking him shooting.  I had to thank him back for getting me back out there.

What’s your favorite plinker?