[Jeff Higgins]

As some of you may know, I like to entertain myself with a bit of shooting every now and then. Last Sunday was no different, so I set forth to my local club range with a couple of favorite rifles in tow.

When I arrived, there was no shortage of shooters in attendance. I thought for a moment I had stumbled into a benchrest match... everyone had adjustable rifle rests, plastic stocks, and scopes rivaling the Hubble itself. So I set up with my Ruger #1 in .375 H&H, looking to zero a newly mounted Skinner peep sight. Waiting in the rack for its turn was my trusty '74 Sharps in .45-2.6, awaiting its trial with a couple of new bullets.

At the next ceasefire, while walking to the target stands to staple up our targets, one of the younger benchresters started making the usual small talk:

"Watcha shootin'?"
"Ruger #1 in .375 H&H."
"Whazzat?"
"The rifle or the caliber?"
"Both - I never heard of either. Some kind of antique get-up?"
"Well, uh, no - it's a modern single shot, and the .375 is the father of all belted mags, and still one of the very best if you are at all concerned about the reaction of what you're shooting at."
"What's a 'belted mag'? How come it doesn't have a scope?"

Anyway, you get the gist - he had no idea what I had, had never heard of any of it. It got even better when I showed him the Sharps and tried to explain black powder and cast bullets. He quite honestly had no idea what I was talking about.

He was shooting an off-the-shelf Remington 700 heavy barreled .308 varmint rifle with some Miopta 30+ power scope. He was shooting well under .25 MOA groups - 10 shot groups, not these pansy 3 or 5 shot groups. Good shooter, really nice guy, who knew what was going on in his game, but had absolutely no idea about anything I had. I guess I found that a bit remarkable. I had never run into that before.