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abunaitoo
02-25-2019, 09:25 PM
Yesterday, after shooting, our gang was talking stories.
Guy rides in to the range on a bicycle.
Starts talking with us.
He's on vacation, riding a bike around the island.
He saw the Shooting range sign, and had to check it out.
He was from Switzerland.
Said he's in the Swiss Special Forces.
He's a Krav Maga instructor.
We asked questions about his firearms, country, if it's true everyone has firearms, along with other things.
Said everyone who wants one, has a firearm.
Military service is mandatory.
He said that it is true that even if they are not in country, and still in the military, they must qualify four time a year with their weapon.
Or an approved weapon.
He asked what we had, and if he could see anything.
I still had my Arisaka Type 30 I hadn't taken to the truck yet.
He was very excited by it.
He has a Sturmgewehr 90 assault rifle, Pistole 75 semi-automatic pistol, and Glock semi-automatic pistol (I think he said FSK-17).
He'd never seen a rifle with wood other than Schmidt Rubin.
His friend was following him in a SUV.
He was from Great Briton, but lives in Italy now.
He a photographer.
Taking pictures of the island while on vacation.
Two nice guys. They love it here. Love the weather. Met lots of good people.
Funny. One of the first things he said was "I'm a Houlei, but everyone treats me so good. I like people here"
They like America, but would never want to live here.
Don't trust our government.
His bicycle was something.
From Swizerland.
So light, could lift it with one hand.
One speed, and not freewheeling. Have to peddle all the time. Can even peddle backwards.
He said it was one of his junk bikes.
We had a nice visit, friend took a bunch of pictures.
Thing really surprised us is, one of our gang spoke German.
Seems he went to school in Europe.
They started talking in German, and the guy seemed to have a good time talking to someone in his own language.
Later friend said there are three dialects spoken in Switzerland. But German is understood by all.
Never know who you'll meet at the shooting range.

country gent
02-25-2019, 09:56 PM
We were canoeing a local river one year ( a yearly trip we made over a 3 day weekend) and had stopped at a little carry out. We met a family of 4 from Switzerland that were visiting in the area and had stopped in. We chatted for awhile and talked. You are right it is interesting to meet up with people from different areas and visit.

dbosman
02-25-2019, 10:04 PM
Meeting people from other countries can be a hoot and or educational.
As baby present one of my wife's friends gave us the British edition of the first Harry Potter book. It wasn't known in the US yet. We guessed as to how some words were pronounced. The next year, while waiting for the Statue of Liberty ferry we met a family from Britten. A bit of chat about what to see in the US led to asking how the words and names were pronounced. It made the book and later ones, more interesting.

lightman
02-25-2019, 10:38 PM
It is indeed interesting to talk with people from different cultures. A member of our small private range is in the contracting business internationally. He brought a bunch of his business contacts over once and we planned a range day. We had as many different types of weapons as we could collect. Everything from a muzzle loader, single actin revolver, lever action rifles, bolt guns, semi autos, a few sub machine guns, a belt fed machine gun and even a 50 BMG bolt gun. All of these guys were wealthy Japanese business men and they had a blast! Each of us manned a specific type of gun, coached them a little and let them shoot it. I bet they took 10,000 pictures!

Tom W.
02-25-2019, 11:41 PM
At the Sheriff's range we get people from Ft. Benning. Sometimes some of them ain't from around here. I've seen rifles that I can't remember the name of but have seen in G&A or other publications.

We also get folks from Georgia. Does that count?

samari46
02-26-2019, 12:54 AM
We host guests 2 allowed by the rules at our range. Heard a rather interesting accent so after doing some shooting I asked if he was from South Africa and he was astounded that someone had recognized the accent. We spent about two hours talking and he got to put downrange a bunch of 45 rounds from my pistol. Frank

pretzelxx
02-26-2019, 01:05 AM
He's smart not to trust the feds. Interesting story. Glad you got to meet an outsider with similar interests!

Sent from my LG-US998 using Tapatalk

EDG
02-26-2019, 02:04 AM
My most interesting person met at the range happened about 1970. I was still in my 20s and this old geezer ( he was maybe 55) was shooting a snub .38 special up the hill at a 200 yard target.
We chatted a little while he enjoyed the long range plinking.
I had noticed his face had a bad scar under his right eye. His head was also scarred and his right ear was disfigured.
Eventually he sai he fought across Europe in WWII. He said he never made it to Germany though. He was half way across the bridge at Remagen when he was shot in the face.

wildwilly
02-26-2019, 03:56 AM
This thread is reminiscent of a time when I was motorcycle camping in Death Valley National Park. I had set up camp in one of the free campgrounds for the evening. Initially, I was the sole camper at the site. But later, two suv's pulled in and set up tents....a noisey bunch apparently speaking in German. What was especially memorable was that they apparently were slugging brewskies all night and having a good time listening to two Johnny Cash cd's.....really going wild, letting out EEE--HAW's when Folsom Prison Blues came up.

robg
02-26-2019, 04:54 AM
IN 1990 were were in le mans for the 24hr bike race camping at the circuit .that night a crowd of germans started singing around the camp fire . the odd part they were singing yellow submarine in English!

Petrol & Powder
02-26-2019, 07:35 AM
There are 4 official languages in Switzerland - German, French, Italian and Romansh.
German and French are the dominant languages used and Romansh is only spoken in some small enclaves in southern Switzerland.

Many Swiss will speak English in addition to at least one of the official languages.

The Swiss are fiercely independent and are not on the Euro, they use the Swiss franc.
They are also not a member of the EU.

They have a high standard of living, excellent education, they do a great deal of trade but have managed to stay out of the EU and they pretty much want to be left alone.

For a small, landlocked country they have done amazingly well.

dverna
02-26-2019, 08:07 AM
At the Grand American I met with a guy from Ireland. He was military, done things he would not share, and on the IRA hit list. Shot with him and his buddy for a few events. They loved shooting here and came over three years in a row....but hated the heat in Sparta...as did I...LOL. Guy was interesting, called himself Jim...not really sure if it was his real name.

Hickory
02-26-2019, 08:22 AM
About 20 some years ago the neighbor had an exchange student from Japan, she was 16 years old and had never been to the US.
One Saturday, she and the neighbors daughter were riding by on bicycles while I was on the range shooting.
within a half hour both girls were shooting and Japanese girl said it was the most fun she had ever had.
She did comment that she heard shooting in the evenings and wondered what the shooting was about and why.
Now, she knew.
5-6 years later, her and her new husband returned to the US to visit their sponsors and I got a call to ask they could come over the next day to shoot.
Not many places to shoot in Japan.

lightman
02-26-2019, 10:53 AM
About 20 some years ago the neighbor had an exchange student from Japan, she was 16 years old and had never been to the US.
One Saturday, she and the neighbors daughter were riding by on bicycles while I was on the range shooting.
within a half hour both girls were shooting and Japanese girl said it was the most fun she had ever had.
She did comment that she heard shooting in the evenings and wondered what the shooting was about and why.
Now, she knew.
5-6 years later, her and her new husband returned to the US to visit their sponsors and I got a call to ask they could come over the next day to shoot.
Not many places to shoot in Japan.

Yeah, in my post about those Japanese business men. Those guys were middle age and wealthy and had never fired a gun. There was one older guy that I suspect may have had military experience. This was in the 90's and he looked to be old enough to have been a WW2 vet.

abunaitoo
02-26-2019, 04:20 PM
We have many, many tourist from Japan.
They know nothing but work, work, work when their home.
So when they vacation here, they try to cram as many activities into the trip as possible.
Once in a while we have a group come to the range to shoot.
The guy who does it is very safety oriented, so no problems with anyone.
Sometimes they look like they just came from the beach.
chinese tourist are another thing.
They act like little children.
Yack, yack, yack.........
Always trying to get away with something.

jonp
02-26-2019, 06:38 PM
he had never seen a weapon without wood...

Did you misunderstand him as the HK MP5 is standard issue among others.

Thumbcocker
02-26-2019, 07:11 PM
There is an old story; don't know if it is true or not. A German General was observing the Swiss army training before the first world war.
He asked the Swiss general how many men Switzerland had under arms. The Swiss general replied "one million. " The German general asked "what would happen if Germany marched 3 million men across the low part of Switzerland to outflank France" the Swiss general replied "my boys would shoot 3 times and go home"

dbosman
02-26-2019, 08:33 PM
I once heard an interesting bit once. European news commentator was talking about weather maps. In Europe they have fractions of weather patterns over a country, where we have multiple weather patterns over our country.

xs11jack
02-26-2019, 09:12 PM
Another Swiss story, some time ago a British lady moved to a Swiss town and after a few years wanted to become a citizen and when she went to file the paper work a bunch of Swiss showed up and told immigration that they did want her for a neighbor because she was loud and talked down at the Swiss. The immigration people handed her back her papers and said she had 90 days to leave the country.
Ole Jack

higgins
02-26-2019, 09:12 PM
I had an interesting conversation at the range once with a fellow who said he had served in the Albanian army in his youth. His strong accent made it believable, as did some of the foreign connections some of the local federal agencies had. He was shooting a civilian AK, which he was thoroughly disappointed with after his experience with the real item. He said the "real ones" were of excellent quality functionally (not necessarily fit and finish) and were not comparable to the civilian AKs civilians here had. I know nothing about AKs so didn't understand some of what he was explaining. I did understand that he was very happy to be in the USA.

country gent
02-26-2019, 11:50 PM
Dad worked with several gentleman who immigrated here very shortly after WWII. I believe a couple were Hungarian. I can remember Dad asking about gold and precious metals as a hedge in those times. The one old guy smiled and said it was worthless what was important was what you could eat and trade or use to eat. Apparently in the conflict he had spent a lot of cold hungry nights.

wch
02-27-2019, 05:06 AM
One of the real benefits of the draft was that so many young men had the opportunity to see parts of the world that they would never have known of if not for Uncle Sam's tour programs.

Hardcast416taylor
02-27-2019, 05:52 AM
Back in the 1950`s a neighbor worked as a welder in an auto plant. There was a tool and die machinest there that had some terrible burn scars on his arms and other places you could see. He spoke broken German and English fairly well the neighbor said. One time at a retirement party the German drank too much and talked about his youth and how he had been burned, he had been in one of the gun turrets on the Bismark with the burns from burning oil as the ship was sinking.Robert

waksupi
02-27-2019, 01:59 PM
I had an interesting conversation at the range once with a fellow who said he had served in the Albanian army in his youth. His strong accent made it believable, as did some of the foreign connections some of the local federal agencies had. He was shooting a civilian AK, which he was thoroughly disappointed with after his experience with the real item. He said the "real ones" were of excellent quality functionally (not necessarily fit and finish) and were not comparable to the civilian AKs civilians here had. I know nothing about AKs so didn't understand some of what he was explaining. I did understand that he was very happy to be in the USA.

The problem with most AK47's in this country is the gas rod. Most are made US compliant by trained monkeys with no knowledge of firearms. When I worked in a shop doing this stuff, I saw that most of the operating rods were very crooked, resulting in poor function. I would whack them on the bench top a couple times to straighten them, and the problem went away.

Shopdog
02-28-2019, 06:48 AM
About 30? years ago I was at Clark bros. in Warrenton Va shooting while wifey was shopping or some such. This was at a time in life that I was shooting revolvers everyday. Had a cpl ranges at home. Was going through cast bullets like candy.

So,am killing time and paper at their range and this older gentleman comes up to me and starts talking.Turns out he's some big wig in the FBI,out farting around on a Saturday. Hands me his J frame and says try it... long story short,I RIP off a cylinder full dbl action and cuts a single ragged hole at the 7yd line. Politely open the cyl and hand it back to him,"yeah nice rig". The look on his face was priceless,haha.

woodbutcher
02-28-2019, 04:22 PM
:D Over the years,I have had the privilege of meeting many fine people at the range.From the guy on the street to active LEOS,veterans and real shooters that were active competitors.Two of the most interesting were two WW2 vets from the German army when I had my 98 Mauser out,and they wanted to check it out.It was marked 1918 as the build year.We had a most enjoyable time.They remarked on the great condition of the rifle,and how well it shot.They also enjoyed the 1903a3 that I had out that day.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

edp2k
02-28-2019, 06:12 PM
he had never seen a weapon without wood...

Did you misunderstand him as the HK MP5 is standard issue among others.

Never saw a MP5 with wood.
Got a link?

Green Frog
03-01-2019, 12:37 PM
There is an old story; don't know if it is true or not. A German General was observing the Swiss army training before the first world war.
He asked the Swiss general how many men Switzerland had under arms. The Swiss general replied "one million. " The German general asked "what would happen if Germany marched 3 million men across the low part of Switzerland to outflank France" the Swiss general replied "my boys would shoot 3 times and go home"

Apparently the Japanese didn’t have to ask. A similar story I heard many years ago related that when asked why they didn’t invade the American mainland during WW II, a Japanese general said something to the effect that they expected an American with a gun behind every blade of grass... the risk far outweighed the reward.

Compare this to the British government, who after ignoring the lessons of WW I, had to beg for any guns and ammo they could scrounge (from the US) to pursue WW II. “Those who don’t learn from History...” :wink:

Froggie

Thumbcocker
03-01-2019, 02:00 PM
That quote was attributed to Admiral Yamamoto who also said "I fear that we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve." A fact not widely known about the Admiral is that he had spent years in the U.S. He studied photography at a school in Effingham Illinois. He had a good grasp of the American character.

woodbutcher
03-01-2019, 04:11 PM
:D Yep.And if IIRC,he also attended Harvard.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

tmax64
03-02-2019, 11:13 AM
A lot of years ago I was going to shoot a couple of rounds of skeet at the Peterson AFB range. Older gentleman there watched me shoot the 1st round (I was a horrible shot with a shotgun, like 7-8 hits bad) and he came over and asked if he could shoot the next round with me. After the first shot he asked if I minded him giving me a few pointers and I said "of course, I need all the help I can get." With his help I broke 17 that round and 18-19 the next with him. Turns out he was the Olympic coach for the US skeet team at the time. Don't remember his name but he showed me his "9-iron"shot. He flipped a golf ball up in the air and hit it and drove almost out of site. He helped me more in 30 minutes with a shotgun that everyone else in my life.

PB234
03-02-2019, 11:39 AM
We were in Switzerland for our Honeymoon in the 1970s. Stopped at a sidewalk cafe for coffee. at the next table were a couple young guys in Swiss Army uniforms with their girlfriends. Their machine gun (not an assault rifle) was on the ground by their feet. No big deal. Just stopped for a coffee and placed the machine gun next to them on the ground. Beautiful country with proud citizens.