I went shooting with my son Saturday and asked him to bring along his Ruger Mark I (although they didn't know it was going to be a "I" when they built it).

We put the target out at 21 feet and he began shooting with the ammo already loaded in the gun's magazine. He shot, gazed at the target, shot again, gazed again, and shot again. He was getting frustrated because he could not see where he had hit the target. No .22 holes in it anywhere.

On top of that, he had to eject each round manually.

He was really beginning to think he was a lousy shot and couldn't hit the target at all.

Finally he pulled the target back in. He scratched his head, and began to wonder what was wrong with the target. There were no .22 sized holes in it, but there were thousands of pin-pricks.

I quickly set him straight. As soon as I saw the pin pricks, I realized he was shooting with Snake Shot.

The cartridges weren't ejecting because this shot was set in overly long shells that was crimped at the end.

Of course, you needn't ask me why I recognized the problem so quickly.

Once we exchanged the rest of the ammo for standard .22 rounds, all went well.

WM