Stephanie, Windsor, and I recently went shooting with a couple instructors from Athena Advantage, a company that regularly brings clients out to shooting ranges for “elite firearm training” and education in long range marksmanship (oooh!), tactical rifles (wow, so intense), using handguns, and self defense (for the latter two, ladies-specific versions are also offered).
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Me sniping a long range target!
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The Athena Advantage instructors are all former special forces and SWAT members and many of them have faced off against some rather dangerous enemies in combat. For that reason, they prefer to maintain a low public profile and would rather not have their names published here.  But I will tell you that they were actually super easygoing guys that made us feel really safe as we were handling military grade weapons :)
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Here’s a list of the weapons we shot with:
- AR-15 (5.56mm) rifle with an ACOG 4×32 optical scope. It’s the semi-automatic version of the military M4 rifle.
- Walther PPK (James Bond’s gun of choice)
- Beretta 92 (the standard military issued sidearm)
- Smith & Wesson “Military & Police” model in .40 caliber
I should mention that although the nature of Athena Advantage‘s business involves handling extremely dangerous weapons, and letting clients handle them, the precautions taken to ensure utmost safety at the shooting range as well as everyone’s attitude of respect rather than entertainment toward the weapons (both by our instructors and the other sportsmen at the range) made us feel a lot better about participating.
Stephanie and I had never been shooting before, so we were literally trembling as we were handling the guns for the first time. By the end of the day, we had made some progress…the pictures below should tell the story! Move over Angelina, it’s time for the Her Campus founders to star in this summer’s action blockbuster!
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Windsor and I even ended up getting a couple bulls eyes! Here’s Windsor with her best target sheet.
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They do call us “Charlie’s Angels,” after all!
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All in all, it was a very exciting and educational field trip for the three of us! Plus, we got the baddest photos of us ever out of it!
Here’s a quick video recap of our day at the range – watch us in action!!
If you’re interested in having your own adventure in shooting, check out the Athena Advantage website, as their classes are offered in a number of cities around the country!