Photo TR: Dorney Park and a trip to the shooting range

[Tanks4me05]

For Memorial Day weekend, I went down to visit my uncle who lives about 20 minutes from Dorney Park. Since my parents do not permit guns in the house (I must wait until I have an apartment of my own, so that will be at least three years; my mom trusts me with them, but since her best friend's brother died in a hunting accident when she was a teen, she's been scarred by that) my only "regular" encounters with going to a range for the next three or four years will be when I visit my uncle. Seeing as people put non-coaster related stuff in their TR's on occasion, I thought "why not do a photo TR with some guns as well?"

 

Since it takes way too much time, I'm only going to tidy up the best photos I take at the end of the year and I will repost said favorites.

 

 

---Prelude: Some cool shots I took driving down---

 

 

Driving down I-81 south, between Cortland and Binghamton, NY. I always thought that this route was really pretty.

 

 

 

 

Some more shots, taken a few miles up ahead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a good one. This will be one that will be doctored up at the end of the season.

 

 

 

 

 

 

---fun with guns!--- (This will also be geared towards those who aren't as experienced with guns.)

 

 

SUPER F***ING IMPORTANT WARNING!!! THIS IS A LOT OF TEXT, AND IT IS OBNOXIOUS IN CAPS AND STUFF, BUT IF YOU ARE INEXPERIENCED WITH GUNS AND DECIDE TO BEGIN SHOOTING, READ CAREFULLY AND TAKE THIS TO HEART! IF YOU EVER GO SHOOTING, REMEMBER THE FOUR MOST BASIC RULES:

 

 

1: ALWAYS KEEP THE GUN POINTED IN A SAFE DIRECTION. Right at someone is obviously stupid, but pointing up is just as bad, because it will then act like a mini artillery round; even a tiny .22LR can go over a mile and a half and still kill someone. Obviously, no one has perfect 360 degree vision to see if anything within a few miles is living or not, so don't point up in the air!

 

2: ALWAYS KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER UNTIL YOU ARE READY TO SHOOT. For some guns, particularly higher quality ones and most revolvers, it takes very little force to pull the trigger. All those news articles of guns "accidentally going off" are bullsh*t. A gun cannot go off unless the trigger is pressed somehow, either by a careless finger, something else that's also in the pocket, etc.

 

3: ALWAYS KEEP THE GUN UNLOADED UNTIL READY TO USE. Self explanatory.

 

4: KNOW YOUR TARGET AND WHAT IS BEHIND IT. Even pistol caliber bullets can go through houses. You need something strong enough to stop the bullet, like a large mound of dirt.

 

(Other rules as posted by the NRA, equally as important, but aren't the four most-talked about ones.)

 

5: KNOW HOW TO SAFELY OPERATE THE GUN. Know its basic parts, how to remove ammunition, how to operate the safety. ***SAFETIES ARE NEVER FOOLPROOF. ALWAYS TREAT THE GUN WITH RESPECT EVEN WITH THE SAFETY ON.***

 

6: MAKE SURE THE GUN IS IN A GOOD PHYSICAL CONDITION TO OPERATE. Guns encounter super high temperatures, pressures, and forces. Therefore, the parts need to be very precisely made, and in very good condition. Make sure the gun is free of dirt, rust, holes that shouldn't exist, etc.

 

7: WEAR EAR AND EYE PROTECTION. After repeated use, guns can cause a lot of hearing damage. (In an "echo-ey indoor room, a lot of hearing damage after one shot.) The high temperature gases and particles coming out of the gun can really ruin your eyes. And with some guns, particularly revolvers, small pieces of bullet can be sheared off because the barrel isn't *perfectly* aligned with the chamber, and these shards of lead, copper, etc. can go through your eye at nearly the speed of the bullet going forward, pierce your brain and kill you.

 

8: NEVER USE ALCOHOL, OVER THE COUNTER, PRESCRIPTION OR ILLEGAL DRUGS BEFORE OR WHILE SHOOTING. Like a car, it's downright stupid trying to operate machinery as dangerous as that when you are impaired.

 

9: STORE GUNS SO THEY ARE NOT ACCESSIBLE TO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONS. There are a lot of safety devices, like trigger locks, safes, etc. to keep guns secure and away from people that shouldn't have them (children, robbers, general idiots, etc.) so please purchase them and use them when you're not using the gun. And remember, like any other device, it can fail, so pay attention.

 

10: CLEAN YOUR GUN. To make absolutely sure that it is safe, guns should be cleaned after every use, and before use if you haven't used them in a while. Accumulated dirt, solidified grease or oil, etc. can screw over the gun. At best your gun might not fire. At worst, your gun could blow up in your face and some part can go backwards and kill you.

 

10B: BEFORE YOU CLEAN, MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE YOUR GUN IS UNLOADED AND NO AMMO IS NEAR CLEANING PRODUCTS. Self explanatory.

 

 

 

Guns are like cars: If you are stupid with them, if you don't pay attention at all times when you or people near you are using them, they can be incredibly dangerous, killing you, a bunch of people around you, and mess up a whole load of valuable property. But if you treat them with respect and always remain alert, guns--like cars--can be very safe, very reliable, very useful, very fun, (and very expensive.)

 

Now that that's out of the way, on to the TR!

 

 

 

 

Here's the first of my uncle's two guns, a .22LR Beretta NEOS with a 6" barrel. I shot this one before.

 

 

 

 

...And the other one, a Smith & Wesson M&P9mm, with flashlight/laser combo attached; this is his home defense gun.

 

 

 

 

Eine Liebe, zwei Pistolen.

 

 

 

 

Just playing around with some different poses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"FPS View" of the M&P.

 

 

 

 

Awwwwwww, they're kissing.

 

 

 

 

Here's my uncle with the NEOS.

 

 

 

 

Closeup, kinda blurry though. I normally would have trashed this photo, but I didn't have a lot of photos from the range, so I kept it.

 

 

 

 

Here's my first time doing 50 feet with the NEOS, five rounds (one went off the page.) Overall, pretty consistent, save for that one flyer. He also had it sighted for 25 feet and forgot to bring his sight adjusting tools along. For those who are not well-versed with guns, "sighting" the gun means adjusting the sights so that they are at the aligned when your gun is actually pointing up slightly, so at a certain distance, the ballistic trajectory of the bullets will actually be at the same level of the muzzle, if your technique is good enough; that's called "elevation." "Windage" is for compensating for the wind, so the gun points off to the left or the right a bit to compensate for the wind.

 

 

 

 

Again, some more lessons for the uninitiated with guns (I admit, I have only gone to a range four times, including the two times that I took photos for this TR, but what I lack in first hand experience, I make up for it by doing my homework, and a LOT of it)

 

This is a .22LR bullet (LR standing for "long rifle") - probably one of the cheapest bullets you can find at roughly $0.04 apiece. Looks tiny, right? Yeah it is. But it sure is deadly. Wanna know what almost killed Reagan? a .22LR. What was the Mafia's favorite caliber? The .22LR; they liked it because it's quieter and its low velocity actually makes it more deadly; it has more than enough to pierce the body, but not always to go all the way through someone. What it usually ends up doing is it ends up ricocheting around a lot inside. So instead of one small hole (like there would be if it went faster) you get four or five small holes, and many more broken bones from said ricochets.

 

 

 

 

My turn.

 

 

 

Closeup of me.

 

 

 

 

Closeup of my uncle shooting the M&P.

 

 

 

 

Me shooting the M&P at 16 feet, or defensive shooting range. Though handguns can be shot at 50+ yards depending on the model, the vast majority of handgun fights are inside of 20 feet, so you have very little time to react given those situations.

 

 

 

 

First time shooting at 16 feet, and I have my hand out for reference. (I started off at 25 feet though and then went up.) After my first time with a 9mm, I have to say that it had a LOT more recoil than I expected, it felt a lot closer to what I expected a .45 ACP to feel like (not to say that I didn't like it though.) So when you are starting out with handguns, start off with .22LR's, as they are cheap, much easier to handle, and there is still plenty of recoil in them to make it feel like you have something more powerful than an airsoft gun. So, after 30 or so rounds, I'm already shooting better than my uncle who has owned this gun for almost a year and has probably put a couple thousand rounds through it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, NOW time for some roller coasters! The weather was really crappy though; clouds for most of the day so a lot of the shots weren't as good as they could be, and it rained like crazy in the afternoon.

 

 

 

 

New skyline! I miss Laser though. At least it has a new home in Germany, unlike the fate of many Schwarzkopfs recently.

 

 

 

 

Some parking lot shots as I was walking to the entrance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Double train shot!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This...

 

 

 

 

...is gonna...

 

 

 

 

...suck.

 

 

 

 

If you're happy and you know it, clap your--- oh. Sorry.

 

 

 

 

Finally in the park. Weather still sucks though, as you see.

 

 

 

 

Yay, Talon got a new coat of paint! Or was that last year? Can't remember.

 

 

 

 

Still a great coaster as ever.

 

 

 

 

wahooooooooooooooosh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love the sign. Not as good as Voodoo's though (screw it, I like that name better.)

 

 

 

 

And #160... cha-ching! But in all honesty, I feel sorry for you guys over in NorCal, because I thought that this was fantastic. (Just keep your head back like the ride ops say and it's a lot smoother.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saw this as I was getting out of the bathroom. E-Stop or idiot with a cell phone? My guess is the latter because I saw that at least three times today

 

 

 

 

Too bad the clouds were here, because this would have otherwise been a really nice shot. Listen, I love my home city of Syracuse NY, but the cloud is something I *DON'T* miss.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a few shots of Thunderhawk here. The ending would have been better if they took out the stupid trim at the end. To be fair, it needs the ones at the beginning of the turns, though, as even with them the climb up the third hill is taken painfully fast if you're in the front. Otherwise, it's a really good, solid ride, relatively smooth, probably around HP's Comet or Predator (now that it finally got Voyage's old trains.)

 

 

 

 

This is the pain hill I was talking about earlier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now it's time to check out Dinosaurs Alive. I was skeptical about a generic themed park putting in a themed attraction like this because it was so out of place, but I was nevertheless willing to give it a chance. It's an upcharge for $5, but no staff are hurrying you along (though several are along the route to make sure you're not doing anything stupid and to answer questions) and you can actually loop around and go around the route as many times as you want before entering the gift shop (beyond the gates at that point, your ticket is then considered void.) Although I still think it's out of place, it was actually pretty well done. The dinosaurs were fairly detailed, and I forgot that they actually were animatronic; there's a sensor shaped like a little floor light or mosquito torch that senses when people walk by (my guess to save power). The details on them were pretty sweet, and for two or three of them there had consoles so you could control the dinosaurs yourself, which I though was a cool feature. You could move their tails, heads and jaws, legs, arms, necks, and even lungs! Though IMO the programmers could have put in a little more effort and made it so that you could run more than one of the movements at a time. I actually had a fun time with this and did three laps before I left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At least we now have some cool new views of Steel Force.

 

 

 

 

And Voodoo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holy crap, that's big.

 

 

 

 

"Lookin' at me? I sure am looking at you alright. I'm feeling... horny."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DP is now partially approved by Robb. (Hey, less lines for me; I personally love the place.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apparently, this one is called the Irritator... why the heck was it named that?

 

 

 

 

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh... now I get it. You see that would be the cool thing about being a scientist, because you get to name stuff. You know with subatomic particles, you have hadrons, leptons, baryons, etc? Well I want to be a physicist and discover a new subatomic particle with magnetic-like properties. That way, I can name it the Clingon.

 

 

 

 

Hey, wait a second... could it be?????

 

 

 

 

YES!!!!! IT'S FINALLY SUNNY!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinosaur. Totally haven't seen one of those before.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In all seriousness, when we get to the point where we can genetically recreate dinosaurs, (won't be for a long time, but I'm confident we'll get there) a Dinosaur zoo would actually be really possible and safe if built correctly. The only issues are that you'd need to build tall enough enclosures for the carnivores with thick reinforced concrete walls, where guests walk on top, and guard towers will be about with a tranquilizer rifle and an antitank rifle in case crazy stuff happens, and maybe a safari with the herbivores.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And for the grand finale, a pair of full-grown T-Rex's. Yeah. They're big.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I might as well give my opinion on Steel Force now that I have had so many pictures of it by now: I actually enjoy this ride quite a bit. It's not necessarily in the top tier of rides, but it is still a lot of fun, and has a pretty good deal of moderate airtime, like a B&M hyper on the more intense, slightly rougher (but not that bad) side. Definitely worth a few rides.

 

 

 

 

There was potential for a four train shot here, but I didn't feel like waiting what could have been a long time. I've been here for probably four hours and only got on three rides, so I decided to start riding more.

 

 

 

Some more shots of Thunderhawk. Not many people pay attention to it, so I'm giving it some love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Such an amazing amount of airtime on this ride. It still doesn't get that much of a line over here, but it is nevertheless a fantastic ride and I'm happy that it is still here. Second favorite style drop tower short of the Larson and ARM models.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't worry Hydra, I didn't forget about you. This is actually much better than most of you guy say it is. Dominator still is the best floorless out there, I agree, but this ride is NOT forceless, actually has a sizable pop of air going down the first drop, the hang time in the Jo Jo roll is impressive, and it is still one of B&M's most unique creations. Don't skip out on it if you are here.

 

 

 

 

Then about two hours of HARD rain the sun finally came out so I took some pictures of Talon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No sepia effects, just playing with exposure. I got really lucky with the angle to achieve that effect.

 

By now, it was actually sunny, but there were still clouds over us that were dumping rain. Sun showers, I think they are called. Strange phenomenon, but it pisses me off when I'm at a park.

 

 

 

 

(30 - 45 minutes later)

 

Come on, don't rain out on us again...

 

 

 

 

YAY!!!!!! FINALLY.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Decided to give Hydra some more love.

 

 

 

 

Didn't want to bother with the line for this one, thanks to its legendary two adult rule.

 

 

 

 

Going through my final rounds through the park, making sure I could get some sunset pics and a few more rides.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Camp Snoopy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yay, new paint! I like that this place is still getting a pretty good deal of love.

 

 

 

 

I didn't go on it because I was feeling a little sick to my stomach as I walked past it, but I still took a couple pictures of it for the appreciation of the classic that it is. A really fun, cute, classic ride.

 

 

 

 

Overall, it's kept in a very good condition.

 

 

 

 

Now over to the southwest corner of the park one last time.

 

 

 

 

Stinger... THROUGH THE TREES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Haven't heard that one in a while, huh?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And for the finale...

 

 

Steel Force has a maintenance ball!!!!

 

 

Epilogue: After preparing to leave the park at 9:45, the car stalled in the parking lot, and I saw that the battery went down the pooper. I noticed that the dashboard lights were on, but I figured that that wouldn't be the issue because that's nothing big. I tried calling my dad twice (as we both drove down) but he didn't answer. After waiting about ten minutes I called a third time, and he explained to me that he was on the phone as my sister was telling him that she just got engaged (I approve; her boyfriend is a super nice guy) I eventually hatched the idea to go over to a park employee to see where he could point me as it was only about 10:30 by this point. He led me to the Lost and Found person who called a maintenance/security guy that helped jump the car. By about 11:00 he finally got the car started, I had to sign a few papers for liability issue (apparently they've had to do this a lot before) and I was off to my uncle's house for the night before returning home the next morning. All in all a good three day trip, and hopefully it might hold me over long enough to last until New Hotness.

Edited June 2, 2012 by Tanks4me05

[imawesome1124]

I approve of the guns part of this TR, and the coasters part too.

 

My friend has probably one of the coolest revolvers you've ever seen. It's a Wild West era .22 revolver with a black barrel and a mother-of-pearl grip. I haven't shot it yet but he claims its louder than his 7.62mm rifle. It's surprisingly heavy too, I've held it and it probably weighs at least 10 pounds. He also has a gold-plated engraved authentic Winchester 1892 rifle(At least I think it's a '92).

[Intimidator305]

Awesome photos. Dorney Park is a very underrated amusement park in my opinion. They don't have the best rides that's for sure, but they definitely have some good ones (especially Talon)!

 

For what they are, Dorney Park did a good job with Stinger and Dinosaurs Alive... They look pretty good.

[Tanks4me05]

^^There's no way a .22LR revolver can be louder than a 7.62mm rifle. Look at the discrepancy in the amount of propellants between the two rounds. The only way a .22LR can be louder is if you hook a megaphone to someone firing said weapon. But otherwise, I am intrigued with your friend's luxurious preferences.

[KDCOASTERFAN]

Awesome photos. Dorney Park is a very underrated amusement park in my opinion. They don't have the best rides that's for sure, but they definitely have some good ones (especially Talon)!

 

For what they are, Dorney Park did a good job with Stinger and Dinosaurs Alive... They look pretty good.

 

Much like in the SFDK thread not all of the pics are loading for me.

[Tanks4me05]

^I don't know why the pictures wouldn't load. They are all JPEG's.

[imawesome1124]

^^There's no way a .22LR revolver can be louder than a 7.62mm rifle. Look at the discrepancy in the amount of propellants between the two rounds. The only way a .22LR can be louder is if you hook a megaphone to someone firing said weapon. But otherwise, I am intrigued with your friend's luxurious preferences.

Keep in mind that the barrel for the .22 is about 6 inches and the 7.62 is about 30. I don't know how it works either. He says he needs earplugs for the revolver but not the 7.62mm.

 

He (actually his family) also has 4 shotguns, 3 .22 rifles, and a .17 varminter. He plans to go into the military after next year and once he gets out he's becoming a 2nd Amendment lobbyist, hopefully overturn some of the stupid, pointless legislations in MD and VA.