Ms. Weiss sent an email containing our TTAG exclusive link to her latest trick shot. TTAG’s resident marksperson wondered if she appeared too cocky in this episode. (Humility. Gotta love it. Especially mine.) Nope. All I see here is woman in the prime of her life celebrating the fun of shooting. Of getting it right: stance, grip, sightline, aim, breathing and trigger squeeze. It’s a feeling all shooters experience at some point in their journey. It doesn’t depend on personal or relative accomplishment, although those are important measures of progress. It’s about surrendering yourself to the moment. Of shooting and nothingness. And then joy! We admire and share your pleasure Ms. Weiss. As the old Zen expression advises, we don’t mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon. Or something like that. [Click here to visit Kirsten’s website and view her trick shot canon.]

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68 COMMENTS

    • The jumping around at the end was great. Say what you will about the “absolute skill level” not being terribly high, the enthusiasm certainly isn’t feigned.

  2. Christ, Robert. Stop gushing like a 15 year-old schoolboy. It’s embarrassing.

    And she ain’t in her prime yet, not by a good ways.

  4. I agree – there was no cockiness at all I thought – just someone really excited about making a tough shot. Only feedback would be – give a little more info – how far away was the pencil, what sort of gun/scope/ammo did you use, etc. Some folks out there (not me by the way) may want to try and duplicate some of these trick shots and it’d be nice to let them know what they need to do. Great job and a way safer thing to try at home than the last one.

      • Not necessarily.

        You could go a long way there by buying a used Annie or other high-end target .22.

        I saw a Win52D with aperture sights on a gun show table this past weekend for $1K. The lock time won’t be what the Annie 5018 trigger gets you, but you’d be a long, long way there over other rifles in that price range.

        Or, you could look for used Annie 54-based action rifles out there. The stock that Ms. Weiss is using is a fair sum of money above and beyond the rifle’s action/barrel/sight package itself, but you can find adjustable stocks for 54-based actions as well.

  8. Damn she’s cute, wish more girls had an attitude towards shooting like her. Id like to see here do that rapidly pencil to pencil to pencil, in a row.

  10. What was the distance, 25-30 yards? Standing, offhand shot. No shooting jacket. No sling. Just a girl and a rifle. Ok, it is a WONDERFUL rifle. Still a heck of a shot. Kristen is clearly a babe, but her joy at making the shot and the look on her face… that makes her simply adorable. You know you have moved into a whole different world when seeing this video I think, ahhh. she’s adorable… just like my daughter.

    Damn, but being at the upper end of middle years continues to surprise me.

      • That matches my estimate from watching her walk from her shooting position to the target in both this video and the last.

        • I simply don’t care about the details. I know I sure couldn’t do it. She obviously can, has a good time at it, and is providing a role model for young women in the shooting sports.

          More power to her!

        • Yeah it looks like 10-12 paces (probably 30 feet). Just aiming at the teeny tip of a pencil at 30 feet through diopter sights can’t be easy… you definitely can’t actually see the graphite point and I’m not sure I could really see the bare wood part that clearly either (if I could really make it out at all). Plus, holding a rifle steady enough to peg it is a trick in itself.

  14. I would be impressed if it was five feet and she had been in a prone position. Great shot especially with the wind. Was the rifle a 22LR or an air rifle? Didn’t sound like a 22.

    • I’m thinking .22LR. Guns don’t sound nearly the same on video or film, because of the inherent qualities of microphones: the impulse rises in volume faster then the mic can record; so it sounds very much clipped-off.

    • Anschuetz .22LR, single-shot, no magazine. I’m guessing from what I’ve observed in the videos it’s probably a Model 1907, with some additions.

      • I always referred to them as ‘Anschutz,” but it seems that ‘Anschuetz’ is the correct spelling in English. I got pretty good with them when I was teaching Rifleshooting merit badge, but never that good.

        • In German, an umlaut over any of “a,” “o,” or “u” is the same as an “e” that follows the vowel in question.

          The umlaut comes about because in old German script, the “e” looks like our cursive lower case “u,” which lead people to putting the “e” (written as our “u”) over the vowels that needed a following “e” when they forgot it. This became shortened to something that looks like our double-quote, then it became two dots. It isn’t just a pronunciation change, but an actual change of spelling to omit the umlaut. Since I’m too lazy to double-bucky-shift to get an umlaut on my typing, I just put in the [very] old fashioned following “e.”

  16. (I will not joke about the “just the tip”…I will not joke…dammit!) Sigh…I know it’s gratuitous and dumb, but I couldn’t not do it.

    Very fine shooting. I didn’t see cockiness, I just saw someone having fun. When you make a great shot, you’d better celebrate it.

    Keep these videos coming! They’re a lot of fun to watch.

    • One new trick shot a week, plus another random post here and there, out of (conservatively) 85+ other posts?

      You would prefer more Bloomberg/Obama/Feinstein?

      • “You would prefer more Bloomberg/Obama/Feinstein?” Pfff..Hel no
        Wondering if there’s some more (like -in addition to) kids (that’s how I see her – shrug) that are skilled in guns and “hip” /whatever the “in” term is these days…kids are driven to be popular and finding others that are skilled/accomplished in marksmanship might be a good opportunity to expand the popularity of sport and culture before they get into college…but it will take more than just KW.

        And since you mentioned “MB,BO,DF”…lets have no more of them just before meal time or especially before bed time…the humanity

      • I would prefer that Obama never got elected, and that I’d never see an image of Feinstein’s face again. Actually, I think KJW is the polar opposite of Feinstein. One is young, attractive, vivacious, pleasant, and respects freedom. The other one is…not so much on all counts.

  19. The beauty of posting videos of trick shots is the public only sees the one that worked 🙂

    Not like it matters. For RF she could just hold a gun, any gun, and that would be enough.

      • Yep, definitely the first shot. Like most (all?) of my trick shots, I have no clue if I can actually do it. I just get an idea in my head and go for it, on camera. I try to be as real as possible, thats why I’ve included times where I haven’t made it exactly on the first shot. Its boring (and misleading) to act like you’re perfect, IMO. And people can’t relate. Including me. But it really is grand when everything works out smoothly. I don’t expect everyone to believe the # of times, or even understand the distances/difficulties/etc. But that is okay with me. I’m more pumped by the idea of people seeing someone do it, and it sparking a desire to try shooting (the safe ones) as well. Portraying shooting in its strong positive light and all that 🙂 http://kirstenjoyweiss.com/sharp-shots/

        • Not being sure if you can do it is what brings the joy, the elation, to it when it works out. Like sinking a 3/4-court basketball, to name one, or all the fantastic trick shots you see on YT, although you can’t be sure which ones are first tries and which aren’t, of course.

          Decades ago, I swished a 3/4-court basket, but with a Frisbee, but it was every bit as elating. One try. Puts a bit of a glow on the day, for sure.

        • Thanks for posting this Kirsten! Definitely some good shooting in your vids.

          Now if you can try shooting an apple on top of someone’s head, preferably those naysayers and non-believers.. Lol

  20. Geez, some of you folks need to lighten up a bit. I enjoyed the video, shot, ending, everything. And why hell, I might even give it a try myself. I’ll have to make it a BIG eraser since I only have a 10/22 and a Savage MkII, but what the hell, I need the practice.

    Tom

  21. Don’t get me wrong, I love KW… but RF, if you are going to promote her videos this much, you should at least make her wear TTAG gear in them…. like ENDO.

    • “This much”? Once a week for three weeks is (by your implication) “too much”? It’s a young person exhibiting the joy of shooting. And marksmanship. Of the opposite persuasion, even.

      If you don’t like it, no one’s forcing you to watch. Just skip past. More bandwidth for me.

  22. She was shooting at something? I’m sorry, I must have lost focus when I saw the shape of her bod at 0:22.

  24. Is it really cockiness if you can do something a loooooooot of other people can’t? The old saying, I believe, is “It ain’t bragging if you can do it” or something like that.

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