Target Shooting Thread, If Anyone Interested
 

I’ve been trying to get into target shooting, and am finding lots and lots that I don’t know, but that some of you do.

So I thought we could have a thread on the activity of noisily making holes in paper.

The only shooting I do is killing paper.

I've never been interested in target shooting, except for zeroing in my rifles. I had plenty of ground squirrels to practice on until I got rid of most of them. Just saw a coyote our of the window a few minutes ago. Have to say I thought of some target practice then.

Some folks do target shooting like a contest. Very slow, deliberate shots from very expensive pistols designed for max accuracy. Others shoot with their EDC pistols to practice and stay sharp in case of the need to defend themselves.

Also, unless you live way out there, the range is the only place you can shoot without getting a visit from LEOs responding to neighbors claiming there is a gun battle down the street...

Nothing I own is in the high dollar marksman category. I do have one or two like my Ruger 45 Colt that is just for fun. When I first started shooting, I would take home the targets and compare to previous outings to see if I was getting better.

I enjoy killing paper and hope I never have to use the skills learned to do self defense.

I did the complete NRA 50 foot light rifle thing when I was in high school and I often think about picking up something like that again. Lots of fun! I wish your thread some good luck!

I grew up as a kid on a farm, and we used to shoot cans and cans full of BBs, pellets, and .22. It was what we did every single day. You'd get an ass whoopin' if you did any damage to any property, though. We made dirt embankments, wood backstops, etc and would entertain ourselves by shooting discarded metal containers and such.

I’m using the NRA 50 ft pistol slow fire target. The 9 ring is 1.54” diameter, the 7 ring is 3.07” diameter. From dead center to the edge of the 9 ring is about 9 MOA, to the edge of the 7 ring is about 17.5 MOA. So I figure the difference between scoring 9 and scoring 7 is roughly 0.15 degrees of barrel angle - call it 2 tenths of a degree.

My eyesight is awful but the red dot optic mostly addresses that. With the optic, shooting my .22 one-handed, after a couple weeks of practice, what I observed was that about 10% of my shots are inside the 9 ring, about 80% are in the 8 and 7 rings, and about 10% are way out there in 6 or lower rings (the white part of the target). Hmm, that is *worse* than a random distribution!

Since I’m mostly putting the shots in an annulus (donut) centered on the bulleye, I theorize that I am probably aiming more or less accurately at the bullseye, but when I pull the trigger I’m throwing the shots off, and in all directions (that 80% is pretty evenly distributed between high, low, left, right).

So I think I need to work the most on my trigger pull. And that’s about where I am. I haven’t figured out a clear or consistent pattern for what I’m doing wrong or what I need to do. I’m just trying different things with each range trip, looking for the pattern.

Squeezing the trigger very smoothly and slowly seems to help. Bracing the tip of my finger on the edge of the left grip and squeezing the trigger with the first joint of my finger seems to help.

If I take too long on the shot, it seems to hurt. My aim seems steadiest between about 5 seconds and 15 seconds, after that it wobbles more.

I had initially thought the process should be sequential: aim then squeeze. But doing them at the same time - aiming while squeezing - sometimes works better. The few bullseyes I manage are usually when I’m doing that. Conversely, it sometimes produces the most awful flyers.

It’s probably been almost 2 years since I’ve been to the range with my long spoon. I need to get back out there with my pistols and long spoon to kill some paper. Maybe this spring…

I used to do that ISSF 25 meter pistol shooting, but got sick of coming last. So now I just do Service Pistol and Action Shooting with the .45. I'm better at that.

Jeff Higgins helped me out with my .223 shooting so I goto a 100 and 200 meter range with that. Plink away for a while then goto the pub over the road. Quite a good day.

There are many, many different target venues, from out black powder 25 yards pistol matches to the 2mile mega bucks for your hardware matches. We have a 300yard range here in San Diego and I shoot my "chunk guns" and slug guns out to that distance. I tried to get into the 1000yard matches at Camp P but the director said no muzzleloaders! We used to have a fellow that shot those 1000 matches and he spend thousands of dollars on barrels, stocks, bullets, actions and all the stuff that goes with it. He would burn out 3 to 4 barrels a year and bought them a dozen at a time. He made his own alloy (secret) bullets and was pushing 4000 FPS out the muzzle and at that speed the bullets would need to be solid! He was a scientist at General atomics and head scientist on the drone program so he could afford it!
John

I've competed in a broad variety of shooting disciplines. Black Powder Cartridge Rifle Silhouette and Target Rifle were the only disciplines that held my interest for long. I found traditional "2700", or officially "Bullseye Pistol", to be by far the most tedious. A very real challenge, no doubt about that, but as much of a test of endurance than anything else. Just an unnatural level of repetition of the same damn thing. Some people love it, I gave it a fair chance, and I learned to not love it.

I think the reason I fell in love with BPCR over the rest lies in both the rifles used, and the inability to "spend your way to the front". That, and it combined marksmanship on the day of the match with an obsessive attention to detail at the loading bench, along with an analytical mind that could test and sift through what works and what does not.

I won a lot of matches in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia in the 15 years I competed. I always liked to think that I won those matches in my basement as much so, if not more so, than on the firing line. That was the uniqueness of the challenge that held my interest.

There was really no way to gain a similar advantage in load development in NRA High Power nor Bullseye Pistol, with everything in those disciplines having long since been worked out. You could win either one with factory ammo, and many people did. That eliminated a large part of the interest for me.

These days, I just shoot for fun. I still punch a lot of paper at my club range, which allows pistols out to 50 yards and rifles to 300. I find, however, that such paper punching rapidly gets rather boring, unless it's for a purpose. That purpose is usually load development, always trying something new.

In the end, though, most of my shooting these days is at reactive targets, like metal gongs, dueling trees, the "self healing" targets we can just toss on the ground and chase as we bounce them along, and stuff like that. Far more entertaining than punching holes in paper.

I shoot USPSA (United States Practical Shooting Association). I, obviously, got to shoot lots and lots during my military career. I find shooting USPSA to be a fun and challenging hobby. You work on accuracy, movement, magazine changes, and safe handling of a firearm while moving. The safety aspect is the most important.
There are lots of videos on youtube, if you want to check it out.

There are so many ways that you can enjoy shooting. You just need to find what appeals to you.

JYL, my suggestion would be to shoot with both hands while you get your grouping tighter and more consistant. Once you have established that, then try single hand shooting. Also, optics should be used with both eyes open. It is a bit of a transition that I went through going from open sights to red dot. You might already use both eyes, but I just threw that out there in case.

Good luck and happy shooting !

I've been looking at Winchester 52's lately. There are some that can be a bit pricey and I need to do a little more research regarding the differences in models and years before I figure out what I want.

I might even wait until I'm out of Calif before pulling the trigger (pun intended).

Both eyes open - I didn't know that. Thanks!

I have an outdoor range on the farm...out to 300yds.

I sight in the varmint rifles in once a month or so since I do carry one i the Ranger. Very methodical even though it is commercial ammunition.

For pistols, I shoot every two weeks or so. I really like targets that make noise or have visual clues.

We like to set up clay pigeons statically in the target area and try and shoot the center out without breaking the entire clay pigeon. Lots of fun and challenging.

I will typically try and find different approaches to shooting pistols on line to try new stances, both eyes open, etc.

A couple of my motorcycle road racing friends got into the ELR stuff. Last I saw Greg moved into the top 10 rankings for KO2M.
Crazy how he now says with his current rig, 1 mile is a chip shot.


( I think it is still quite a bit cheaper than racing )
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I find it kind of like Chinese brush calligraphy. The brushstroke reveals your emotional state, you have to be still and calm, empty your mind, and do one stroke over and over - I'd cover sheets with fifty single horizontal strokes, trying to feel the brush into the perfect movements. It was more mediation than anything.

Right now, I don't have endurance. After 50 rounds, my concentration fades.

I've been watching videos. There don't seem to be many videos of actual NRA bullseye competition, but there are videos of Olympic (ISSF) competition.

https://youtu.be/YvCfVkKZiO0 This is men's rapid-fire. It is irritating that the videos don't show where the shots land - that is all electronically registered and the shooter sees his shot placement on a little monitor, but video viewers don't.

That's a great analogy, jyl. "2700" is very much a state of mind, a zen state, almost trance like. And, well, that's what I learned to dislike about it. I simply cannot imagine a real world application for the skills developed. Except, well, maybe Chinese brush calligraphy...

I started doing the Chinese brush calligraphy because I thought I’d learn written Chinese. Copying a character a hundred times, surely that will result in memorizing it? It turns out that the model books, that you copy from, are reproduced from old tombs, ancient scrolls, famous calligraphers’ works, and so on. These sources, hundreds if not thousands of years old, don’t talk about ANYTHING that you’d want to read or write in the modern age. Those ancient scrolls weren’t about hailing taxis or renting hotel rooms. And fifteen ways to express veneration or love just . . . as you say, what is the real world application?

I went to the range, started shooting the slowfire pistol target . . . and just decided to take a break. Put up one of those full-size human silhouette targets with organs - the kinda creepy ones - and had a great time going at it with the target .22. I can’t reliably hit the 10 ring, but I can put five holes in five seconds through the right side of the “brain”, and then five in five through the left with the next magazine. So I think at least this practice has improved my shooting, even though it is terrible by Bullseye standards.

I enjoy target shooting though 99% of what i do is clays comps. The occasional trip to the pistol/rifle range is a nice relaxing thing to do for me. Would love a 200yd or so plinking setup if i had the land. Pistol and 22lr rifles would keep me pretty entertained.

Jyl if you want to liven it up a bit with pistol get a shot timer and try some standard classification drills. IDPA has several and i'd imagine the other pistol assn's do as well.