Well today I went and shot at my gun club and made a new friend that has steel targets and did a little impromptu shooting/training session.
During my little impromptu training session. We shot steel at 25 yards. That distance with 8 inch steel plates, and a 6 inch swinging steel plate really shows you what you need to work on in regards to trigger squeeze and grip, because at 7 yards a slight sight misalignment and bad grip may only pull a shot 1 inch from the group, and doesn’t look too bad. At 25yds that’s a miss by a mile.
I know that statistically speaking most self defense shootings don’t happen at 25 yards. But I do know that you should own the longest distance in your house, and 2 car lengths. So it really isnt too far off, and all trigger time is training time. I plan on doing it from time to time to hone my shooting disciplines.
Do any of you incorporate stuff like this into your training regimens? I need to find a training buddy next week to run a black and red training drill. Write the word black in red and vise versa and shoot at color then words. Should be fun. Has anyone done anything like this? It’s a great drill.
Sounds like you’ve been listening to Clint Smith . I like to cut a place out of a target, make an open box behind the cutout with cardboard and shoot at a foam ball. I’m looking for an action, I may drop the ball in one shot, sometimes more. Sorry to hijack the distance conversation, just thought I’d share.
No, that sounds like a fun drill! So what size ball? I think it would be fun with a tube of golf balls falling and replacing the one you shot out of the target. I did quote Clint Smith, sounds like you listen to him and are a man of culture as well . But he’s totally right on about that. You need to OWN that space, and be proficient at shooting that distance. Do you do any long distance shooting drills @JKetchem?
It depends on the size of my target. You can get bags of different sized ones. Anything from a little smaller than a baseball to softball sized works for silhouettes, like a regular B27 target. Golf balls sound fun though. I like reactionary targets, one of my friends bought a little bird that spins on what looks like a croquet wire thing. We shoot it from 15-20 yards, it’s small but it’s a good challenge. Plastic soda bottles are fun too, just depends on our mood. Sometimes paper gets boring, and you’re shooting for a goal or reaction. I’ll have to try the red /black deal though. That kind of reminds me of one target I buy from time to time, has 5 targets on one sheet and a different way to fire at each one.
A little bird at 15 and 20 yards definitely sounds likeba way to hone your accuracy and shooting skills. You’re not going to hit that with a jerky trigger finger and a limp grip.
Yeah the red and black target thing makes you discern the target based on what your partner says. Like if he/she calls out “red word” you shoot the word “red” but it’s written in black. It’s relatively difficult. Especially when it gets to be like simon says, “red word, black color, black word, red color” I do that one with the words written on paper plates. Chinet, the targets of people too cheap to by silhouette targets. Lol.
I do a lot of crazy stuff, looking for a different “reaction”. I’ll try any drill suggested and I always try to do something for a “reaction”, ie bird spins, ball falls, bottle moves /falls. It doesn’t matter if I miss if I’m close, I’ve usually incorporated the smaller target into a larger target. The reaction is so I don’t get used to “one shot and done”. If I’m in a self defense situation, God forbid, I want to stop the threat. So there’s the desired “reaction” in that situation. If I constantly train slow fire or bullseye, which I do for fun or to test ammo, I might be setting myself up for failure. Granted, you might stop a threat in one shot, but it might take 5 or 6. I might get my “reaction” from my targets in the same amount of 1-6 shots or more. So there’s my line of thinking for my way of shooting.
I guess I’d just google shooting drills to see if anything sticks out and looks fun or new. I bet that G21 is a fun gun to shoot, and with it’s mid size barrel and frame you have a lot more options as far as training than with just a micro pistol for instance. I have a G29 10mm thats a lot of fun. And an FNS9C, and a Taurus 605 in .357, believe it or not, its an accurate and (if shooting .38) fun little gun. Never had a problem with a Taurus.
That makes a good amount of sense. Yeah, I mean when I was in basic training we used pop up targets that go back down after like 5 seconds, or sooner if hit. After we qualified with the set amount of rounds, our drill sgts had us take 3 mags to the line and they put up targets with big holes in them, and we practiced shooting at the targets until we made them drop. From 50 to 300 meters. The thought was, that if you just fire a round and you see it go through the target but the target is still up, shoot until the thing falls. Just like combat, or a defensive shooting.
Yes the G21 is a great pistol. The low axis of Glock barrels and slides make them very easy to manage recoil in my opinion. My friend Chris has a G29 as well, all his other pistols are 1911s, if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have picked up the G26 and just stuck with my G23.
The FN and Taurus models of any kind I’ve never fired, but I have fired these calibers mag .357, .41, .44. Along with .50ae and .454 casull with other various manufacturers.
I do work in long distance shots with handguns. We don’t just carry them for defensive against humans. Wild animals are a bigger threat in my lifestyle than humans. A pack of wild dogs, a charging bear, maybe even a cougar. I’ll shoot 12x12 targets at 100 yards for that purpose. I also handgun deer hunt, but that isn’t the same skill set. That’s a sit and weight for something to walk into the place I have determined is the best shot. I’ve never been attacked by Bambi. Concealed Carry Magazine had a good article about handguns vs rifles a while back. It is possible, you might need to shoot back at someone who is 40, 50, 100 yards away. With a rifle, if they can see you, your life is potentially in danger, and handgun rounds are lethal past(way past) 100 yards.
I haven’t shot a deer with a pistol yet. Normally I like archery equipment for that, but I do want to get a 10mm for deer hunting. That’s what I carry in the woods for defense with some hotter buffalo bore rounds. Yeah, I’d rather have a rifle at 100 yards, but that’s not always plausible.
Here in Illinois, I can’t hunt deer with a rifle, or a semiautomatic pistol. Shotguns, muzzle loaders, single shot “pistols” and revolvers. One of these days I’d like to get a Smith and Wesson 460 XVR to hunt deer with.
Do you do a lot of hunting in other states? You said you carried for bear, wolf, and cougars, and I didn’t think IL had a measurable population of those critters.
I said wild dogs, bear and, maybe cougars. Yes, there have been black bears and cougars spotted in areas of Southern Illinois. They are very rare sightings. Wild dogs, in the other hand, are all over. No, I’ve never had the chance to hunt in other states, but I will one of these days.
Yeah, I suppose there might be a few. I’ve heard that wild dogs can be pretty unpredictable, never seen one, but I’ve seen a lot of wolves. I’ve never heard anyone regret taking a gun into the woods. That’s for sure. My land by Lake Superior has a lot of bears and used to have a lot of wolves. I fired a warning shot at a wolf once. It was walking up a ravine right towards me, at about 40 yards. The first shot didn’t make it run, but I fired a second when it was probably around 30 yards away and hit a tree right next to it. That spooked it finally. I don’t know if it saw me or not. I didn’t really want to find out.
. I like to cut a place out of a target, make an open box behind the cutout with cardboard and shoot at a foam ball. I’m looking for an action, I may drop the ball in one shot, sometimes more. Sorry to hijack the distance conversation, just thought I’d share.
. But he’s totally right on about that. You need to OWN that space, and be proficient at shooting that distance. Do you do any long distance shooting drills