Granted this forum is primarily about self defense and we can assume everyone does some form of defensive shooting, whether it’s just self-defense training or actually competing in IDPA or similar “defensive” shooting sports. But what other shooting disciplines are you into?
Me:
I shoot black powder. Built my Hawken 50-cal rifle from a kit way back in 1982 when I was in Junior High (I guess they call it “middle school” now. Interestingly enough, I built the gun at school in a class called “History of Firearms”. Yes, public school. Yes, a real class with open enrollment, though you had to purchase one of the Thompson rifle kits offered at the local hardware store for $100.
Anyway, I still shoot that rifle. We have a small blackpowder group at the gun club that meets about once per month to make some black powder smoke in a semi-competitive, though informal, shooting match. It generally includes a series of shooting games with a combination of paper targets and steel silhouettes.
I also shoot Trap. I’ve been trap shooting just as long as I’ve been blackpowder shooting. Our gun club has formal trap and skeet shooting every Sunday. I go when I can fit it in. While there are a lot of “high end O/U” trap shooters there with the fancy vests and polos and all, I’m the guy in blue jeans with a street jacket and an all-black Remington 870 with extended magazine and a SideSaddle. I’ll literally run a round of trap by putting 5 shells in the SideSaddle at each stage and doing ejection port loads for every target. That way, I get to practice defensive shotgun speed loads 25 times per game of Trap.
I have a number of scoped hunting rifles, so I shoot those enough to keep in practice for my Fall hunts. I think I should be taking those rifles to the range more than I do, but life gets busy. I suffer from that problem of having too many guns to get adequate range time in with all of them.
Target shooting as it relates to hunting. I’m also looking into taking the training to be an Illinois 4H rifle instructor. My son doesn’t want to shoot trap, but likes rifles. Our county doesn’t have a rifle team, because they don’t have an instructor. Maybe me in the next couple of months.
Im also pretty boring. Usually trips to an indoor range for practice. Two or three times a year I’ll head out to a park nearby for sporting clays which is really fun.
Haven’t done a lot of other stuff lately, but used to shoot a lot of trap, some skeet, and a lot of sporting clays. Shoot some rifle for practice but not really as a sport. Hubby got me a bow this year, so it looks like archery is up next.
I was a 4H Instructor back in the late 90’s. It was a very satisfying experience. I was the shotgun instructor and we had two other instructors for pistol and rifle. The 3 of us ran the program for 3 years, though it was all on the rifle. Our 4H club had the rifles, a few pistols, and no shotguns. Our plan was to start with rifles and work those for awhile, since they are the better beginner gun. Then we could bring in pistols for the advancing students. We had no idea where we would get shotguns when it came time to go Trap shooting. Unfortunately, after the 3rd year two of us had job changes and we lost the primary (rifle) guy, who had to move to another city for work. The program stalled out and our 4H chapter ended up donating all the guns and pellet traps to another 4H group in a nearby town that was more active.
I practice tactical defense handgun, for fun I like 3 gun, trap and rolling trap (which was described to me as …golf…but with shot guns) … and juuuuuuuuuuusst started getting into long range. As a related side note…built three of my rifles in different calibers.
The classes I take are defensive. Local range has different levels of defensive handgun. My next class is a turn lights off and play with flashlights class. I’m getting some hot 10mm loads for that class. I’m also looking to win the fireball challenge,… if there is such a thing.
They canceled the uscca defensive class I wanted to take, pretty bummed about that. I havent looked into any competition shooting, yet .
I shoot speargun. I have designed and built a couple of them. I have been fortunate to have met as well as dove and hunted with some great people thru the years.
I go to my gun club to target shoot, practice, and shoot Bulls Eye. and I use to run their Hunter Pistol Silhouette/Cowboy Lever Action Matches which I also shot in as well sometimes. I also have a non-leathel pellet gun and an air soft CO2 BB gun that I can shoot in my back yard.
Compound Bow and Crossbow. I have a 25yrd. range in my backyard, I shoot a Pellet Rifle and Pistol into the same target. I hunt Deer with the Crossbow.
