I used to do a fair amount of shooting. Never competitively though; when I got out of college in the late 90s I had a job for about two and a half years where we worked 9 hours a day Monday through Thursday and then got out at 11 every Friday. Fantastic schedule, IMO.
Anyway, I typically didn’t have much to do on Friday afternoons since most people were still working, and I lived pretty close to the shooting range in the county park out west of Houston (American Shooting Centers in Geo. Bush Park), and ammo was super cheap, so I’d basically go home, grab some of my guns, and go shoot for a few hours if the weather was nice.
I had a thing for Rugers back then, since they were cheap, but well made and designed. So I had a 22/45 pistol, a P95 9mm, and a 10/22 that I’d regularly shoot. I also had inherited a gaggle of shotguns that I rarely took out, and my dad had a C&R license, so I’d occasionally go shoot his 8mm Mauser (Czech vz-34), his Mosin-Nagant, his SKS(Bulgarian), and his various strange old pistols (Helwan Brigadier 9mm, Czech CZ-82 and CZ-52, Makarov).
The way I was taught, unless you’re using a bipod, you should never rest your weapon on anything when firing. You can rest your elbow on the sandbags, but not your hand or your forearm or the weapon itself. YMMV, of course.
This thread reminds me that my brother and I had a .22 Winchester rifle when we were teens and would get together to splurge on a box of ammunition about every other month. We couldn’t afford targets. Instead, we shot at NECCO wafers we propped up against a dirt berm. Not only did they explode in a satisfying manner when we finally hit one, the remnants would dissolve the next time it rained. Very eco-friendly.
You’re not missing much. Indoors is better because no wind and depending on your weather summer and/or winter may not make for the most enjoyable conditions, but outdoors is better in most ways, and usually significantly cheaper. Indoors also are more likely to have a shop, overpriced ammo, and rentals, so if you’re new might be better.
I slowed down when life got in the way and now am getting back into it. I joined an indoor range for convenience but they closed and I haven’t tried a new one, outdoor ranges are both about 40 minutes away. I used to shoot on BLM land for convenience but the city recently closed all of the convenient land, without much publicity (are they going to fine people for not checking their website recently?) and AFAIK without public comment. I understand cities grow and such, but a little miffed.
My most recent purchase is my first muzzleloader. A lot to learn and I’m still figuring out what load I want to invest in.
Why would contacts be a problem? But for glasses, there are lots of safety glasses that look like streamlined glasses and won’t work with glasses, but there are also less stylish large ones that can easily go over your glasses. You can also get prescription shooting glasses which are probably pricey, possibly also come with swappable plain glass or different tints if you’re wearing contacts. When I wore glasses I used Zenni Optical to make things cheap, they have a selection of prescription safety glasses options
My deer rifle is a Weatherby, but I had intentionally chosen .308 because I’m not paying $5/shot. Thankfully the actual Weatherby calibers don’t fancy powders or bullets, it’s the case that’s the price bottleneck. And even unused brass is about as expensive as the ammo.
IMR 7828 (I think technically it’s been replaced with 7828 SSC, which is just shorter granules) is supposed to be pretty tolerant of temperature ranges compared to some others. I also need to get back into reloading, I have a stash but it’s definitely a skill you need to practice too.
Ah dominance. I learned I was cross-dominant (R hand/L eye) as an adult but had already learned most of it before and haven’t tried to transition. So rifle it’s close my left eye, pistol it’s cant my head to the right slightly. When I got a bow later I just grabbed a left hand one. And as for shotgun, you’re supposed to keep both eye open but I tend to involuntarily not. I added a bead sight which is supposed to help with this, it’s got the fiber optic at the end of a “tunnel” and so you need to be at the right angle to see itl, forcing the right eye to take over. Supposedly.
Damn. Sorry to hear about your vision problems. At least mine could be surgically repaired (mostly - I still have a missing “quarter” of vision in the upper left of the left eye).
In a few cases, I added raised mounts to account for using my left eye in the past. For the raised scopes, I had almost no trouble making the change to my right eye. Also, it’s now easier to use rifles with no “comb slope” (not an expert, but I think that’s the term for it).
Ummm… did they say why? Was it considered cheating or something?
My dad could have told me this story. In fact he did.
NECCO wafers, .22 Winchester bolt action single shot.
What I used to do was straighten a wire coat hanger, stick it in the ground and then stick the other end in the can. You could always see when you hit it, but you never had to go prop it up again.
I always used to shoot outside. We had 5 acres, and I later had 40ac. When I was a kid, I could also just open my bedroom window and shoot.
The surface may be unstable, it might not handle recoil properly, it limits your field of movement, it slows your reaction time… they gave us plenty of reasons. Basically, your rifle should never touch anything but you, especially when shooting.
I’ve done some plinking with .22s on my friend’s land up north. I’m a pretty good shot. We used to bring up our kids’ old toys they grew out of and didn’t play with anymore, and use them for targets.
Sometimes a friend of my friend who owned the land would show up and bring an old Army M1, that I think had belonged to his Grandfather. Fun to shoot, but LOUD! You quickly learn to wear ear protection if you don’t want your ears ringing for the next 24 hours. I’m sure a lot of WWII and Korean War veterans came back half-deaf from shooting those guns.
Out of curiosity, at what kind of range can people be expected to shoot decent groups with .22? 5.56? .308? What level of skill is considered a good shot (not necessarily world-record level)?
OK. But with target shooting, the target does not move. Recoil? Field of movement? Reaction time, to a stationary target? And if the surface is unstable, umm… it was not set up properly.
Look, everybody believes the way they were taught something is the “right” way to do it. To me, resting anything other than your elbow or a bipod on any surface feels sloppy and unprofessional, but that’s just how I’ve been trained to think.
If you can get steadier, get steadier. Let’s say you’re deer hunting in a heavily wooded area. You see a deer. Your first thought is to shoot offhand. But there’s a tree right next to you. Use the tree to steady your rifle. If you can get steadier, get steadier.
When it comes to support (bench, tree, ground, whatever), the rule is soft-against-hard-against-soft, etc.
I consider myself an average shooter. I’m confident with a .22 out to 100 yds with some practice. 200 yards with the .308 or 7mm is no problem. 300 is doable. A buddy just shot a pronghorn with .308 at 379 yards. That’s a good shot.
Calibers generally 1) shoot flat-ish (small curve) a certain distance, 2) drop in elevation at a predictable rate for a further distance, then 3) drop enough that there are many variables affecting travel and only someone who has spent hours building carefully controlled cartridges and knows all the ins and outs of this particular rifle can control these variables effectively and consistently. So I interpret your question as steps 1 and 2 for the average person who has some training, but not step 3.
Ranges can be extended if you use a high-powered scope vs. iron sights
To control step 1, you “zero” your sights or scope (align them with point of impact) to a particular distance that maximizes the flat range. For .22 this is typically 25 or 50 yards, for 5.56 traditionally 50 yards (there is also a 36 yard school of thought). For .308 this is typically 100 yards.
For step 2, shooting beyond 100 yards with .22 it starts to get difficult (considerably less with a pistol). Beyond 300 for 5.56 is usually where it starts to peter out. Shooting beyond 300 yards with .308 is fairly trivial, past 500 is not terribly hard. Keep in mind this is for shooting paper or steel gongs, hunting ethically may bring these ranges in shorter. It’s debatable whether 5.56/.223 is ethical for white-tailed deer sized game at all, but beyond 300 its lost half its energy and is even less ethical.
.30 calibers like .308 or .30-06 are still among the more popular hunting rounds today, but there is a definite trend for flatter-shooting long range calibers today.
Sure. But everyone is different. I’m right handed and right eye dominant. For handguns I shoot with my right foot forward a little, though taught that I should put the right foot back for the recoil.
Um, no. I’m a big guy. Big shoulders. I don’t feel the recoil but I have some problems with peripheral neuropathy. Numb feet (sucks).
And I don’t hold the pistol quite right. I use the ‘teacup grip’. Same issue. Two numb fingers in my left hand.