What makes shooting fun?

[Oathkeeper1775]

I'm so glad that I only shoot on private land. If I ever shoot on Federal land, I will remember not to use Tannerite. I don't intend to be shooting any old major appliances, cars, & such. Can't afford $20 per commercial reactive target. So...

Meeee toooooo! Less "Arbiters" of right and wrong...flying around in their super hero outfit; keeping us all in line...

 

[Vorpalis]

One of my favorite targets is the rubber ball / top hat / cube that Do-All Outdoor and a few other companies make. They move around when shot, so the game is to try to keep it moving, which also makes for good practice. These targets also happen to be inexpensive and reusable for at least several hundred rounds.

 

[Oathkeeper1775]

One of my favorite targets is the rubber ball / top hat / cube that Do-All Outdoor and a few other companies make. They move around when shot, so the game is to try to keep it moving, which also makes for good practice. These targets also happen to be inexpensive and reusable for at least several hundred rounds.

View attachment 415613

The resilience of that product is amazing! I picked one up off the ground at the range, strung it up with paracord, and left it hanging. It lasted several months.

We shot everything from .22lr to .50 Cal at it.

 

[Member 34319]

These are super fun. Set up two and race each other to a certain distance.

These are pretty fun too until they got shot sideways.

Both are usually 30-40 a piece.

 

[Tomahawk67]

Shooting makes shooting fun.

 

[ob1]

Anything that pizzes off a liberal is fun.

 

[Koda]

A really fun drill I like that allows a lot of creativity and variety (depending on how many target stands you have) is always a fun hit and introduces the shooter to various critical problem solving skills they might encounter in a real defense situation. This requires a minimum of 3 IDPA style target stands, ideally 4 or more... the more you have the more creative you can get including a walk thru course. The idea is simple though.

Have the shooter turn around while you re-arrange and set up. Set one in front of the shooter about 7 yards ideally (but not necessary) blocking the view of 1 or all of the other target stands with no targets on it, this is a cover position. Remove all used old targets from the stands and post a plain 8x11 paper on each one about center of mass high. Randomly, with a sharpie draw a smiley face on 1 target stand and draw an evil frowny face with a gun on the other. Repeat for more target stands randomly selecting good/bad guys. Stagger the good guys and bad guys at various positions and distances, use your imagination to make it hard or eash... if your creative you can make it difficult to identify the bad guy, or vise versa... its ok to place them close together. If you have enough target stands, leave another one blank as a barricade or cover position requiring the shooter to navigate around.

From the buzzer the shooter turns around and then engages the scenario from the holster, only a hit anywhere on the 8x11 paper counts, 2 shots per bad guy. Make it harder by loading his primary mag for him either with not enough rounds or a snap cap to introduce either a combat reload or a malfunction drill (or both ) If the shooter is experienced give them about a 2 second par time for each bad guy (never give an inexperienced shooter a par time).



I can play this game all day long.

 

[Cogs]

@Cogs you'd get a kick out of this thread.

I'll have to read it on Sunday. Just spent 11 hours driving to Paradise Montana. Kind a tired now and drinking Rum so there!

Merry Christmas!!!

 

[Boboclown]

Another thing that makes it fun for me is watching people with "accurate" rifles not be so accurate at the range.

While I'm hitting my targets non-stop with my "inaccurate" rifles.

 

[ob1]

Another thing that makes it fun for me is watching people with "accurate" rifles not be so accurate at the range.

While I'm hitting my targets non-stop with my "inaccurate" rifles.

Just don't let them know about your "accurate" ammo.

 

[Boboclown]

Just don't let them know about your "accurate" ammo.

No worries. I won't tell anyone about the magical unicorn that blesses each round to make it shoot like a laser.

 

[clearconscience]

You can have all kinds of fun with targets that break the blah of shooting, usually cheap too.
.22s are tons of fun, shoot golf balls, spent shotgun shells, balloons, potatoes, make ot more like carnival games.

Steel is always fun.

And tannerite makes anyone smile.

 

[CLT65]

@Cogs you'd get a kick out of this thread.

I for one really appreciate Cogs and his campaign to clean up public land, but being the nice guy that he is I expect he'd be a little more diplomatic with his criticism.

I think the vast majority of contributors to this thread are the type to conscientiously clean up any mess they make, and whether intended or not you offended good people. Heck, I felt a little attacked myself, and I don't shoot on public land at all any more.

You might have made some good points, but not in a way that was well taken. No offense intended.

 

[Kruel J]

Ring steel. Instant gratification. I'll admit I didn't read the whole thread, so if someone else said the same thing, good!

Paper, reactives, steel and the like....it's all fun and better than the best day at work.

 

[Sgt Nambu]

Feeling a bit nostalgic today!
Remembering sitting under the porch cover of my best friends grand parents original homestead through out the heat of the afternoon, waiting for the ground squirrels to come out as it cooled off. We were shooting our revolvers at a steel gong set at 90yds, and we had this outrageous picnic that we bought from the church ladies in Dufer! Shoot one, eat one.....!
My best friend died ten years ago, as of Tuesday, so believe me when I say a great deal of shooting joy comes from who you are shooting with!

Oh, and related, take a kid shooting! Steve

 

[coyote223]

Steel targets are fun, but cumbersome to drag out to the woods with all the guns. Dueling trees, Texas Star, etc,,, Lot's of choices,,,

 

[bsa1917hunter]

I still want to try my clay target buy in winner take all game - example - it will be by By gun 'class' say lever action with open irons at 100 yards, revolver with open irons at 25 and scoped centerfire at 200 etc. 25 clays at x amount per (.50 c - $1.00) and you have 25 shots to take at them. High score wins the pot. Location may be a problem as technically it is gambling but a fun way to spice up a day of shooting!

I'm in.

 

[Cogs]

As a kid, growing up on our own ranch, we had a place where dad always took us to target practice. It was an old County Dump on the ranch. Lots of rusty tin cans, pots and pans, old glass bottles, Model A fenders and more.

Dad figured it better to leave it as is and all our target shooting was done there. We often brought out paper targets but he would never left them there. It was fun to shoot a variety of things.

However, my favorite reactive target was always the prairie dogs (Sage rats, as many are calling them now). Boy do they react!

Without private property any more, I miss the fun of such variety. I do find that simply paper targets gets boring real quick. So I take a variety of targets and it's more fun. Switching back and forth keeps the interest up.

Merry Christmas!

 

[CLT65]

I used to live out of town too. We had a lot of vine maple growing on the property and it's hard to get rid of. The trunks/branches would grow about as thick as a bean can and I liked to go out and cut some into lengths about the size of a can, set them all up and shoot them down. It's a real hard wood so they made great targets.

One day I cut a whole bunch up with my chainsaw, took some time to set them all up, then went back and burned up a box of .45acp and a bunch of .22lr knocking them all over. I was about done when the idea went through my mind, "Where is my saw??"

There was tall grass behind the targets, and guess where I left my saw. And yes, I did hit it. Fortunately it was with the .22 and no serious harm was done. The bullet chipped a piece of fin off the cylinder head and lodged in the plastic. Twenty years later I still use that old saw, and it still has a piece of a lead .22 slug sticking out of the plastic, to remind me to pay attention to what I'm doing!

 

[Boboclown]

I actually use clown pictures as my targets... Course, only the underground clowns us surface clowns have a civil war against.

I started to teach a few friends how to shoot an AK and how to use a POSP scope... Didn't have either for very long but they're similar to the PSL and the PSO optic anyways. Fun watching people get used to something and realizing the myths aren't true.