It seems that people are busier than every these days. Making it hard to find time to spend a few hours at the shooting range. Than add to the lack of time, a lack of funds for ammo and range fees. Especially for those ranges that charge by the 1/2 hour.
You really have to work on getting the most practice you can in the least amount of time with the least amount of ammo. How does one, get the most out of their shooting range time?
Practice at home
Not all things involved with shooting involves actually firing a round off. There are plenty of things you can do at home to help improve your shooting without going to the range. Of course these still take time at home but they will save you time at the range and conserve the amount of rounds down range it takes to improve your shooting ability.
Handgun practice
Dry fire practice will greatly improve your trigger control with a hand gun. It’s simply firing your gun without any ammo. Of course just pulling the trigger a bunch of times isn’t going to help you get the most out of your range time. You’ll have to work on your trigger control, and grip, helping build muscle memory. So when you do get to the range you’ll be able to work less on trigger control and grip. Giving you a chance to work on things that can only be done at the range.
The first thing you do before you start any sort of dry fire practice is make sure the gun is empty, and there’s no ammo in the room with you. Just to be clear visually and physically check there are no rounds in the chamber or magazine of your gun. After your gun is clear you can start. You can practice drawing from your holster. You can practice reloading (empty) magazines.
Dry fire practice is best for practicing trigger control. What you want to do is point your gun at a relatively safe wall. Line up your sights and watch them as you pull the trigger. Unless you are a professional marksman you are going to see those sights move when you pull the trigger. You want to learn proper trigger control so they don’t move when you pull the trigger. People will tell you, you aren’t faster than a speeding bullet. If you move the gun while pulling the trigger you’ll see how much faster than a speeding bullet you are.
If you want to learn more about dry fire here are a couple of good articles on dry fire, effective-dry-fire-practice and seven-suggestions-effective-dry-fire-practice are both great.
Rifle Practice
Although you can dry fire practice with a rifle you won’t get the same benefit from it as you will a handgun. You will also have to be more careful as dry firing some rifles can damage them. This is why they make dummy rounds, to prevent damage to the rifle when fired without a round in the chamber. You can get dummy rounds in any caliber from .22LR to 30-06 and any caliber you own.
There are other things you can do to practice with your rifle. Things like finding your NPOA(Natural Point of Aim). Just because you can’t shoot a round down range doesn’t mean you can’t hold your rifle, and get used to being in the correct shooting position. This will build muscle memory and strength, a rifle can get heavy very quickly especially if you aren’t using your sling properly.
Stretching
Stretching isn’t normally thought of as a gun related thing. Heck many people picture gun enthusiasts as over weight rednecks. However stretching and having full movement is important to shooting. The recoil on many rifles is pretty heavy. This can damage muscles if they are not stretched out and loose. Not to mention it’s pretty hard to get into the proper shooting position if your body won’t bend that way. At least stretch before going to the range. Better would be to do it a few times a week or even every day.
Before you go to the Range
Before you head to the range plan for what you want to work on. If you want to work on rifle marksmanship great. If you want to work on you handgun accuracy even better. Maybe you are testing new reloads, or a new ammo you bought. If you have a range that will let you draw from a holster, and you want to work on that. What you want to work on doesn’t matter as much as that you have a plan of something to work on. If you are always going to the range to just put holes in paper, that’s all the better you will ever do.
Once you have a plan make sure you have everything you need. Have more than enough ammo. There is nothing worse than running out of ammo before you’re ready to leave the range. Along with ammo bring plenty of targets. It really sucks to figure out if where you’re last shot hit because you’ve already put 50 holes in one target.
Bring an extra gun if you can. It’s a big downer to get out to the range and have the one gun you brought have a malfunction you can’t fix at the range. You spend all that time planning and practicing, have everything you need and 5 minutes into shooting your whole trip has ended. What’s even worse if you are paying by the half hour and you only shoot for 5 minutes. That’s a waste of money. Having second gun, allows you to keep shooting and working on something else. Thus, getting the most our of your shooting range time.
At the Range
Now that you’ve made it to the range. You know what you are going to work on. Everything you need is with you. Get to shooting. Have a good time. However be honest with yourself. If you are working on rifle marksmanship, and not a single shot is going where you want it to go. Be honest with yourself, is it you. Are you really doing what you are supposed to be doing? Don’t just blame the gun or ammo and leave.
We’ve all had those days where we can’t hit the broad side of a barn with a shot-gun. Spend the time to analyze what’s going on. Maybe you are jerking the trigger. Could be you are anticipating the recoil and pushing the gun. You can’t get better if you don’t know what you are doing wrong. Sometimes it helps to take the camera on your phone and record yourself so you can see what you are doing. Maybe you can put a dummy round randomly in your magazine so you can see if you are moving the gun. If nothing else a dummy round helps with malfunction drills.
Conclusion
Going to the range should be fun. You should always enjoy your limited time there. However if you are not practicing at home, and preparing before you go to the range. You aren’t getting the most out of the money and time you are spending at the shooting range. We all want to become the best shooter we can. Spending time at home with dry fire practice, and planning what to work on at the range will help. Being able to get the most out of your range time is just one way to become the great shooter we all want to become.