Shooting Range Work

Imagine a formula one racer.

To make sure that she is in top form she not only needs to make sure her car is in top racing order she needs to practice her racing skills constantly.

She also needs to practice eye hand coordination skills that may not at first blush look like they relate at all to racing.Still… to make sure that she has a winning edge she develops a training regime.

You happen to see her in her garage where her race car sits idling on a diagnostic tester. Every couple of seconds she revs the engine and checks the dials. You ask her what she is doing. She replies that she is training.

Interested you ask what other type of training she does.

She looks at you confused…

“This is pretty much it.”

Chances are she has yet to win a race.

(If you arrived here from our email continue reading here:)

This seems to be the same type of training most of us do when we hit the live fire range. This is especially true if we go to a public indoor range.

When I go to our local indoor range I usually see people in the bays shooting at silhouette targets, standing in some form of a Modern Isosceles or Weaver Stance blasting away one round per second (in compliance with standard indoor range rules).

When they are done they take out their magazine and place it on the shelf in front of them and then bring forward their target and beam at their magnificent marksmanship skills.

The other day two of our clients Dan and Pat were in ADI working on moving drills and Dan asked me if I had a specific training regimen when I go to a live fire range.

He said that he has always wondered about this since usually when he goes to a range he just burns through a box or two of ammo.

Pat was curious also, since he rarely goes to an indoor range and instead opts for the outdoor range where he can move, shoot quickly without limitations, shoot from a holster and drop magazines.

The fact that Dan asked me this…. and Dan is a very very experienced shooter…. made me realize that most people don’t have a specific regime when it comes to practice. Hence the impetus for this article.

Indoor Range:There is a difference between indoor and outdoor shooting.

I use indoor ranges as a proving ground for my weapons system… outdoor ranges are a proving ground for me.

I have a specific course of fire when I go to an indoor range:

First I start off with a circular bullseye target… ideally one with minute of angle squares. I’m going to be limited to one shot per second so I am not even going to pretend that I am “training” here.

I want to make sure that my firearm is 100% functional and that my basic fundamentals are in tact.

I will fill four magazines with rounds… and buried somewhere in each one lies an inert snap cap.

Then I will mix up the magazines and lay them on the bench in front of me…all to the left with my gun in the center action open.

I will then insert the first magazine and slowly shoot into the center of the bullseye with the target set a minimum of 12 feet out.

Very slow, deliberate shooting using trigger resets.

When I reach the snap cap I want to see if I muzzle down during the trigger press.

If I am then this is the entire type of shooting I will be doing today.

If not… then I will finish off the magazine and move onto the next.

If I get a failure to feed or any other malfunction I will take that magazine and put it off to the far right. When I am done with all of my magazines I will reload it and try to determine if I have a reoccurring problem with that magazine.

Assuming no problems with the mags and no muzzling down on my shots I will then take a silhouette target and send it out to at least 25 feet.

From this distance I will do a series of failure drills hitting the target with controlled pairs.

Once I’ve worked through all four magazines (usually with two targets – magazines 1 and 2 on target 1 and magazines 3 and 4 on target 2) I pack up and go home.

I am now 100% convinced that my weapon is functional and my fundamentals are in play.

Did I train? Perhaps to an extent…

like the formula one racer at the beginning everything is “training”.

However the only thing I know for certain is that my weapon works.

I still need to visit an outdoor range to really “train”.

Next week we will discuss my training regime when outdoors.