By Jim Dickson | Contributing Editor
Shooting is supposed to be a fun learning experience but at least for me repetitive shooting at a bullseye gets old and does nothing to help me hit moving targets.
All the game I shoot seems to be constantly moving and rarely offers me a picture perfect standing still broadside shot. I like moving targets.
Running water offers a wide range of challenges. Potting floating debris in the Mississippi River is fun but not too hard. Hitting wood chips and sticks going down a riffle filled fast moving mountain trout stream at 50 to 75 yards with a pistol is a worthy challenge for any pistol shooter and it is just as much fun if you use a rifle. Small sticks disappear at intervals in the riffles and pop up in odd places downstream mimicking running game disappearing behind cover then reappearing in openings as it runs. Of course you must be mindful of where a ricochet might travel but I shoot in a valley hemmed in by mountains and there is no one else there but me.
A classic moving target is to suspend something from a swinging string. This can be anything from pine cones to wood chips. Start them swinging against a suitable backstop and you have some serious effective practice that is also a lot of fun. As you get better at this game the target at the end of the string should get smaller and the distance between you and it further.
Balloons burst in a most gratifying way when employed as targets and their immense size encourages long range shooting.
Tin cans can be thrown across the ground or up in the air and hit while they are moving. When shooting aerial targets with a rifle or pistol you have to be sure that there is no one in range to be hit by your rounds. You are lobbing them like mortar shells and they have to come down somewhere. If you have an uninhabited mountain for a back stop that works fine. Just don’t shoot over the top of the mountain unless you know what is on the other side out to the maximum range of whatever you are shooting.
Swinging gong targets are a lot of fun and very useful for practicing fast shooting. Practice firing the instant you have your first sight picture without taking time to adjust that sight picture. You will soon find that first sight picture is your best one. Much game is lost while people linger over their sights and many a soldier has come home in a body bag because the enemy fired while he was still fiddling around with his sight picture. There is a big difference between shooting in the real world and shooting on a rifle range and it behooves you to train for the real world.
After mastering the swinging gong targets you can make another good target by gluing a bunch of circular pizza cardboards together with a hole cut out in the center just big enough to force a clay pigeon in. One of these rolled across the ground 25 yards is very challenging. When you can consistently break the clay bird in the center dispense with the cardboard and launch the clay bird from a standard skeet trap at 55 MPH hopping and skipping across the ground.
Once you have mastered this you can launch the clay bird through the air and shoot it with your rifle or pistol assuming you have a safe backstop or a vast empty area in front of you. Yes, this target can be hit consistently also but not if you linger over a sight picture. The real trick to breaking the clay bird is aimed rapid-fire opening up as soon as you start to have the gun aligned on target and continuing to fire until the clay bird breaks. Your last shot should be fired after the target breaks.
This system works but not if you wait for a sight picture before pulling the trigger. You have to be pulling the trigger while you are placing the gun on target because in the instant you take trying to get a sight picture first and then pulling the trigger the target is already gone and you missed. Obviously this is a game for semi-autos. Of course you can also clean up at this game by instinct shooting. This is the fastest and most accurate method way of shooting but few people take the time to master it today.
A lot of people shoot in old quarries and gravel pits but they should be aware of the high number of ricochets associated with those places and take care accordingly.
Never ever shoot at glass bottles or other glass objects. Glass breaks sharp to the molecular level and the sharp edges are murder on both man and beast. Always pick up and bring back any tin cans or other targets you use. Don’t leave the place looking like a dump. It ruins the outdoor experience for others and gives the shooting sports a black eye.
Whatever you do, don’t use full paint cans as a target as was once done on the cover of a gun magazine. It made for some impressive photos but there was no way to clean that mess up and it lingered for a lot longer than you can imagine. Talk about an eyesore!
Tanerite exploding targets are popular and they make a tremendous noise. Make sure you have your ear protection in when they are being shot.
Balsa wood gliders were once very popular kid’s toys. If you can find a source for these hand thrown gliders they make a most unpredictable aerial target with their loop the loop and aerial aerobatics.
Shooting coins out of the air with a pistol is a traditional hard pistol target. Unlike the movies where the coin falls back to earth with a hole neatly drilled through it you will never see that coin again once the pistol bullet hits it. My Betty was especially good at shooting all my pocket change out of the air with a .45 automatic. That can get expensive quick. Make sure you have pennies instead of quarters or 50 cent pieces whatever you do.
Pre-cut pine blocks are a classic aerial target for exhibition shooters and the split used ones can be burned in a wood stove or heater so you have some incentive to clean up the mess they leave scattered all over the ground. Get someone to toss them all exactly alike to the exact same spot and trajectory each time and you can have a lot of fun as well as some good practice.
If you set a piece of thin sheet metal or tin up, you can practice drawing pictures with bullet holes on it. Keeping the lines straight is quite a challenge. So is making a good drawing that looks like what it is supposed to be. The late Max Atchisson liked to write his name with machinegun fire. You can only do that with very controllable machineguns. Max was one of our greatest gun designers and a very good shot with a machinegun.
Some guns are more fun than others to shoot. Guns that are the easiest to hit with head this list. Long barreled trapdoor Springfields and Mauser rifles are much more steady for offhand shooting enabling you to hit targets offhand that you cannot hit with most shorter barrel guns. The original G.I. issue M1 carbine and the Auto Ordnance M1927A1 semi-auto version of the famed Thompson submachinegun are a delight to shoot. Incredibly fast pointing and steady with virtually no recoil they vie for the title of the easiest rifle to hit with ever made. The German Luger is the easiest pistol to hit with. Just point your finger to hit. Hitting is fun and this gun makes it easy.
Classic guns like the Colt Single Action Army .45 revolver and the lever action Winchesters give you a chance to relive the glory days of the settling of the wild West. I have seen people’s eyes really light up at the chance to shoot one of these.
All of the fun shooting in this article is done with a rifle shooting offhand or a pistol shot with one hand. This is the way to deal with fast moving targets and have the most fun shooting. The difference between an exhibition shooter and the average shooter is the number of rounds fired. Making shooting more fun and challenging is one way to encourage shooters to shoot sufficiently to reach a higher level.
