Make 'em dance

B

bighead46

New member
With all our TACTICAL training these days I wonder now and then if we are or are not better than GRANDFATHER.
We can do great at rapid fire on ranges. but........
what about making a tin can dance around- like the good old days. What about throwing a can in the air and drawing and hitting it. Safety concerns have ruled out all these things but what has been the result- I wonder.

Same goes for rifles.....I have had folks tell me it is foolhardy and careless to take a rifle shot at running game but years ago it was pretty common.

On the other hand I have also read a lot of old time stories of guys missing shots.

In any event- are there any modern day ways to safely do some of these drills???/
 
Skeeter Skelton wrote an interesting story about shots that he'd missed. Elmer Keith, on the other hand, died before he got around to any of his. He did, however, talk about the sort of practice it took to actually make hits on an aerial target with a revolver. There was a great deal of effort involved when they were successful.

At one time the US Army gave premium pay for sharpshooter and expert with the rifle, only there was only enough money to actually pay the ones who got expert. The competition was keen since the pay amounted to $5, or so I understand. The targets at 400 yards were just as hard to hit as they are today, too, and soldiers did not like the .30-06 Springfield either. It was considered to have a viscious kick. They weren't brilliant shots but they had a lot of incentive, if not tactical training.

What tactical training were you referring to, anyway? I haven't had any since I left the army, which was quite a while ago.

In Europe there used to be running targets in some competitions but I doubt they do now. I assume game is either less common or more cooperative.
 
Good ol' days are today too

First deer I shot was a running shot. Got him twice in the neck as he was crossing in front of me at about 60 yards. Third shot was into a tree he crossed behind.

Favorite shooting game is starting with a can about 40 yards out and taking turns wilth my son shooting it. The trick is to keep it moving till it is out of sight. Sometimes when the can gets kicked up, you shoot it in the air. Also, when the can rests behind some weeds, you have to cut the weeds away, one stem at a time.

The only rule is that you have to know what's behind your target.

dean
 
You can practice practical or "tactical" shooting, its easier then and more conventional then you think.

Lets look at shooting moving targets. When I went to Sniper School, I excelled at shooting movers, Why?.........Because at the time I was doing a lot of skeet shooting. Nothing fancy, just conventional skeet. Since, I've gotten away from shotgun games and my shooting of movers shows. When it really goes south, I pick up and skeet guns and get to work.

During WWII, Robert Stack ( the movie star) who was quite an expert skeet shooter, entered the service and was kept in the states, teaching Skeet Shooting to Ariel gunners and instructing shooting moving targets.

Now thats look at Practical Rifle Shooting (tactical if you will).

This is right from the USAMU Counter Sniper Guide, Chap 5 Para 1:

The countersniper is a hunter and must use any and all tricks to assure a proper hit. The lives of his fellow officers and that of the general public are at stake. Time is extremely critical, therefore, he can expect to be required to make shots and varying angles and distances on a split second's notice. The hunting of varmints such as woodchucks and crows provide outstanding training because the techniques involved are almost identical.
Click to expand...

You add you conventional shooting with competing in action pistol or rifle matches will give you your "tactical practice".

Just use a bit of imagination.

The National Guard use to lead the military in improvising shooting and qualification, mainly because many Guard Units didnt have access to ranges except for maybe indoor or gallery shooting. Even using the Springfields and Garands they loaded reduce loads that could be fired indoors on the 50 Ft ranges. They use to put targets on toy electric trains and shoot the targets with 22s as the train went by. The Guards (when I retired in '92) still used a reduced course of fire at 50 ft using M16A1s and sub-cal devices. (Simular to the Appleseed matches). It wasn't as easy to qualify on these targets as one thinks.

Anyway, just think a bit, you can get your practical practice just about anywhere.
 
With all the great wide open backstops I have where I live with woods and mountains all around I'm seriously considering getting a clay machine to practice on clays. As to shooting moving targets in a hunting situation, I don't usually do that because if deer or elk are in flight mode from being spooked they usually have a lot of adrenalin in their systems. I've eaten meat from that situation and it's just not all that good tasting and so over the years I have shot all my game when they were standing still, better yet if they were bedded down. This being said the first buck I killed with my 44 Redhawk was walking away broadside from me and I shot it in the spine right behind the front shoulders without aiming. Pure luck? I'm not sure as I had practiced a great deal with the Redhawk before then so I could have developed some point shooting abilities. That's were shooting a can would be great.
 
Safety concerns of this thing are only prevalent in big groups and on ranges.

At home,i do enjoy shooting small fast things.
 
Small game hunting

As mentioned already, skeet and sporting clays shooting is always good practice for shooting moving targets. Go bird or rabbit hunting and you had better be able to hit a moving target, since they rarely sit still and wait for you to draw a sight picture.

The skills learned while participating in these activities do transfer to the other shooting disciplines.
 
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