range practice: how long to become proficient?

G

gaseousclay

New member
i'm anxious to try my hand at deer hunting next fall, however, I think it would be irresponsible of me to go hunting without first becoming an efficient marksman. so, how long did it take you to become a great shot? did you spend many days or weekends at the range shooting at paper targets before you tried hunting, or did some of you just dive right in? I ask because I don't want to be in a position where I mortally wound a deer and it dies a slow death because I was a horrible shot.
 
It is very important to practice, and the fact that you want to is probably the biggest indicator that you will be a responsible hunter. I'd say I didn't really get what I consider "good" until after years of practice. However, I hunted before I got to the level I am today. The important thing is practice as much as you can, but more so, know your limitations. If you think you can make the shot, don't take it. If you know you can, squeeze slowly, and try not to let buck fever get a hold of you. Also, knowing where to shoot is just as important as how to shoot. Study the anatomy of the animal. Do you know where the heart, liver, and lungs are? In different game species, they can be in different spots, such as the oryx vs. the elk. Another thing that many people overlook is that practice is practice, regardless of caliber. Practice with that .22, and shoot that hunting rifle enough to get good with it as well. However, if you can't afford to practice with that .30-06 or .30-30 enough to be an acceptable marksman, trigger and breath control, sight alignment, and patience are the same regardless of caliber. Good luck to you! The short answer is that there is no such thing as too much practice, but some people learn to shoot more quickly than others.
 
Just as the other poster put it, I think its a hard thing to say. Marksmanship can take years, or a couple trips to the range. Depends on the proficiency you want. Benchrest shooters strive to be like .5 moa at 100 yards+. Thats respectable but definitely not needed for hunting. My first day at the range with my 22, I could hit the small 8 inch targets easily at 100 yards and most the time at 200 yards. 8 inches is more than enough accuracy if you are aiming for a large animal. Especially that your hunting with a larger caliber than 22 (a 22 at 100 yards+ is alot harder than larger calibers at 100 yards+)

This is just my limited experience though, but I think its pretty accurate.
 
As mentioned, the fact that you are already thinking about your marksmanship as part of an ethical hunt, you are light years ahead of some.

Everyone progresses at different levels. The quaility of your instruction, the quality of your equipment and how seriously you take your practice all will be factors. I started shooting pretty young but never felt really comfortable with a rifle until probably college. I think that's for 2 reasons.. I wasn't lucky enough to get consistent range time was a big part of it and also I wasn't known for physical prowess.. I was fat, awkward and clumsy. Not fun.. but it's all good now :)

1st thing you need to know is how far you will have the opportunity to shoot and then make an honest assessment of how far you are comfortable shooting (but don't come to that final conclusion yet because you've got plenty of practice time between now and hunting season!!). Also, you need to know what position(s) you will be shooting from. prone with a bipod? Off a deerstand with a semi-solid bar to rest off of? Freehand?

Benchshooting is good for singling out particular areas of what you need practice with. For example, you need to improve your trigger pull. By shooting from a bench, you can concentrate more on your trigger squeeze and not worry as much about holding the rifle dead on from the kneeling position.

Having said that, you also need to practice from the position you are going to be shooting from when actually in the field.

Maybe more info than you were looking for, but there you go :)
 
Let me give you one piece of advise you should heed unless you are really rich. Shooting enough centerfire ammo to make you proficient will be REALLY expensive. You would wind up saving money in the long run by investing a couple hundred dollars in a good bolt-action .22 with a decent rimfire scope. You can shoot all day long for $20 as opposed to more than $1/bang.
 
I'd say if you can reliably hit a 6-8" at 100-150yrd target, cold bore, with your chosen hunting ammunition, and can follow all of the other responsible hunter rules such as knowing what is behind your target, etc etc... you're good enough of a shot! I can do it with a 60+yr old hastily made Mosin Nagant using 30+yr old surplus ammo... highly doubt ANY modern equivalent would be a worse platform than that.

Do you need to have .5 MOA groups to hit a 4ft tall deer with an entire shoulder to shoot at? Maybe if you are planning on headshotting at 300 yards or something crazy. :D

Great ideas shooting from a variety of field positions. I would certainly be comfortable shooting prone, sitting, off shooting sticks, and if you have the ability down from a stand. Forget the bench and get in the dirt.
 
Just practice until you think you're ready.

Hunting situations have variables and complications you don't get when shooting from a bench, or even off-hand at a range. You need to be as proficient as possible with your rifle, to be able to overcome the additional challenges.

Don't forget to do some "unknown range" practice, as well. Learning to properly judge distance makes a big difference.

I try to take at least one of my primary hunting rifles out on every trip I make, whether we're after squirrels, rabbits, rocks, lizards, bumble bees, or paper (the wildlife can be scarce at times...). It helps keep familiarity and proficiency up.

When you do start hunting, the biggest challenge will be controlling yourself. Buck Fever is terrible. I suffer from it every year (even if the target is a small doe). However, I have taught myself to pass on shots I think I can make, or shots where I'm fighting the adrenaline rush. I only take the shots I know I can make. (As chewie was saying.)

If I'm not calm and in control, the shot is not taken.




Personal anecdote of no real importance here:

I started shooting when I was about 4 years old. By the time I was 10, I was making any shot I chose to take with a rifle. When I was 13, my dad took me out on a rabbit hunting trip in the desert. When we got out of the truck, he made an unusual statement for a Jack Rabbit trip, "If you can't kill them with one shot, don't shoot." That sounds like a good plan... but all I had was a .22 LR with crappy bulk ammo and a 16" barrel. A one-shot kill with that combination is nearly impossible in that area, since most of the rabbits get spooked at 75-150 yards.

Out of about 50 Jacks we saw that day, I shot one. On the way back to the truck, my dad played a little game. He stopped me, and asked me to judge the distance to some objects between us and a distant highway. Then grabbed my shoulder and said, "There's an overturned barbeque behind you. When I say to, turn around, locate it, and shoot the plastic caps off the legs as fast as you can."

I turned, found it at about 80 yards, shot two of the caps off, put a bullet through one that didn't come off, and put a fourth shot into where the fourth cap should have been. It was some of the best shooting I had ever done with that little .22 carbine. ...And I got lectured about not shooting does. Apparently, he had only wanted me to shoot the caps (buck deer). He considered the leg without a cap to be a non-target, analogous to a doe deer.

Side note: It still amazes me, how many charcoal grills we have run across in the middle of the desert. I swear, the count is well over 50, in the last 25 years. And they always still have the plastic caps on the legs...
 
I am former military (Army Reserve) and when I was in basic training we had a couple of weeks of range time and classes to become proficient with the M16 A2 rifle. We were taught breath control, trigger discipline, sight alignment, sight picture, and rear and front sight tweaking to bring the bullet on target effectively.

I was in the reserves for 8 years total and we would go to the range about once a year to re-qualify and I never had a problem with it. When I was in the process of deploying to Iraq in '03 I was assigned a weapon that was totally different from the M16. I was issued an M249 SAW.

Went to the range two different days to sight in, become proficient, and qualify with the weapon. I did extremely well with it (best in the brigade as a matter of fact) and ended up trusting my life to that weapon while stationed in Baghdad on the material collection teams. It always hit what I was aiming at, but again my training was mainly in a different weapon system.

So as my forum mates above said, becoming proficient with shooting a caliber that is more efficient economically is a really good idea. The fact that I didn't buy my ammo in the army helped a lot in becoming proficient with the 16 and the 249. I wouldn't be anywhere near as good if I had to pay for it. (Simply because I wouldn't have been able to afford it in the first place :D )

The round I became proficient with in the 16 was the same exact round that was fired out of the 249 just at a different rate and style of fire. The 16 was semi-automatic or 3 round burst and the 249 was fully automatic. Being able to plug an M16 clip into the 249 in emergencies was a definate plus. Doing so kind of chewed up the M16 magazine some however.

While I was overseas, I hit the range about once a week with my 249 and captured or otherwise acquired ammunition. I maintained proficiency with my 249 for the entire duration of the deployment. And, I wager, if i were to pick one up and give it a whirl today (been out of the Army since 09) I would probably do fairly well with it.

But now that I am out of the Army I still use the same principles and disciplines that were taught to me during "range week" in training. (They called it range week even though it was actually 2 weeks)

Breath control, trigger discipline, sight picture, proper prone unsupported and supported firing, maintaining a good cheek weld, and keeping the rifle tucked tightly away in your "shoulder pocket" were all attributes to everyones success at the range.

There are lots of veterans in TFL forums and they will all tell you that once you know what to do with a weapon, and learn the simple disciplines involved in firing, the rest just seems to fall into place. And the targets will also fall.

The quaility of your instruction, the quality of your equipment and how seriously you take your practice all will be factors.
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+1 ndking1126

I have never hunted anything other than 2 legged varmints so you need to rely on the advice of my fellow TFL members on that one. I really want to get into some hunting (4 legged animals) one day but I need to train up on the use of optics for that. Never shot something through a scope before. And I know you don't have to (use a scope), but most hunters I see these days use some kind of glass.

To answer the question of the OP, it really depends on the quality of training and your willingness to learn and apply the training, but for me, it took about 2 weeks.
 
See if you have an Appleseed shoot event near you. They have some political bias to them but 90% of it is teaching you how to shoot damned well. I learned by having a private range at home and putting thousands upon thousands of rounds through .22 rifles and pistols. There would be days I'd be out shooting for hours and going through a couple boxes of bulk .22lr with my Henry lever action.
 
how long did it take you to become a great shot?
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HA! I'll let you know when that happens! I can hold my own in the deer woods, and I still miss them. It's aggravating, and humbling, and frustrating, because it takes a lot longer to convince yourself that you missed completely than it does to track a wounded animal. When I shoot a deer, I've normally got it in a half-hour. When I miss one I'll spend hours combing the ground looking for blood or other sign.

did you spend many days or weekends at the range shooting at paper targets before you tried hunting, or did some of you just dive right in? I ask because I don't want to be in a position where I mortally wound a deer and it dies a slow death because I was a horrible shot.
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I shoot every chance I get and between today and the start of the deer season I'll probably shoot 150-200 rounds of the ammo I intend to use, through the rifle I intend to use. I'll be at the range at least once a week, practicing from positions that I use in the deer woods.

The best way to train, and the most reasonable way I've ever used, is to shoot at a 9" paper plate. The vital area of most whitetail deer is about 9" in diameter, so put up your paper plates and shoot at those. At whatever range you can hit that 9" paper plate, on demand, then that's your range for deer hunting.

After you sight your rifle in, get away from the bench and shoot from positions, standing, kneeling, sitting, whatever position you might use in the field. Stand shooters would to well to bring a lawn chair to the range and shoot from that. Hit that 9" plate repeatedly and you're well on your way to being a shooter.

I killed two deer last year, both at about 150 yards. One-shot kills. I missed one deer that surprised me at 30 yards. One shot miss. I searched for her for two hours till I convinced myself that I had shot over her back.
 
What Doyle said. +100.

Bench marks. Problem. I don't know how well your rifle will group.

My 10-22 will do 3/4" @ 50 yards. If you could take it and hit a baseball at 25yards offhanded, you would be close. 2# trigger, no creep.

If you can put five out of six in a paper plate at 75 yards with your centerfire offhanded, you are getting close.

If you can rest against a tree and put six out of six in a pie plate at 100 yards you are getting close.

Group that rifle and see if you can do the above. And good luck.

Remember. Practice, practice, practice, p..........................
 
Clifford L. Hughes

Gaseiysckay:

When I trained in Marine Corps boot camp with the rifle, I attended one week of combined snapping in and class room instruction on marksmenship. All but about seven members of my platoon qualified at least marksman. I shot expert. I shot at a ten inch bull at 200 and three hundred yards. For rappid fire at two and three hundred yards I shot at an eighteen wide silhouette target. At 500 yards the bullseye was twenty inches in diameter.

A few years later the able target was changed form ten inches to twelve inches.

So how long it takes you to become proficient depends on how much you practice. I should think that about ten range practices shooting twenty to forty rounds should be suffficient if you pay attention to basic marksmanship.

Semper Fi.

Gunnery sergeant
Clifford L. Hughes
USMC Retired
 
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Depends on your definition of marksman really, but one can always better themselves even the world class marksmen that win consistently. Shooting for accuracy is probably one of the toughest things to do. Then you equate accuracy at a distance and so many factors come into play that it makes you want to scream, or for me at does at least. Because most of the factors are ever changing which drives me insane because a person can't account for every little change in the conditions their shooting in, at least not all the time. Shooting is something that you have to be constant at to keep your rhythm and remain consistent in my experience at least. I just started back because i've been out for a month due to finals, suddenly i wasn't getting the results i'm used to. I'm probably more of a mental headcase when it comes to shooting than most people though YMMV.
 
Cool thread! I've shot every rifle, every shotgun, and every pistol that I could get my grubby paws on for 40-something years, and I'm still not happy with my shooting, totally. And what I mean by that is that I practice shooting quite a bit with different weapons. I'm currently working up handloads for my 7mm rem mag, my .270 win, and my daughters .243 win, so I definetly get some practice, BUT like Frankenmauser,every hunting situation is different, and one can never totally have enough practice,;) Practice until your happy with the proficiency level you obtain. I've killed over 50 whitetails, and every shot was different. Just practice hard and be confident in your shot placement.:)
 
I shoot 2-3 days a week from late spring to late fall mainly since I really enjoy it. I'll shoot about 150-200 rounds a session. I use the bench only for sighting in and checking out a new rifle. I hate being crouched over the rifle on the bench so I really try to avoid it. I mainly shoot ARs (2) and a .22 since I really like the AR. The AR 15 is a real confidence builder since they are so accurate right out of the box. The .22 is for cheaper practice. I shoot each week from different positions and really practice to get proficient.
 
YARDDOG(1) said:
Every year out I look for that first shot COLD barrel & make sure it's on
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That's good advise. For the past several years, I'll pick a weekend in early August and clean my rifle, really clean it. Then I don't clean the bore again till after the season is over. When I go to the range I might take other rifles, but the hunting rifle gets shot just exactly one time. I want to know without doubt where that cold shot is going to hit the paper. For my woods, about two inches high at 100 yards is what I'm seeking.
 
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