getting bored

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moooose102

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i am getting bored shooting at paper targets, and playing "kick the can" with my pistols and rifles. i need some fun ideas on entertaining myself while shooting. i have been thinking about some steel targets, but i do not want to buy several sets, and, i have yet to find anything out there that will take my full loaded 45/70 and 300 win mag. i need some idead guys. thanks.
 
Balloons, fruit, water bottles, tennis balls, golf balls, eggs, one of those dueling trees, etc.

If you have the ability, hang tennis balls from a few strings and shoot them while swinging. Or, have several people shoot at the same tennis ball bouncing on the ground. Golf balls are more of a challenge.

Helium balloons are great, as they can be tied down and they blow in the wind a bit better than normal balloons. Fruit is fun with a high velocity round, like .17HMR. My wife loves to make orange juice. :)

There are plenty of things to shoot at...use your imagination. And if you run out of stuff, there's always tannerite. :evil:
 
Old appliances that have let you down and failed you, for the last time, heh heh.

Just for the heck of it I took the old blender after my wife smoked the motor in it, er I mean after it died. Brought it to the plinking range and started with 22LR, couldn't even see the holes in the plastic. 9mm with 125LRNs, maybe a few pieces of plastic off of it but disappointing. But had a go at it with the AR15 at 25 yards, now that was fun and cool! After 10 rounds there weren't any pieces big enough left to shoot, every hit was blowing stuff off of it for a couple of yards around.

Blenders are fun, and cheap if you can get the throwaways.

After dark on the night before 'recycle day' in our neighborhood I used to troll everyone's recycle bins for treasure. If I took a garbage bag with me I could score enough gallon jugs and detergent plastic bottles to keep me busy all Saturday afternoon. I did do it after dark though b/c I knew I looked pretty damn weird poking through people's trash.
 
Can't remember who makes them, but they make these brightly colored balls and cubes specifically for this. When shot, they bounce erratically, making you track them for the next shot.

No debris to clean up when you're done.:)
 
Don't know about your neck of the woods, but here we have trees that produce what we call "monkey balls". Large, baseball sized green things that looks almost like brains, people collect them to ward off spiders (don't know if that works).

We set some up, shot with a .22, they don't move. With a .45, they jump a very tiny bit, but remain in place, and retain their shape. Kinda freaky, but environmentally friendly.
 
I fill bottles with water and freeze them. They hold up surprisingly well to gun fire, sort of like a bowling pin. Probably the most fun was an old TV with a really thick glass screen. I started things off with a 12 gauge slug, which made short work of the glass.

Look into some spinning targets. Some are made out of this soft plastic that is virtually impervious to damage. Bullets go through and it immediately contracts, leaving only a tiny mark. Lots of fun.
 
Cans

I live out in the country so I can shoot any time and I like to straiten out a coat hanger stick it in the ground and put a tin cna over the loop when you hit it it will swing all over the place. Its a lot of fun and good practice.
 
Just googled it, you are correct, it is the osage orange. Thanks for solving a lifelong mystery!:cool:
 
Wow...there are some creative minds at work here!

But isn't it a pain to clean up the mess when you've got tv and blender shrapnel all over the place?
 
Balloons are the best when shooting outdoors. Get three different colors of balloons and a friend to shoot with. Tie one of each color balloon so they all hang together in a bunch... Helium balloons are more fun but they are certainly not needed to have fun with...

If you are shooting a rifle, set them at 100 yards. Have your friend call out one color. You have 15 seconds to shoot or you lose your window. You can only pop the balloon that your friend called. If you miss, miss your window or pop more than one balloon it is your friends turn to shoot until he does the same.

This is a cheap way to have tons of fun... I usually do this with my .22 Marlin and a couple of bags of balloons.

I also do this with my pistols but you only have ten seconds and the balloons are at 25 yards...

Back in the day I spent many a weekend trying to light "strike anywhere" matches from 25 yards with a Marlin 39A...

Get some old golf balls... Drill a hole through them and hang em up down range... see how long you can keep it spinning by shooting it. Gets difficult over 50 yards...

Hundred yard stud poker with rifles is a blast as well. Staple a deck of cards to a 2x4 and gather up a couple of buddies. Randomly pick a shooting order. Each shooter gets one shot and then the next shooter gets a shot...Each shooter gets a total of 5 shots. You must call your card to register as a hit. Once a card is called and hit you can not score that card as it is already "dealt". The man with the biggest hand wins.
 
Fall is upon us, and with it comes the shooter's favorite plaything... PUMPKINS!!!

Cut a small plug from the top, fill the pumpkin with water, reinsert the plug and take to the range with your favorite rifle.

Best of all, if you do it in the right place, you have a renewable source of new targets in the spring!
 
i've posted this before but..my daughter-in-law works at Borders and takes the movie posters they use for displays when the store is done with them. We staple them to plywood and shoot at the actors. I enjoyed adam sandler, but sex in the city was fun too!
 
Don't know about your neck of the woods, but here we have trees that produce what we call "monkey balls". Large, baseball sized green things that looks almost like brains, people collect them to ward off spiders (don't know if that works).
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We call em "Mock Orange's" and they supposedly will keep out roaches. Don't know if that is true either.
 
Take a propane gas container and secure a road flare to it with duct tape. Light the flare and then back off about 200 yds and shoot at the propane container. :what:

-- It's really spectacular. Explaining the damage to the Fire Marshall and the Sheriff is highly entertaining too . . .

Or . . .

Head to your local "disco-mart" and buy "house brand" (cheap) two litre bottles of soda -- strawberry is a nice color. Set them up in bright sunlight and shoot them with high velocity hunting or JHP bullets.

The most fun I've ever had shooting is setting up targets with a buddy and keeping score.
 
I've always enjoyed skeet shooting. Not NEARLY as creative as everything else here, but pretty simple, and damn cheap. At least it used to be. I haven't shot skeet since before I went to boot camp(4 years ago) and I'm sure pigeon prices went up along with everything else.
 
Probably the most fun was an old TV with a really thick glass screen. I started things off with a 12 gauge slug, which made short work of the glass.
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Yeah, and when you're all done . . . you have an unlawful dump site full of broken glass, just the sort of thing the US Forestry Service and the Sheriff are trying to discourage in the woods.

A recent feature program on TV noted the BLM is closing public lands because shooters are turning open spaces into trash dumps.

Broken glass is particularly obnoxious. Broken glass is dangerous and does not bio-degrade.

So, how about we "take the High Road" and stop acting like the redneck Cretin Bubba's that so often get castigated by the gun-grabber media?
 
I'm sure pigeon prices went up along with everything else.
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It has. The last box I bought was double the previous box price. I buy a bunch at once, so I don't get them but once or twice a year.
 
About 500 yards, a good high-powered rifle w/ scope, an open strip of barren desert with nothing around for miles, a small camp fire, and a few of those small green bottles of propane.

:D ;)


-T.
 
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