fun targets, and fun target shooting

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WestKentucky

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I know of a lot of different ways to have fun shooting guns of any type, but wondered about some of the ways you guys shoot for fun.

I shot a couple hundred rounds today between my delta, pt99, ar15, ruger single six, and contender, as well as my buddies guns...mk3 slab side, 45acp/45 colt birdshead blackhawk, pmr30. We were at his farm which is currently flooded. There's no houses, roads, etc for well over a mile from where we were shooting, and we were shooting down into the flooded fields, mud and water flying when we missed his ar 500 targets. Shooting these 8 and 12 inch plates was fun as a warmup at 25 yards (yes with handguns too) but it got to be more and more fun when I got my saw horses out of the truck. Drop 8 or 10 pieces of fishing line and clip on Easter eggs...his 3 year old daughter got to easter egg hunt with her savage rascal. So once the close range fun was over we went across the flooded part of the field to about 125 yards and did basically the same thing...easter eggs are hard to hit in wind at range with an unmagnified optic. The AR 500 plates were ringing very regularly between the rimfire rugers, and the contender. The AR was wearing them out too. It was a great day burning up ammo. After that we went up the hillside to what we believe to be an old Cherokee camp site and found several broken arrowheads. I found one that is 99% with only a small chip off the back end at the tie notch. Wonderful day. For us, competition and tough shots make the day better. They had plans for dinner or we would have bet dinner on a game of horse like we normally do.

By the way, if you scoop up flour as you clip the Easter eggs closed you get a nice poof when you hit, plus they are not effected by wind near as much.
 
I like to use ritz crackers and clay pigeons for my son to get reaction when he hits, not just a hole in paper. .22 rimfire works best for these, as a .223 just holes them without shattering.

Shooting on my family's farm, we round up all the clogged or almost empty spray paint cans and use them as 100 yard targets. Impressive clouds of pretty colors and no doubt if you hit or not.

I enjoy shooting steel, but it takes some of the fun out of it for new shooters when I get nuts about eye pro and they can't shoot at close enough range to hit every shot. Something satisfying about that clanging sound.

I got a CD at a gun show years ago that has flies, cans, aliens, etc on printable targets. They're actually fun to shoot, since you can pick the easy stuff first, then move down in size, all on the same 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper. Makes it fun to shoot against someone else. First one to miss has to go hang the next set of targets.

Last but not least, I keep telling my son about the "good old days" when use bowling pins could be had for a song. Pin shoots were fun.
 
charcoal briquettes can be fun. Potatoes always were a favorite since they pop pretty loud with 17hmr lol.

Tough to beat steel targets clanging IMHO. Get a sheet of white paper in the summer and put some jelly on it. Flies will be there in no time and they are excellent targets!

Sure do wish I could do some bowling pins here affordably...
 
For those that never had the chance, bowling pin shoots were awesome. Put six pins on an old folding table at your chosen distance. All shooters are allowed only six rounds, as this puts everyone on an even footing. Pins must be taken off the table. If all six are not on the ground, reload with another six and keep shooting. Time is from first shot to last shot.
 
differently colored baloons are fun to shoot at. we set them up at about 110 yards and use a long enough string so the balloons can move around some with the wind. then say the green one is the bad guy,and the shooter gets to try to take out the chosen target,and not pop the "hostages"
 
Make a saw horse type affair about 4 foot tall with 2 inch wide boards. Put empty or water filled plastic pop bottles/cans in a line on the top. Drill a hole in the cap of a pop bottle and insert a string and knot the end. Screw it onto a bottle. Hang those from the bottom of the horse from staples/eyes put in the bottom of the top shelf. Empty on a windy day or full of colored water. You can screw new bottles onto the hanging caps. Hang clay targets on the legs or the cross plank using sheetrock screws. use clothes pins on string to hang clay targets instead, or with the bottles. Shoot em up at varying ranges. HAVE FUN.:D
 
Full soda cans are cool. Doesn't have to be unopened, though that makes it easier to tote and set up. You can bring empties and fill them with water when you set them up.

Chase golf balls on the ground.

Differend hunks of wood just to see how different rounds penetrate.

I've got a bleeding squirrel somewhere we haven't shot yet.

Full 2 liter soda bottles.

Melons can be fun, as can tomatos and such.

Empty shotgun shells.
 
go to a garage sale and buy junk to shoot at. I discovered what things were fun.

Plastic stuff isnt that fun because the bullets just pass through. The most fun was a wooden christmas nutcracker soldier and a wooden duck.

The thick frying pans were bad as they caused ricochets. If we had hung them it might have been better.

We shot alarm clocks - not bad
Tv - not that fun
plywood santa decoration - bullets just passed through couldnt tell you hit - not fun
string of large plastic lights - not fun, bullets just passed through
brass cups/vases - very fun - ding noise plus they fell over

Range didnt allow you to shoot glass, but there was tons of cheap glass stuff at the garage sale.
 
In addition to soda - can and 2 liters ...

Shaving cream cans - makes a wonderful snow-like mess!

Computer keyboards are fun too until you have to pick up all the keys.
Place the keyboard in a cardboard box turned on its side. The box catches nearly everything, very easy to clean up.
 
Buy a good dueling tree,,,

Buy a good dueling tree,,,
It's a great competitive target.

Sometimes we trade shots,,,
Sometimes it's a free for all with three mags.

Aarond

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I shoot on my own property. When my granddaughters were coming to spend a week I went to the Salvation Army and good will stores and bought a box of crappy toys and figurines and knik knacks. Spent less than $5 and when I was paying the lady asked me what I was doing with this collection. I told her and she laughed and said wait a minute. She went in back and came out with another box full of similar stuff and just gave it to me.
Back in the old days we had a lot of fun shooting at the town dump.
I like shooting extra produce from the garden, no mess that I have to clean up.
 
I enjoy shooting steel, but it takes some of the fun out of it for new shooters when I get nuts about eye pro and they can't shoot at close enough range to hit every shot. Something satisfying about that clanging sound.


I believe you should absolutely be "nuts" about eye pro for ANY non-emergency shooting activity, and it sets a bad example for new shooters if you decide which recreational shooting activities demand it vs which ones don't.
 
Normally I set up either defensive drills or IDPA stages depending on how many guys are coming over. On my home range I mostly shoot AR500 steel, with a mix or cardboard IDPA silhouettes. No trash to pick up and it makes for some realistic training. I like steel for speed, and the cardboard to reinforce accuracy. Add a couple blue barrels for obstacles, and a barricade or two and you can set up some decent scenarios. I just started working on another VTAC barricade today to get ready for spring. Here's some of the stuff I shoot:

Near to far drill using 8" plates:
DSC01086_zps4wewwzjy.jpg

Homemade mover for working Tueller drill etc. Just flip the stand around and it can move towards or away from the shooter. I have T-Posts with pulleys on each end of my range:

WP_20150515_003_zpsx3o1ddvi.jpg

IDPA CoF Setup:
DSC00994_zpsuwbgvneq.jpg

Plates, and bowling pin made of AR500 (Behind is my 385meter Turkey swinger and silhouette:
DSC00640_zpsccca94dd.jpg

Challenge Targets knockdown, with an 8" plate COM to take the target down. Put on a new T-Shirt and there's no aiming point for a COM hit. I also made a 4" ocular cavity plate that sits behind the head for practicing failure to stop drills.
WP_20150423_003_zpsgqmtv1eh.jpg

Chuck
 
We had a fun shoot at the Club in the fall. It was opened to members only. Any target that was approved by the range committee (me) was good to go.
We set up a large tarp and on top of it a sawhorse so that all "targets" would be high enough to have the sand backstop behind them. All shooting was done from 50 yards to eliminate any ricochets.
It was more fun watching rather than shooting. The coolest stuff were the fire extinguishers, old spray paint cans, watermelons, coconuts and other fruit when hit with a 7 mag or other large caliber.
-mike
 
12oz generic soda cans work great. I buy King Soopers twelve packs 2 for $5 when I take my grandkids shooting. I scatter them anywhere from 50 to 125 yards and we have challenge matches to see who can hit the most without a miss.
 
We hold "Family Fun Days" at the local range during the summer. We shot at water ballons at 100, 200 and 300 yards with any legal rifle. We also have other games that we play. Golf balls at 50 yards with rimfires, rolling balls which you have to roll the ball about 10 yards also rimfire, running deer any legal hunting rifle, stud poker with playing cards which have the back turned to the shooter so you don't know what the value of the card is until each shooter is done shooting also with rimfires. There is other games and we try to have different ones at each shoot. These shoots are open to everybody at a minimum cost per game. You're only limited by your imagination.
 
Before I got tired of all the pears on the ground that I had to pick up before I mowed the lawn and cut them down pears make great fun targets, I used to pull small ones to get larger ones later on and to keep the huge crops from breaking the limbs, kids loved to shoot them. Pumpkins are fun, lots of folks around here make harvest displays with corn stalks and small pumpkins of different sizes, when they get tired of them they put them by the road for trash pickup, sometimes we would get 10 or more a few days after Halloween. Produce of all kinds also works. Soda cans filled with water, plastic bottles of various sizes are good to.
 
I have shot at many of the targets mentioned here but nothing is more fun than Tannerite. We used a friend's custom long distance rifle in 6.5mm Creedmore to shoot one pound Tannerite canisters at 300 yards in December. Every person there nailed a Tannerite target at 300 yards, first time, kids included and it was so much fun. It didn't hurt that he had the rifle topped with a top of the line Nightforce optic that made hitting a one pounder at 300 yards childs play. Exploding targets are pretty much more fun than any other target.

At home, with my own rifles, it's all about my AR500 gongs and 2 liter soda bottles. Exploding targets are a felony in California. It's fun to shake the 2 liters up, hit them low and watch them take off like rockets. All of the local wildlife benefits from all of the colored sugar water all over the place and the ripped up bottles are easy to clean up. Steel is just plain gratifying to ping at a couple of hundred yards.
 
I believe you should absolutely be "nuts" about eye pro for ANY non-emergency shooting activity, and it sets a bad example for new shooters if you decide which recreational shooting activities demand it vs which ones don't.
I second this. Just have people wear eye protection. You won't always need it, but when you do, MAN will you be glad.

I've had two separate incidents where I swear the protective lenses saved an eye.

First was in a lane inside of an indoor pistol range. A case flew out of my Glock 19, bounced off of a wall, and came back at me right at my eye. It nicked the lens right in front of my pupil!

The second was outdoors while shooting my 1911 - a case flew up and out, like it was a "near stovepipe" or something, and tumbled right at my eye. It would have hit me square in the eye if I wasn't wearing safety glasses.

Even if the eye itself wasn't damaged, I don't want to feel what it's like to have a bad burn on my upper and lower eyelid!
 
Necco candy wafers work great with .22's and kids love shooting them.

th
 
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