It’s the final week of my Shoot Like a Girl range ready challenge! If you’re new to “Julie’s Challenge,” check out weeks one, two, three, and four. If you are following along, at this point, with all the gun handling and dry fire, you should feel more confident and ready to shoot. You know and understand safety rules and terms, and you’ve practiced grip, stance, sight alignment, and trigger control. You worked on presenting the pistol to the target and transitions. It’s time to test those skills in live fire.
This week, continue with 15 minutes of dry fire and prep your gear for the range. You’ll need eye and ear protection, your firearm, magazines or loading devices, and ammunition. Download and print the targets and bring them with you to the range.
There’s no set distance for this challenge. Targets can be placed as close as three yards or as far as you like. I suggest starting between three and five yards. As you improve you can always challenge yourself by increasing the distance.
There are three pages in Julie’s Challenge and the first focuses on accuracy. This is where you’ll be applying the fundamentals of grip, stance, sight alignment, and trigger control. The bullseye target on the left is a practice target. Shoot as much as you like on this target to prep for the challenge.
The bullseye target on the right is your test target. Notice that there are scoring rings with point values. Take your time to shoot five shots into this bullseye. You can shoot all the shots as a string, or take breaks between shots. After the five shots, score your target. A hit only has to touch the outside edge of the scoring ring to count.
Where the first page uses scoring rings, page two is scored with either a hit or miss. On this target, you’ll see five smaller dots. There’s no practice for this page and you have to make every hit count for the highest score. As with the first page, take as much time as you need to go five for five on this target. When you complete it, score your hits.
The last page incorporates transitions and controlled pairs. Like your dry fire practice over the last two weeks, you’ll start at the ready, present to the target, acquire the sights, and press the trigger. Make sure you use safe trigger discipline as you shoot, keeping your finger off the trigger until your sights appear on the target. Follow the instructions on the target for the proper target engagement and the number of shots. When you finish, tally your score by adding the scores from all three pages. Post a photo of you and your target and share it with us using the #juliegslgchallenge.
No matter what you score, you should be proud of what you’ve accomplished over these five weeks. You put in the work, drilled firearm safety, improved gun handling skills, and increased your confidence with your firearm. I hope you’ve had a fun few weeks and now that you’ve put in the time on and off the range, keep up the work. Keep challenging yourself. Check out Shoot Like a Girl’s schedule to find an event near you and follow Women’s Outdoor News for more shooting tips.
Download Julie’s Challenge Targets here.
Julie Golob is one of the most accomplished professional shooters in the world and captain of Team Smith & Wesson. She has won more than 120 championship titles in international, national and regional marksmanship competitions in seven different shooting disciplines. Learn more about the champion, author, veteran, hunter and outdoor television personality at JulieGolob.com. View all posts by Julie Golob
