Have you ever heard people say they don’t practice shooting very often because it’s so boring just to stand and shoot at a plain target? They are correct – but it doesn’t have to be that way. There are plenty of fun targets to shoot and ways to challenge yourself or others to improve the excitement, and I decided to head out to the range with my Walther PDP F-Series to accomplish this mission of making shooting practice fun again.
I met a couple of members from my A Girl and a Gun Women’s Shooting League (AGAG) chapter, Joy Robb and Patti Short, at our local indoor range. To make it even more interesting, I took my Walther PDP F-series to share so they would be shooting the same gun for this experience.
We started by putting up a basic silhouette target to let them get a little warmup with the Walther, since they had never shot it before. It also has a Crimson Trace red dot, and they had never shot a handgun with a red dot before either.
AGAG has some great targets available through its online shop. One of them is the “Dueling Tree” target. Typically, in “real life,” two people would shoot at a steel Dueling Tree target, shooting simultaneously for a specified time. At the end of the time whoever had the least number of targets left on their side won. Since this was a paper target, they simply took turns shooting at the color on their side. Patti shot first and then Joy, who won that little competition.
Next, we tried the Candyland targets, which also came from AGAG. These are really fun because they can be shot at a shooter’s comfort or skill level. They can shoot one shot in each square or the number indicated on the square. They can perform the reload if they choose, or they don’t have to. They can shoot strong or support hand. But that also means the target gives them goals to work on or drills to practice. This one wasn’t a competition, but it shows a fun way to practice and improve skills, even if you are shooting alone.
Many ranges also provide a small variety of targets to utilize, so I asked Joy to pick out one that she thought looked fun. She came back with a colorful “Hostage Crisis” target. “I just like all those colors,” she explained.
Again, this one wasn’t a competition, but another fun way to practice. You could tell by then they were warmed up and much more comfortable with the Walther because they didn’t shoot any “hostages, and neutralized the “bad guy.”
Even in a busy range, this little experience went smoothly, because we just used one lane and took turns.
It’s easy to find fun and challenging targets, whether on the AGAG website, other online retailers or in your local gun store. For instance, Gun Goddess offers downloadable targets for free, along with a link to drills for each target.
Other ideas for fun that I’ve heard about or participated in include the following:
As you can see, practicing does not have to be boring. Get some fun targets. Invite your friends. Create your own little competition.
Oh – and how did Joy and Patti like the Walther PDP F-Series with the red dot? “It’s so light!” they both said. They said they really enjoyed shooting it. The extended slide stop lever elicited a happy, “Oh!” from them as they realized they could reach it easily. As for their first experience with a red dot, Pattie exclaimed, “I really like that red dot!” and Joy wholeheartedly agreed with her.
Check out the Walther PDP F-Series for your next set of range games here.
Nancy Keaton is a retired college administrator, president of her local gun club, competitive shooter and freelance writer whose work has appeared in A Girl and A Gun Women’s Shooting League, "American Shooting Journal," "American Concealed," "Northwest Meetings + Events," and other publications. She enjoys writing about a wide variety of topics and interviewing ordinary people doing amazing things. To see a compilation of her writing, check out her website at www.nancykeaton.com. View all posts by Nancy Keaton
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