I once met a guy during a class, who bragged about how he practiced 2000 rounds a day. He said he owned his own online firearms store and apparently could afford to do this. Yet he wasn’t better than anyone else in the class. When the instructor later recommended some ways to get better as a shooter, such as using a shot timer, he had never heard of that before.
The Importance of Active Learning in Shooting Practice
Assuming his bragging was true, and even if not I’m sure others do this, this demonstrates the need for active learning. Even if you were to hypothetically shoot 2000 rounds a day, what goes does that do you if your stance is incorrect, or shooting at the same speed over time? In reality, at least for close range shooting, you don’t really need to shoot very many live rounds as a percentage of total training time. Mostly to practice recoil management, retention on target, which are just two drills of many.
In order to actively learn you need feedback. Some kinds of feedback needs a teacher, and I recommend to every gun owner they take at least one class, or ask a friend for free help. Is my draw as efficient as possible? Am I using a stance that will properly account for recoil? Am I being safe?
You’re not done after one class however. Just as an athlete practices many hours a day to stay in top form for a competition, so do you need to practice for a life and death situation. What was my shot par time last week, and how am I doing this week? Can I transition targets quickly? Can I squeeze the trigger smoothly so as to not miss when in a hurry? Can I draw while moving? Can I fire from different positions accurately?
Recommended Practice Frequency
How much you practice depends on your circumstances. I recommend at least once a week for intermediate level shooting, and once a month for beginner. Either way, Interactive Gun Range can make this more productive and fun.
Features of Interactive Gun Range for Better Training
- Quick Draw allows you to shoot against a par time. As you get better, you can increase the par time and always try to beat your last best score.
- Crow Shoot allows you to practice against multiple moving targets, in a fun game environment.
- Shoot No Shoot reinforces an intermediate level training scenario, where you have to quickly use your judgement on if a target is a valid shoot. Are they pointing a gun at you, or a cell phone?
- The Varying Ranges scenario reinforces a lesson you get at beginner classes, where targets at 3 years do not require you to aim at them. But targets at 15 yards take more time. You are legally liable for every missed shot, and need to practice both. At the range you can move the paper closer or farther, but this game mode does one better as it’s automatic and random.
All of these modes automatically log relevant statistics over time. Par time, shots taken, accurate, and so on. You can review the logs in game or export them as a spreadsheet for your own records.
