3 Ways To Practice Shooting On A budget
Most entry-level students I train will pass the basic shooting qualification courses for their category of work and they tend to dedicate time and effort in the near future to practice at their local shooting range. What I’ve noticed over a longer period of time is that the effort diminishes and so does the skill level. It is unfortunate that every now and then I’ll have an entry-level student pass their initial qualification but when it is time to requalify a year later to maintain their certification, they’ll fail and do worse than they did as a new shooter in some cases.
At the end of the day, you are responsible for yourself and the liabilities you carry around especially when carrying a firearm for work as someone who is charged with protecting life and property. On the other side of that coin, I can surely relate to the financial burden of regular firearms practice. But we can minimize that and here’s how.
1) Dry fire
It costs ZERO dollars to do dry fire practice at home. And dry fire practice allows you to practice those two critical fundamentals of marksmanship; trigger control and sight alignment. Practice smooth trigger pulls and feel the trigger reset. Do it so much that you instinctively know when that trigger resets and what it feels like. Test how smooth your trigger press is by placing a dime or empty casing at the end of your slide above the muzzle while you squeeze the trigger to test your ability to stay flat while pressing the trigger.
2) Stop buying and renting equipment at the range
As much as I like to support my local gun range, ranges are notorious for inflating prices on range supplies. You’ll go a range expecting to spend $20 for an hour of range access and by the time you rent eye and ear protection, buy ammunition, and buy targets, you’ve dropped $75, maybe $100.
Order ammunition online. AmmoSeek is a great website to source and price out ammunition from suppliers on the internet. Purchase ammunition by 1,000 round cases if you can as this will save you tremendously in the long run. If you live in a state that doesn’t allow ammunition shipments, the next best option will be local sporting goods stores like Dick’s or find out when the next gun show is near you. Gun shows are great for buying ammunition, especially in bulk. But bulk purchases are key in order to save money. During my last trip to my local range, I noticed they were selling 50 round boxes of 9mm ammunition for about $16+tax. 1,000 rounds would cost $320+tax at that price. I can source a 1,000-round case of quality 9mm ammunition on AmmoSeek for about $160 in today’s market, which averages to about $8 for a 50 round box that goes for $16 at the range.
Stop buying targets and renting eye and ear protection at the range. You don’t need big $3/4 shooting targets for range practice. You can make your own using cheap paper plates, a sharpie and a bullseye sticker. Check out our Amazon List “Shooting Gear.”
3) Bring a friend
Bring a friend to the range who you can learn from and who can watch you and identify problems you may not notice about yourself such as flinching or improper grip. Going to the range and just shooting rounds is not practice. Identifying problems and working those problems out one by one will make you a more accurate and faster shooter. Also, bringing a friend and sharing a lane allows you to split the range time fees so you save money.
