Go to the range. Take the pistol you most regularly carry concealed and whatever long gun you prefer for home defense. It doesn't matter if you can shoot the eye out of a squirrel at 30 yards with a 6" .357 or a customized 1911 safe queen if you are carrying a snub nosed .38 or a mini Glock. If you can't hit squat with your carry piece it either means you need to practice more with it or start carrying a gun you can actually hit stuff with.
To be honest if you can't hit targets at home defense range (say under 30 yards) with a long gun it is either time to check your equipment or to go back to the drawing board in terms of basic marksmenship. No shame in either though macho pride will take a hit. Better to learn that the rifle you zeroed with one box of ammo 5 years ago has had that zero bounced out in 12 road trips and 3 moves, or that you need some refresher training, at the range this week than when you need to use the darn thing for real.
Bonus points for taking the spouse or kids.
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2 comments:
Then get yourself to an Appleseed, if you need to re-tune your rifle skills!
If you need to work on handgun speed (follow-up shots, mag change speed/proficiency, target changes, etc) check your local range for some IPSC, GSSF, USPSA or "Steel" matches.
The local "Steel" handgun matches at my range have done wonders for my handgunnery. I'm literally twice as fast as I used to be, after attending about twice a month on average for a year. There's been some home practice involving mag change and dry fire drills to augment that, but most of it is from live ammo trigger time and learning to come out of recoil onto the NEXT target rather than the current target. Can't simulate that without the recoil impulse... but I'll admit to using 1000's of rounds through a Browning Buckmark .22 (with a much smaller recoil impulse than my carry gun) to start understanding the basics of that skill.
Good point! It's not enough to stock up on weapons and ammo if you don't know how to use them or are not proficient with them.
An security emergency, or when you must put food on the table, is not the time to learn how to use the weapon. At best you'll miss. At worse you'll injury yourself.
Joe
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