I had the opportunity to join Jeff (helo_hunter here on the forum) for an afternoon of shooting out at Escambia River Gun Club on Saturday. Not only was Jeff a gracious host, but the range is awesome! The range has plenty of room, and the layout is excellent. During a Saturday afternoon, I expected to be elbow to elbow with other shooters, but Jeff and I nearly had the entire third range to ourselves, which was a welcome change of pace.
I didn't have a chance to walk around and check out the entire range, but it appeared to be separated into 4 separate range areas, the range we shot on, had a small berm at 50 yards, and ran all the way out to with the yardage marked, and a berm out at ~140 yards. Each station (I think there were about a dozen) with its own bench and a rest for seated shooting, very nice.
Jeff set up a couple of paper targets for us and we started shooting some pistols and some .22 caliber rifles. He brought out some guns that I hadn't had the chance to shoot, The Ruger 1911, as well as an XDM 9MM (now I need an XDM by the way thanks a lot...) and gave me some pointers in terms of range safety and shooting technique. Never having had any instruction, Jeff was able to give me a few pointers that really helped my pistol shooting in just a few hours.
Jeff also brought out a steel spinner target, which I could only score about 1 hit out of 10 shots on with a pistol, but it was really fun to watch him nail 5/5 with his 1911's. The next visit, I will definitely bring the dueling tree, since you are allowed to rapid fire at something other than paper there (awesome).
I have never been a fan of shooting at a traditional range for a number of reasons, only slow fire allowed.. 2-3 seconds in between shots, no shooting anything other than paper targets, and it seems that the public ranges are always so crowded, making me feel really rushed, which is never conducive to shooting well. I will however be joining ERGC shortly, and I am also going to check out the next IDPA match that they have and see if I can get involved with that as well.
Thanks again to Jeff for inviting me out, I will be seeing you again on the range in the near future :thumb:
Also Jeff, I forgot to mention, I went home and applied some of the pistol technique we talked about on my dueling tree with my .22LR Pistol and was getting some pretty consistent hits, I was pretty tickled by this and Ben can vouch for my improved accuracy
. I will need to give that spinner target another try after some more practice...
I didn't have a chance to walk around and check out the entire range, but it appeared to be separated into 4 separate range areas, the range we shot on, had a small berm at 50 yards, and ran all the way out to with the yardage marked, and a berm out at ~140 yards. Each station (I think there were about a dozen) with its own bench and a rest for seated shooting, very nice.
Jeff set up a couple of paper targets for us and we started shooting some pistols and some .22 caliber rifles. He brought out some guns that I hadn't had the chance to shoot, The Ruger 1911, as well as an XDM 9MM (now I need an XDM by the way thanks a lot...) and gave me some pointers in terms of range safety and shooting technique. Never having had any instruction, Jeff was able to give me a few pointers that really helped my pistol shooting in just a few hours.
Jeff also brought out a steel spinner target, which I could only score about 1 hit out of 10 shots on with a pistol, but it was really fun to watch him nail 5/5 with his 1911's. The next visit, I will definitely bring the dueling tree, since you are allowed to rapid fire at something other than paper there (awesome).
I have never been a fan of shooting at a traditional range for a number of reasons, only slow fire allowed.. 2-3 seconds in between shots, no shooting anything other than paper targets, and it seems that the public ranges are always so crowded, making me feel really rushed, which is never conducive to shooting well. I will however be joining ERGC shortly, and I am also going to check out the next IDPA match that they have and see if I can get involved with that as well.
Thanks again to Jeff for inviting me out, I will be seeing you again on the range in the near future :thumb:
Also Jeff, I forgot to mention, I went home and applied some of the pistol technique we talked about on my dueling tree with my .22LR Pistol and was getting some pretty consistent hits, I was pretty tickled by this and Ben can vouch for my improved accuracy
. I will need to give that spinner target another try after some more practice...
