Air guns as a practice tool

With the temp just at freezing this morning it is a good sign that outdoor shooting will soon be less than optimal for both equipment and human.  I will say that my buddy John C. in Alaska shoots year round.  Hint hint.  But, for now, NH is a fair weather crowd and given the amount of effort it is to put on a match, that is fine with me.

But I am going to work hard on air this season.  Most of what I would write is available on other sites so I will keep it brief and share only one personal experience and then provide some links for ongoing reading.

When in Dallas I had a three car garage.  Keep in mind your garage was also the only storage you had.  I was able to create a nice 33 ft range and I practiced all the time.  At first I had a cheap Chinese knock off which I tuned as best one could.  In other words, I learned a lot about spring airguns.  I shot it a bunch and finally took it to an airgun silhouette match and shot well enough to start in AA.  I was hooked.  I did the math as to range fees, ammo, miles driven, time etc and justified the purchase of a TX200 mfg by AirArms.  This gun could be used as both a practice tool and was appropriate to shoot in 2 of the 3 MS Airgun divisions.  Why not!  I spent 3x on an airgun than what I had spent on my first rimfire!  CRAZY!

I started shooting it in my garage and wow what a difference!  What a beautiful instrument.  My at home scores went up but more importantly, I TRULY had a revelation of what Lanny Bassham writes about.  The subconscious or "reflexive shooting".  Meaning, you don't think about taking the shot, you just reflexively take the shot.

I was at some match in small bore and my practice took over.  It is hard to describe but effectively I envisioned my dot on the animal at home and simply repeated what I was doing at home at the match.  Dot here, wiggle there, finger squeeze.....pow....ding.  I was not thinking about anything, I was just repeating what I had been doing at home over and over.  Sadly, that level of practice has not been attained again.  But I know it works and I know what I need to do if I want to improve.

I am a huge advocate of at home air practice.  It would be best to use a scope on some form of scaled animal.  I will see if I can include a link to the scaled 10m animals for air.

Here is one by Dave Imas, a very good shooter and coach on the left coast.  He is also the one with mile high scope rings under Too hot, too cold.

Imas

Second, is one of the best off hand shooters in Silhouette.  David Tubb's review of how to get the most out of an airgun for at home practice.

Tubb part 1.   
Tubb part 2.

10m scaled Silhouette target