Next, A Shotgun

As regular readers know, my shooting has up to now been limited to pistols. I've been itching to expand my skills for some time now, but just haven't made the leap. I spent some time in a local gun shop ogling the various AR clones recently, but that's not in the budget right now. A few weeks ago we were discussing shotguns, both for fun and defensive purposes, then about that time I came across an article on the latter that really got me thinking. You can read the article yourself over at the Gabriel Possenti Shooters blog.

A couple of weeks ago a friend brought over his Remington 870 for our trip to the range. After we finished shooting the pistols we went over to the shotgun field to familiarize ourselves with the weapon. I've not shot a shotgun as an adult, so it was for all intents and purposes a new experience for me. And a fun one!

This past weekend we got back to the range and spent more time with the shotgun. As with our pistol shooting, simply standing and aiming down range doesn't do it for us. So we set up some clays on various stumps throughout the firing field. The idea was to shoot a clay from the closest group, advance and hit one or two more. Then continuing to advance to the first target group, take the next next further out target. Advance to somewhere near where that target was and engage the next one out. Finally advancing to the last stump to engage some of the clays on the berm.

Keeping in mind, this is a new weapon for me, the movement and reloading was slow, and awkward. But the intent is to learn to get the shotgun mounted in a consistent position, and shoot accurately while still adding a bit of stress and variety. The gun we were using is set up for waterfowl hunting so can hold only three shots total. So there was ample opportunity for grabbing shells from pockets and reloading.

We had a lot of fun with this exercise and of course we're just getting started. I'll be shopping for a shotgun of my very own, as well as doing some related reading. Besides the added skills, when we head out for a range day and the pistol bays are all in use, we'll have another option for shooting.