How many rounds?

[brockel]

Yikes that’s a tough one to keep track of between rimfire and center fire

 

[GlockZ]

I try to get to the range at least once a month, throughout the spring and summer, I definitely spend a lot of time breaking clay birds. At least for me, doing trap, skeet or sporting clays helps me when hunting season opens. Also shoot a lot of 3d archery, which also helps once hunting season opens up.

 

[jt13]

With handguns it's probably +/- 1000 rounds a year. Not as much as I should, but with that being said...

Speed and accuracy come from good quality practice and drills, not poking holes in paper on the range. The most beneficial drills you can do require no ammo. A guy training correctly and firing 15 live rounds at the range will out shoot any weekend warrior blasting away hundreds of rounds without the proper fundamentals.

 

[huntnfisher]

How many rounds do you shoot a year for practice?

I'm shooting my pistol more this year attempting to shoot more accurately and faster

Not enough!

 

[huntnfisher]

Probably don't shoot enough.

 

[Boarmaster]

3 rifles 3 shots each to check zero. If any are out then 3 after I feel I am at zero. If its a new rifle I will usually run a box thru it. I don't practice as much as I make sure my rifles are jam up and shooting where they are supposed to. My hunting shots are 75-220 yards max with most 100-150. If anything odd happens to the rifle between hunts or I need to clean it I shoot a group again before hunting.

 

[Sask hunter]

I am a big believer in practice but not on a target. I’ll shoot a couple shots to confirm zero but that’s it. I try to go after gophers for a few days every summer and go through 1k rounds with the 22. And then in the fall I’ll go through a case of steel after waterfowl but come rifle season last year I fired 5 shots for 2 bears, 1 moose and 1 WT. 4/5 with my 338 and 1/1 300 mag. I know many disagree but I believe pulling a trigger is good and it doesn’t have to be your hunting rifle. I really want to get back into coyote calling when we have a winter where we don’t have a thousand feet of snow and I can walk more then 20’ off the road. I think they are the best practice of all lots of different shot angles, off shooting sticks and other rests, small target, exciting and always get some good running shots practice in

 

[Phaseolus]

I’ve got two Tikka T3’s set up with the same scope etc. I shoot the T3 in .223 a lot and the the 30.06 about 30 rounds per year.

 

[Jbotto]

I know many disagree but I believe pulling a trigger is good and it doesn’t have to be your hunting rifle

I’ll agree with this. When I was shooting a brick of .22’s per week, it didn’t seem to matter what I picked up, I was a much better shot then. The part of using your hunting rifle for me is the muscle memory and familiarity of it when things get stressful or a fast follow-up is needed. I really like having a .223 in the same rifle as my hunting rifle is. Pain-free and cheap way to build some of that good practice.

 

[JustinsDad]

For long range, quality matters more than quantity. Both for tweaking your round or practicing technique. I only shoot 30 or 40 rounds a year on each of my two my long range rifles but I have my bullet dialed in. I dry fire probably triple that just confirming no twitch. If you shoot a real high power rifle too much, barrel wear becomes a problem and you can go backwards in accuracy. For play I shoot a few thousand from my AR, mini 14 or my 98 Mauser. Cheap fun but that’s not serious practice.

 

[Don Fischer]

Nothing like I did some years back. Back then, a lot! Never counted though. Probably shoot a bunch this year because new rifle coming. Have five rifles I used to hunt with plus two carry guns, and two revolver's I like shooting. Shoot the rifles mostly, rifle kind of guy! Also used to shoot lot of shotgun shells but back then there were birds around to shoot. Used to go out and plink with the rifles a lot, just don't get out that much anymore. Age getting the better of me.

 

[HandgunHunter]

Speaking of practice….the wife and I just came in from doing a little pre spring Turkey hunting practice.

 

[devon deer]

3 rifles 3 shots each to check zero. If any are out then 3 after I feel I am at zero. If its a new rifle I will usually run a box thru it. I don't practice as much as I make sure my rifles are jam up and shooting where they are supposed to. My hunting shots are 75-220 yards max with most 100-150. If anything odd happens to the rifle between hunts or I need to clean it I shoot a group again before hunting.

Thats the same as me, can't afford to waste ammunition over in the UK, we just can't get the reloading components, primers are a nightmare to get hold of at the moment.

 

[Brittany Chukarman]

I am a big believer in practice but not on a target. I’ll shoot a couple shots to confirm zero but that’s it. I try to go after gophers for a few days every summer and go through 1k rounds with the 22. And then in the fall I’ll go through a case of steel after waterfowl but come rifle season last year I fired 5 shots for 2 bears, 1 moose and 1 WT. 4/5 with my 338 and 1/1 300 mag. I know many disagree but I believe pulling a trigger is good and it doesn’t have to be your hunting rifle. I really want to get back into coyote calling when we have a winter where we don’t have a thousand feet of snow and I can walk more then 20’ off the road. I think they are the best practice of all lots of different shot angles, off shooting sticks and other rests, small target, exciting and always get some good running shots practice in

I keep up on my trigger control by shooting starlings with a scoped .17 pellet rifle. If I know my hunting rifle is on I may shoot a couple shots at 100yds to confirm but some years not. last year I shot 1 shot for 1 elk.

 

[woods89]

With handguns it's probably +/- 1000 rounds a year. Not as much as I should, but with that being said...

Speed and accuracy come from good quality practice and drills, not poking holes in paper on the range. The most beneficial drills you can do require no ammo. A guy training correctly and firing 15 live rounds at the range will out shoot any weekend warrior blasting away hundreds of rounds without the proper fundamentals.

This is a good point. I feel it's warranted to think about how you hunt, and practice accordingly. Make it intentional.

As to the thought of only shooting short or mid ranges, realize that more volume of practice not only helps with accuracy but with speed and efficiency as well. Try putting a pack and bino harness on, and going through everything it takes to make a shot, and put 2 quick bullets down range. Most people's system is not as smooth as they think it is. And practicing quick follow up shots is important, in my opinion.

I started shooting drills like mentioned above a few years ago. I have a nice bull and a nice buck that I shot at ranges under 100 yds in the last couple years, that I doubt I would have killed without this kind of practice, as there was no extra time.

 

[Gravelyctry]

Probably 1500 rounds at bullseye matches (combined .22 and .45 pistol)
Probably 400-500 at IDPA matches - .38/357/9mm/45
Probably 500 at Highpower rifle matches - 223/308
Probably 500 at MidRange and Long Range matches - 223/308
Probably another 200-300 at shotgun games - skeet and 5 stand

 

[MinnesotaHunter]

For rifle hunting, 150-200 rounds (maybe 20 rounds off bench zeroing and the majority fired on steel out to 400yds from field positions)
Muzzleloader, 20 rounds (a couple to confirm zero and the rest from field positions)

For other proficiency (between work and personal shooting)
Pistol: 1500ish (primarily M17, G19, 1911A1)
Rifle: 1000ish (M4A1, Mk18, and Mk12 SPR)

 

[TOGIE]

like max 10-20 rounds a year on the hunting rifle

all my other guns collect dust

sighting in your hunting rifle is damn near a full day event if you don't pony up for a range membership around here. i shoot once a year, that's all the time loss i can stomach for shooting guns. and beyond that it's hard to justify literally burning money to just shoot paper for fun.

 

[thebestusernamesaretaken]

Affordability aside, I would say that you could always be shooting more. The more purposeful practice you have, the better you will be with that specific firearm in those situations that you are practicing with.

To be really good with a pistol you could be shooting several thousand rounds a year. Your body is generally the support system for firing; that along with the shorter barrel and distance between the sights makes this a bit more difficult to shoot. However, regular purposeful practice & frequency is more important than the number of rounds you shoot. You can get a lot out of dry firing. Dry firing is where most of the gains will come from. If you think about it, you can achieve stance, grip, draw, target acquisition, sight picture, sight alignment, trigger control and speed reloads all from dry firing. Doesn't cost a thing other than the initial investment of the firearm and time.

Please don't take this the wrong way. I can see people freaking out about this next statement. I'm not saying that you don't need to practice because you definitely should. However, rifles can be a lot more forgiving out to normalized distances (say under 300 yards). After that range things can become a lot more challenging and tend to go sideways due to the smallest environmental and/or structural input. So, longer range shots takes a lot more practice. If your shooting long ranges, you are going to want to dedicate some $ to the cause. Dry firing works good here too. You can practice getting into positions, sight alignment, sight picture trigger control without spending a dime here too. If your not dry firing, you may just be spending money for no reason. A few hundred rounds of purposeful practice in expected positions should make most people fairly proficient in multiple situations and shooting positions, as long as your not shooting extreme distances.

Most medium low end to midrange modern rifles are really, really forgiving these days (at least for hunting), with all sorts of ammo. All the bugs seem to come from the bargain basement and high end firearms for goofy reasons. The high end stuff tends to have tighter tolerances that can cause issues and can be picky on ammo. Some of the cheap stuff breaks but may have looser tolerances and can shoot almost any ammo (just not as well).

I would expect that we all know that many hunters only shoot a few rounds just prior to hunting season and are successful every year. That being said, I figure that we would have a few less misses and less tracking jobs if they had just a bit more practice. I help track down animals every single year for the same group of guys (same family). They shoot marginal unpracticed or rushed shots and sometimes miss the vitals but still hit the critter. There is a lot going on when your prey is in front of you, I personally don't want the fundamentals of shooting to be one of the task loading issues. My buddy's tell me that I shoot the rifle too much. I tell them that I just need more practice.

 

[EastTNHunter]

Lots of 22lr (hundreds) for general practice. Not as much as I want to in CF (possibly 100-200, depending)