STEEL TARGETS

DOWN RANGE

- Mike Venturino

During a lifetime of rifle shoot-bullets through paper targets. Now in my senior years, more of my bullets are aimed at steel targets. I see matters as follows: paper targets are for quantifying matters such as shooting groups for load development or sighting-in. Steel targets are for fun and marksmanship practice. Those latter two are synonymous in my book.

Participation in the NRA's Black Powder Cartridge Rifle Silhouette game planted a seed in my brain about the enjoyment of shooting steel. Even so, that seed might not have grown to maturity except for one particular day about 15 years ago. Before then, my range's steel targets amounted to no more than a ubiquitous "dueling tree.” Mostly it was fired at with non-magnum handguns or leverguns chambering non-magnum handgun cartridges.

The day in question was in March. Our Montana winter had been long and dreary. At times, snow drifts blocked the gate to my shooting house for weeks at a time. I was starved for shooting. That particular day in question dawned bright, clear and windless. I thought, “This day I break my shooting fast.” Rifles and ammunition were loaded into the pickup, along with an array of paper targets to be stapled to plywood backers at 100, 200 and 300 yards. After that, the hardware was carried into my shooting house and I sat down at the bench and prepared to get some trigger time.