Range Report – 9/18/2010

Ruger SR9c

Saturday afternoon, I went down to Sim-Trainer for a little target practice.  This week, I wanted to practice with my Ruger SR9c for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, I’m going to drop off my Springfield Armory XD(m) 9mm off to have night sights put on the gun, so I don’t think I’ll have it available to shoot for the Tactical Training Tuesday League this week.  But secondly, as I’m waiting for my CCW application to be processed, I’ve got my eye on the SR9c as a possible candidate for a carry weapon.  So I want to make sure I can shoot it reasonably well – I’d have to buy a second one because this one has been claimed by my wife and stays in her nightstand – it fits her hand very well.  My son also shoots well with the gun.  Here’s some of the targets from my session and three boxes of ammo sent down range:

Ruger SR9c at 15 feet

My friend John talked me into trying the above “free” targets located at Targetz.com – the target pattern he selects puts 4 targets on an 8 1/2 by 11 piece of paper – each target is just three inches across.  That’s a darn small target – a challenge to hit at 15 feet, and nearly unusable at 25 ft.  So I seriously doubt I’ll be using these targets again.  In the above 5 shot series, I got two inside the black, two in the yellow, and one completely off (above) target.

Here’s another that was slightly better:

I noticed a guy a couple of stalls down was using a target product I hadn’t previously seen called Shoot-N-See.  The targets have neon yellow backing or something which leave a VERY visible bullet hole.  I asked him about the targets and he was kind enough to let me shoot with a couple.

Shoot-N-See Target at 15 ft.

I was happy with 7 of the shots, including the one I landed dead center, but very discouraged by the three below which almost went off target.

Overall I felt like I didn’t group my shots  nearly as well as I did last weekend at my CCW class, or last week at Tactical Tuesday.  Although I’m at a loss to explain why.  Was it the gun?  Was it the targets?  Was I just having an off day, or did I simply get lucky last week?  I guess I’ll continue to wonder, and hope my luck returns tomorrow night.