If be interested go hear what kind of drills or practice scenarios you guys use. I plan on carrying my Ruger .44 in Montana this year, but not sure how to effectively practice with it other than rapid fire at paper. Your thoughts?
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First thing is to buy some of these. I don't know which model of ruger you have, so check with the fit. You currently have factory target sights on a defensive weapon. XS sights are the bomb for shooting well in rapidly changing situations.
https://www.xssights.com/Products.aspx?CAT=8351
Rapid fire shooting is not something needed by anyone for any reason. In a class many years ago, a fellow student brought his .44 S&W and spent the good part of a box of ammo making a few holes in the target. He complained to one of the instructors that his pistol was not working well. He was shooting all double action shot strings of six. The instructor came over - former US Army shooting team member - and put all six rounds into a small clover leaf pattern in one corner of the target in about 10 seconds. "Your pistol works extremely well, must be the loose nut behind it." Then he spent the better part of a half hour teaching the guy how to shoot. Ended up being able to get six rounds within an 8 inch spot by the end but only using single action.
The guy stated that he was going to leave the pistol in geology camp and only take the shotgun in the field. Good plan, but all they had were shotguns with pistol grips. Which turned out to be one of the funniest days on the range for me. The instructor made all the geologist shoot 3" mag slug loads with the pistol grips. Two of them dropped the weapon when it went off. Ten guys, two shots each, and only one hit on paper at 10 feet using the pistol grip 870. Ten men holding their wrist and trying not to cry. Then the instructor had me step up with my 870 deer slayer with rifle sites. Gun on the table with it ready to shuck the first round and the safety off. Timer goes off, I pickup the weapon, shuck it as it comes to my shoulder, acquire sights, boom, shuck, boom. 1.5 seconds and there are two holes about 2 inches apart in the center of the target. And my wrist wasn't throbbing. The fastest the pistol grip guys could do was 8 seconds for both shots, but not hit anything.
Get a bunch or make a bunch of low power ammo. For a .44 cheap wadcutter stuff or even cowboy action .44 specials are fine for range time.
To effectively practice you need to just shoot one round at a time. Hold the weapon safely pointed down range at low ready postion, cock it, raise it to eye level, acquire the sites, shoot. Do this until its a smooth muscle memory style of action that results in you hitting a 3 inch aiming zone 10 to 20 feet away with all six rounds. Once you get there then move to double action and add a second shot behind the first, still keeping the three sets of two in as small an area as you can. It may require a trigger job to get the double action to function smoother.
That short sight radius is going to be difficult to deal with for double action shots. Lots of muzzle flip maybe. Might want to look into getting it ported.
And then for fun - only if your range allows it - build a little wheeled cart with a target stand on it and have someone well behind you with a car or ATV and a long rope pull the target towards you at no more than 15 MPH. Pin a small 3-4" balloon on the target for real fun. It will get your heart rate up and show you some wholes in your skills. Make sure you have 50 feet between you and the target when it starts moving and only two rounds in the pistol.
The HSM "bearload" 305grain gas check stuff is pretty nice shooting and tears things up pretty well. Very accurate in my redhawk.
