Training on Steel

It might be an oversimplification to say that steel is for speed and paper is for accuracy, but it’s close enough that I’ll call it a rule of thumb.

When you go to the range to train, which is as simple as having a goal aside from “shoot 100 rounds”, part of figuring out how to achieve that goal is working on the right skills on the right types of targets. Now, most of us with access to a regular square range like Wake County FETC or PDHSC, are limited to punching paper since they don’t allow shooting steel targets. But some local ranges, like Drake Landing’s pistol pits, do have some steel targets. And one run on those plates is enough to tell you that steel is as much fun in practice as in competition.

Shooting steel is just plain fun.

But generally speaking, practicing on steel is a good thing when you only want to work on pure speed. When you practice on paper or cardboard targets, you can see where each shot went by noting the new holes after each string or pasting holes between strings. This lets you choose the level of accuracy that’s acceptable, which is why paper is useful for practicing anything from pure accuracy (slow fire, maybe resting the gun on the bench or a bag) to a match-style balance of speed and accuracy. You can see that when you double tap your second shot consistently ends up four inches higher than the first one. You can see the results on paper in the shot 6 o’clock low when you feel yourself anticipate the shot.

You get none of this feedback on steel.

If you miss, you probably don’t know where the shot went. If you hit, you probably don’t know where unless the range lets you paint the target between strings to make it more like shooting cardboard. And steel just naturally draws you to go faster.

So while there’s nothing wrong with practicing on steel, before you go to the range for a practice session, ask yourself what your goal for the outing is. Sure maybe you are trying to push yourself to shoot faster overall, but if you have a new gun that you’re still trying to familiarize yourself with, for example, maybe steel isn’t the best target for practice. Once you know you’re putting bullets where you expect when you break the shot, then do some runs on steel to speed up.