Practice Makes Perfect

I hear too many hunters today say they can not afford to plink, shoot or practice with their hunting ammo. So instead of practice they go hunt and hope the one or two shots they fired to make sure they are on will suffice.

This is not fair to the game we hunt. We need to make sure that our shots are clean the kill is quick and as humane as possible. Now before anyone gets all tore up hear me out. I'm not suggesting you go shoot your $5.00 Nitro turkey load 20 times or your $3.00 Nosler Custom rifle load 30 times. You do need to know how those loads will shoot though in all kind of circumstances, i.e., windy, cold, hot, 20 yards or 40 yards.

For practice you can substitute loads to build on the fundamentals and the muscle memory. Instead of shooting a $5.00 Nitro Ray load buy a .75 Remington Nitro load. This will allow you to get used to your gun, it's recoil and it's action. This will build confidence and muscle memory.

Some may ask if muscle memory is important. In my opinion it is extremely important. It will allow you to handle or mishandle recoil, safety operation and action operation. You may hold to the old saying that you never felt the recoil on a turkey or deer you have shot but I will bet you that your muscle memory knows its coming. If you are using a load that is too powerful for you it can cause you to flinch and miss or injure the game you are hunting.

If you have been shooting the same gun for years then you know what I am talking about. You can hit the action release without looking or thinking about it. You can load your gun without looking or thinking about it. If someone hands you a new gun you will catch yourself fumbling on those same easy tasks.

So before the season starts this year get out there and practice. Set up some reactionary targets for fun. Sitting on the bench shooting paper is not always fun, especially with a 2 ounce turkey load.