Lately, I have been shooting less per session than normal (for me). Discussing this with a buddy, he repeated the often heard “truism” that you should never shoot more than 200-300 rounds per day while practicing.
That is, of course, stupid.
There is no set rule for how many rounds makes up a good practice session. If you have the time, money, access, endurance, and concentration to spend eight hours a day on the range shooting thousands of rounds and you’re getting some benefit from each drill then knock yourself out.
The flipside is that if you lack one of those things (time, money, access, endurance, concentration) or if you stop practicing and just shoot to make noise, you need to stop sooner. Sometimes it can be very difficult to see the line between practice and shooting. But it’s a mistake to equate the number of rounds you fired with the improvement you got out of it.
If you are working a lot on marksmanship fundamentals, you probably won’t shoot as much as you would working on splits. The marksmanship drills likely require fewer rounds but more importantly they tend to be both mentally and visually more exhausting. Back when I used to do a lot more ammo testing I’d sometimes shoot thirty groups from the bench in one sitting. That’s one hundred and fifty must-be-perfect maximum accuracy shots. I’d literally have a headache by the end. But to go out and shoot 25 Bill Drills wouldn’t take 15 minutes and I wouldn’t be as mentally smoked.
To get better at some things, you need to shoot a lot of rounds. There’s no getting around it. You can’t learn good recoil management and sight tracking without firing multiple-shot strings because what you can do for one or two shots at a time isn’t necessarily what you can do for six. Other skills require fewer rounds per session. You need to be smart about where you’re putting your effort and where you’re spending your ammo. Make sure you’re doing a good job performance tracking. Prioritize your time and your ammo.
Don’t measure your range session in terms of rounds fired. Measure it in terms of what lessons you learned.
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
Trying to teach both of my teenage sons that now.
Great post.
Quantity has a quality all of its own.
-Uncle Joe
One thing I have noticed, when practicing for straight up speed, being limited to 10 round mags sucks. When I get the chance to use standard capacity mags I think I get that little bit more out of my practice. At 10 rounds it feels like I’m just hitting my stride, 15-20 rounds (or 30 in a rifle) seems to just feel better. Perhaps it’s just mental?
When I shoot 45, I tend to shoot more ammo during my practices than when I shoot 9. 45 is harder in regards to sight tracking and recoil control which forces me to shoot more repetitions of multiple-shot strings until I see the desired result. Goals, end-points and rate of progress should dictate volume of practice, not the other way around.