Portable Practical Range

If you've been hankering to try one of the practical shooting disciplines (IPSC or IDPA), but haven't found a league yet, are out of practice, or are too self-conscious to jump right into competition in front of a group of strangers, you might try setting up your own practice stage.

Before I started going to Cactus League matches regularly, I'd accumulated several target stands and some bowling pins. My friend Jon and I used to head out to a berm in the desert (since swallowed up by city limits, the bastards!) and set up our own informal match. Some gardening stakes fit into the stands and cut cardboard approximated IPSC-style targets stapled to the stakes. Shooting boxes were drawn in the dirt with a stick. Jon taught me the range commands and we took turns as Range/Safety Officer timing each other running through the improvised stage with a stopwatch. This did a great deal to prepare me for the league matches I enjoy every month now.

As a retirement present, Jon gave me a pair of steel tip-over silhouettes and a steel woodchuck. Cardboard and stakes included, the whole kit takes up only a fraction of my truck bed. I brought the portable range out to the Tucson Rifle Club for Kevin Baker's first taste of practical shooting at our BlogShoot in February. If you're only used to standing in one place blasting bulls-eyes or steel turkeys, the movement and rapid multiple target engagement of practical shooting will be a whole new world to you. Kevin caught up and passed me in only a short time.

(Yeah, I know bowling pins and woodchucks aren't "practical" targets!)