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How do you find time to shoot?


wrx04

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I do not have much time either. I generally take two days off work in the winter to load ammo for the year. Then attend non sanctioned Saturday morning matches at a low turnout range. We are done by 11 most of the time. There is no practice or travel to larger matches, ever. Far from ideal but you have to make the best of things. It works for me at this time.

 

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Same problem of a tight schedule. I have a wife, two kids (1and2) and a 50-60hr work week. There is time in the day you just have to look for it and schdule things like reloading and dry fire practice. As others have stated it usually means late nights at the 650 and early mornings on the range. I don't shoot as many matches anymore and have had to be a lot more selective about what I practice during live fire because it only happens around once  month now. I have also had to reset my goals, I am not going to nationals with what I'm doing now but I can be competitive at a local match with my friends and I'm okay with that. 

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On ‎5‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 9:24 PM, wrx04 said:

I understand everyone’s situation is different, but jeez.....do any of you have difficulty  finding time to shoot?  I may just be in a ‘bad’ spot in life as far as timing goes (married with two young kids), but I feel my schedule is jammed and my shooting time is severely limited.  Every week has something going on with work, family, kids activities, etc.....  All this, and I’m limited to the range times available near me.

 

Anybody else have this problem?  How did you fix it?  I know the young, single guys and older, retired guys probably have a more flexible schedule, but I’m sure there are a bunch in the same spot as I am.  I do have time to dry fire, but that isn’t nearly as fun.  Do most of you guys have private land to shoot/train on during the week?

I'm in the same boat as most of you!  I'm not young or retired.  I have majority custody of my two children (14 & 10), I'm in the middle of a gruesome three year divorce.  I'm a retail store manager who works alternating weekends, early mornings and late nights. I'm lucky, my kids love shooting.  We go to the range when we can.

The moral of the story is this.  I find 15-20 minutes a day 5 days a week to dry fire.  I don't live fire as much as I would like to, but it keeps me competitive.  No! dry fire is not nearly as fun as live fire, but with my schedule, divorce, kids and work, it's all I can do.  I make the best of it and I find time to practice.

 

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Persevere, make the most of it and be thankful guys!

My situation is the opposite and its very frustrating to say the least. 

Im 58 and have so much time for all trainings I want but if I dryfire daily or live fire evry other day my wrist would be stiff and in pain for days. I reduced my df to 15-30min every other days to avoid aggravating my problem. But i know this will not help me to get better. Even at my age I still strongly desire to be competitive. Its where the frustration comes from. Sometimes Am thinking of giving up this sport all together to end the misery.  

 

Eta. Sorry for this off-line post

Edited by BoyGlock
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On 5/13/2018 at 6:24 PM, wrx04 said:

I understand everyone’s situation is different, but jeez.....do any of you have difficulty  finding time to shoot?  I may just be in a ‘bad’ spot in life as far as timing goes (married with two young kids), but I feel my schedule is jammed and my shooting time is severely limited.  Every week has something going on with work, family, kids activities, etc.....  All this, and I’m limited to the range times available near me.

 

Anybody else have this problem?  How did you fix it?  I know the young, single guys and older, retired guys probably have a more flexible schedule, but I’m sure there are a bunch in the same spot as I am.  I do have time to dry fire, but that isn’t nearly as fun.  Do most of you guys have private land to shoot/train on during the week?

 

I have the exact same issue, and it's a big one.  My solution is to fight the battles I can win and not worry about the rest.  (Stoicism, by the way, but I digress...)  

 

My working solution is to wake up 30-45 minutes before the rest of my family every morning (yes, that means work days also) and dryfire.  I have to do it in the garage because, depending on the time of year, it's usually too dark to go outside.  If you don't have a garage, set up in the biggest room in your house, which I've done as well, but being left to yourself in the garage is way more effective.  Get the brightest "daylight bright" lights possible for the ceiling-- when my current batch dies I'm switching to LED's.  I'd also STRONGLY recommend having a way to secure your competition gun in the garage which not only cuts down on setup time but keeps your wife from killing you when you wake her up every morning pulling the gun out of the bedroom gun safe at zero dark hundred.  And, of course, there needs to be some sort of a working dryfire setup permanently good-to-go in the garage or you'll lose half your 30 minute session to setup and tear down.  

 

On the non-shooting prep side, I find it best to have my lunch, etc., for the day already made and packed up before I go to bed, and then I take my morning shower first in order to help wake myself up (zombie dry fire is ineffective, BTW) before getting straight into my work clothes.  This way I can jump directly into the car for work/kids-to-school delivery when I'm done.  The downside to all of this is that I need to make sure I get to bed early enough that I'm not missing too much sleep the next morning, and this sometimes means getting cranky with the family to "remind" them that I have a hobby which keeps me sane, and it's best for everybody involved to keep me sane.

 

Getting back to the "only fight the battles you can win" part, the end result is that I oftentimes only live fire at the matches themselves, but I have so much trigger time from INTELLIGENT and SPECIFIC dry fire that I do pretty well for myself anyway.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Sometimes it’s hard and you just have to step back. I took two years off because I was in a really difficult program in college and didn’t have the time to dedicate to it. I am back in full swing now though shooting some form of match almost every weekend. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

I am definitely  stepping back from a few years ago. I've shot one match this year, and might shoot three more, compared to every other weekend in years past. I have a two year old, a pregnant wife, and I'm trying to start a new business while keeping my other full time job. I'll get back to it in a couple years.

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Been in that boat for some time.  I used to be big into precision rifle shooting and had unlimited range use of some private land that ran out to 1200 yards...hell, I was shooting close to 2000-2500 rounds of 308 a year and shooting in matches every so often that were within a reasonable travel distance.  Then the kids got into organized sports, more specifically, club/travel soccer.  After about 2 years of that my shooting dwindled to about 500 rounds of 308 a year, no matches, no hunting, all soccer.  Don't get me wrong, I love my kids and love watching them play.  That was about 10 years ago.  I just started to get back into shooting seriously with handguns and USPSA and IDPA.  I work swing shifts every other month so that limits my time to shoot matches to 6 months out of the year.  My kids still are club ballers but they also realize and are mature enough to understand that I need one or two Saturday's every other month to shoot a match.  They get it and I don't feel too bad for missing a game on a Saturday because I know they will have another on Sunday that I can watch.  So, I guess my point is, you have to make it a priority in your life to accomplish your goals.  You'll find the time.  When I work nights for a month, I'm a dry firing fiend, in the office, in the garage, after the kids and wife go to sleep, wherever and whenever I can.  On days, I get more my live fire and matches in.  It works for me....I still have a long ways to go!

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I’m married, work 40-50 hours weekly, 2 kids under 3, and pull 4-5 matches a month. My trick is to tell my wife which Saturday or Sunday morning I’ll be shooting in advance. The rest of the weekend is spent doing family time. 

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  • 3 months later...

I would have to agree that time has to be made for shooting. I have two kids and am a stay at home dad. I resigned when we had our first so one of us could stay home to care for them. I keep guns and ammo with me all the time. Drop at preschool and off to the range I go. Some days the old guys are there on the range and I have to turn and burn back home without firing a shot. Other days I get the place to myself and can shoot for an hour and head for home. Sometimes in passing I stop and shoot a few mags worth. What ever I can do to practice a little.

 

Being down an income also plays a role. During the early childhood years and post Sandy Hook I didn't shoot much at all. I never leave brass on the range. I sort out what I hand load for and the rest I sell for scrap. It sucks sifting through the garbage barrel at the range but I have walked away with some good hauls. Keeps me shooting for next to nothing. I also do a little mechanic work out of the house. Keeps the pizza, fishing supplies and ammo coming.

 

If your working too much maybe its time to find another job and change up the lifestyle. Life's too short to work it away. My kids should have some good memories of dad taking them down the river fishing, shooting bows, camping in the back yard, riding 4 wheelers, and blasting the Halloween pumpkins and hedge apples on the gun range.....Fun stuff!

 

As far as matches go I would love to try IDPA sometime but I seem to live in a dead zone for any kind of gun stuff.

Edited by steelringer79
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Something I came to understand is that being as into something as you would like to be isn’t always in the cards. I’m active duty military with 5 kids. Been deploying for the last 17 yrs. just now got a desk job and am now MAKING the time to pursue my interests. Just wasn’t possible before, but it is now, and I’m making it happen. Understand that doing one thing means something else isn’t getting done. In the end your priorities are for you to decide, combined with what your life allows. 

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  • 1 month later...

Great ideas from all, I adopted some by just reading your post's, had to comment tho, family is always going to be there and most importantly, you have family, the dry fire exercises seem the way to go, holding a child and presenting one handedly, turning that child away from the active shooter, etc., these are invaluable skills to imprint on, using all safety rules of course, NEVER ANY LOADED AMMO IN THE SAME ROOM as you dry fire, I found numbing before the one eye is good practice, (TV), they change frames often 2 seconds or less, can you present sitting down? MAG change seated? Hold a child and present while seated? All and any real life scenario's you can dream of, practice over and over and over until it becomes instant, warning tho, my wife didn't like me shooting at the TV, she thought I'd forget to unload the pistol before doing so, so she became my RSO and cleared my firearm before each practice session, and as Nike sayz, just do it...….

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