The USCCA is in the deadly serious business of personal self-defense involving firearms, knives, less-lethal devices and bare hands. With this as my “raison d’être,” I’m proud to be a contributing writer for this organization. The work that we do here is important and no other organization does it better. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t occasionally discuss recreational shooting.
After dispatching a family of woodchucks that were helping themselves to my wife’s vegetable garden with a pristine Winchester Model 62, I started to think more about the role of recreational shooting. My Model 62 with a vintage Weaver variable scope had belonged to my father as a Christmas present for squirrel and small-game hunting. Though my dad was never much of a hunter, he, along with myself and my brother, got a lot of use out of the Model 62 during afternoons of informal target shooting. Passing those locations and firing a .22 LR cartridge — which has a different smell than any other gun powder — always reminds me of fun family times.
What Is Recreational Shooting?
Recreational shooting can be defined as any type of shooting or training with the primary goal of enjoyment or relaxation. The goal is not necessarily enhancing self-defense skills but it doesn’t have to be strictly informal either.
Some of my favorite recreational shooting memories occurred during organized and regulated shooting like Boy Scout Summer Camp. The line was always very safe — and fun. I spent many hours improving my shooting skills with a bolt-action Remington Model 37 Rangemaster .22 as I worked my way up to the Rifle and Shotgun Merit Badge. One of the officers hired me at age 14 to work as a range assistant. Enjoying firearms recreationally eventually led to my becoming a police officer and police firearms instructor. You can never tell what recreational shooting will lead to.
Choosing a Recreational Gun
There are organized recreational shooting experiences available for people of all ages, including those experiencing some form of disability. One such program my son and I have enjoyed discovering — though I didn’t actually shoot myself — is Project Appleseed.
Project Appleseed (AppleseedInfo.org not to be confused with the unrelated projectappleseed.org) is a marvelous national organization open to youth and adults. It is designed to teach American History, particularly as it pertains to the founding of America. It aims to help return us to being a “nation of riflemen” once again. Project Appleseed is a very safe, well-run program that caters to boys and girls as young as 8. The shooters compete against themselves to attain ratings such as Marksman. Participants experience great camaraderie and education at these national target-shooting events. Instructors also teach colonial history lessons surrounding the battles of Lexington and Concord. It is a great program, and my son and I look forward to participating again this year.
Another well-known national recreational shooting program is a cowboy action shooting competition run through the Single Action Shooting Society (SASS.net). Cowboy action competitions include history and historic-styled gear as part of the family-oriented shooting fun.
For those who are interested in Civil War history, I suggest the North-South Skirmish Association (N-SSA.org ). N-SSA is not a battlefield re-enactment group, although folks involved do dress in period-accurate clothing and employ period weapons. It is a live-fire competition. A lot of people stay in campers or tents at these events, and participants often form lifetime friendships.
Shotguns for Recreation
An entirely different aspect is the world of recreational shotgunning. While the Winchester Model 62 was my introduction to pump-action shotguns, the first real shotgun I shot was a 20-gauge Remington Model 870. At around age 12, I went for an afternoon of shooting at clay birds. It was a blast (pun intended) and the recoil from the 20 gauge was easy to handle, even at that age.
That recreational shoutgunning experience made qualifying with Remington 870 pumps in my law enforcement career easy and fun (note the recurring theme). I was also able to later enjoy sporting clays because of that foundational experience. Shooting sporting clays is fun recreation and great practice for hunters. It has been described as golf with a shotgun combined with a stroll through the woods. It can sometimes be just as frustrating, but in a good way.
Action Pistol Shooting
Action Pistol Shooting, although more competitive in nature, is a competitive recreational shooting outlet and comes in various forms depending on which body regulates it. NRA Action Pistol was one of the earliest regulated action pistol events; one I participated in with a Ruger Security Six revolver in the 1980s. The events then centered around clearing a table of falling steel plates. Events like this are fun, well regulated, and involve a lot of camaraderie.
One particular action-style event is the Pin Shoot up in Central Lake, Michigan PinShoot.com. I shot in that competition in 1994 when it was the Second Chance Body Armor Pin Shoot. Richard Davis, the inventor of soft body armor and founder of Second Chance Body Armor, hosts the event on his property. The purpose of this shoot was to clear bowling pins off of steel tables — all the way off — as fast as you can. Fixed-sight .45s were favored at time — there was no such thing as red dots — and still have a place in the competition. Camaraderie and fun were the name of the game, and Central Lake was a beautiful place to host the shoot. The food was great too and the shoot made for wonderful, non-combat fun.
The point I wish to make is that there are so many aspects of shooting beyond training in the defensive uses of handguns, rifles and shotguns. Training in and using various defensive arms is the reason that the Second Amendment exists, but learning to shoot arms that are designed for recreational shooting expands your horizons and improves your skillset and overall shooting ability.
Participating in recreational shooting helped me in my law enforcement career as well. Because I had developed a wide familiarity with firearms, I was the one at my agency that was tasked with clearing illegal weapons that were found in the course of an arrest. Most law enforcement officers aren’t firearms enthusiasts and are only familiar with their service handguns. For civilians, familiarity with a wide variety of firearms may be helpful in case of major events such as hurricanes or other disasters in which your own arms are lost, but “battlefield pickups” may be available.
Recreational Firearms Recommendations
Investing in a few recreational firearms doesn’t take much. I recommend the following basic recreational firearms which can be pressed into service for other needs. These are all manually operated repeating arms. You can work up to semi-automatics later.
- A manually operated slide action .22 “gallery-style” rifle or a .22 lever-action with a tubular underbarrel magazine that can’t be lost. These types of rifles can shoot .22 Short, Long and Long Rifle ammo interchangeably. I had plenty of ammo during the COVID shortage, and lower-powered loads such as .22 Colibri can be used for backyard shoots.
Henry (com ) makes both the pump-action Octagon .22 Rifle and one of my favorite lever actions, the very handy Classic Lever .22. Rossi (RossiUSA.com ) makes the Gallery .22 Pump. Pump-action .22s make a good understudy of sorts for the next category. - A good pump-action shotgun. A 20-gauge is particularly good due to its lighter recoil and weight as compared to a 12-gauge pump. Since Remington firearms (com) is back in production, I highly recommend the Remington 870 after 50-plus years of experience with them. Mossberg (Mossberg.com) is another storied shotgun maker that builds the fine 500 Retrograde Field pump shotgun — also available in 12 or 20 gauge.
- A 4-inch-barreled .22 revolver — whether a double-action (the trigger cocks the hammer as part of the trigger cycle) or single action (the hammer must be manually cocked for each shot). Either way, the shooter learns careful shot control and making each round count since there are only 6 to 10 rounds available depending on the model or brand. Limited capacities and slower reloading tend to make the shooter concentrate more on making each shot count. Wyatt Earp famously said, “Fast is fine, accuracy is final.” While this saying referred to gunfighting, it’s equally true for recreational shooting.
Remember that this is just a preliminary recreational shooting list. Any of these firearms could be pressed into emergency self-defense.
Add Recreational Shooting to Your Routine
Recreational shooting activities don’t preclude self-defense training activities. Recreational trigger time is still trigger time. If spent with family and friends, it will impart memories that last a lifetime — especially if it is used to encourage others to take up the shooting sports as well. And just maybe you can convert someone who is anti-gun into a pro-gun person by the gentle introduction into the recreational shooting world.
My personal recreational shooting resolution for 2025 is to take my son out for strictly recreational shooting days. He has several .22s waiting to be shot again.