Ok…. My department does pistol qualification once a year and I was fairly rusty. We only shot maybe 300rnds each….. I used to shoot around 200-300 rnds a month until ammunition got hard to find and expensive. I am looking into seeing if I can take shooting expenses (ammunition) as a work expense and was wondering what wou guys thought about it.

What is the MINIMUM amount and frequency of shooting you need to do just to maintain proficiency?

Depends on your goal.  Are you going to be moving from cover to cover while someone calls out your targets for you?  Or just want to do well on a qualification?


If it's just for qualification then dry firing will work wonders.  Depending on your weapon you may want to buy some snap caps, they say excessive dry firing without snap caps may damage the firing pin, but I have never had a problem.

These days i seem to only shoot 50rds per week with my carry pistol. Main thing for me is just to shoot often. I know i'm a good shot, but i like shooting often just to ensure my gun functions perfectly and feeling the recoil and hearing the noise to keep me in the zone. Now if i want to shoot to do some training then 300rds or more is good.

the main goal is to maintain and or keep from getting rusty

I've been loudly advocating that every soldier needs to shoot at least a basic combat load (210 rds.) every month.

As mentioned ... dry-fire.
Also presentations from the holster using DUTY gear ... no matter what that is.
If you wear a vest on duty ... wear the damn vest. If you wear a sport coat ... wear something that simulates a sport coat.
Also, what is your conditioning like ?  
Real life AND quals, you'll do better if you're not gassing from chasing some BG or from the "stress" of a once-a-year qualification.
Try a little off-hand and/or weak-hand shooting, too ; a great way to get back to basics.
Do some drills for trigger control ... mix in a squib during live-fire,  balance a coin on the sights/slide during dry-fire. etc ...
Be creative ... there's plenty (additional) to do w/o burning (much) ammo.
FWIW ... if you itemize ... you can claim shooting expences.

Stay safe

I don't actually "shoot" a whole lot, but I do shoot often.  Most of my practice is dry firing.  I get a lot of ammo form work, so it's free to me; however, I found that it is a huge waist of ammo and time.  Nowadays most of my time training is spent dry firing and I have noticed my once modest skill improve greatly.

Does your department have any rusty old revolvers you could sign out?  You are looking for thin and lightweight, with a crappy trigger pull


1. balance a Quarter/Nickel/Dime on the top of said revolver
2. take aim (focus on sight alignment and sight picture NOT the coin)
3. dryfire until the coin falls off,  the goal is to keep the coin on the revolver as long as possible.

*be sure to start with heavier coins and work your way down as you improve.

Well I voted for 200 per month but that isn't strictly true. It's what I think we should do to maintain accurate shooting. As it is we only have to hit the 7 ring on a FIg. 11 target for most of our details, which gives you CoM hits. Precise it isn't. In reality we are probably lucky to shoot an average @30 rounds per month, classifying twice a year. The thing is most people get through so you could argue it's all we need for the standard that is required.........

I suppose it depends on the person, their level of training, and when that training was started.

As a high schooler on rifle team, we shot 40-50 rounds a day, 4 days a week, 9 months a year.

As an adult, when ammo was plentiful, the high end was 250 rounds pistol, 100 rounds rifle a week.........and now that ammo is not so plentiful, it's a box of 50 for pistol over the selected bouts and a rifle magazine of 20 a week.Admittedly, at the high end, I rarely got that since that was an afternoon at the range.

But in either case, my threshold to what I might degrade to might be higher than most.................in theory, since I've never had (and hopefully, never will have) to shoot at anyone, especially if they are shooting at me.

But.....the more frequent, the better.
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("So it took him a year to fall to his wounds but to tell you the truth, V. H., with the amount of ammo the anti terrorist squad put in him that day, he should not have been able to move at all."––"Jeremy" to Adderly about "The Jackel", (w,stte), "Adderly")

Mk II!

It may not be how many rounds a month are shot but rather, how frequently one shoots.

I went to the range the other day, first time in about 4 months. Did 4 bouts with the paper man at 15 yards. USP, one magazine, two handed, one handed, on both sides, at decock.

Shot...........mediocrely. Not terribly but hardly well for my standards. Aside from the accuracy or lack there of, I found two things.

First of all, I was tending to go to closing one eye which is something I've found over the years that I don't do. I mentally focus how I sight but the other eye is open to scan the surroundings and avoid target fixiation. Sure, closing one eye gives me a more certain sight picture but in consideration to a tactical situation, it seems like one eye would put me at a disadvantage. So I had to slightly fight the wish to do so.

Secondly, I was flowing to the shot but that flow would last for only a second when I moved into the shooting position. If I didn't complete the shot then or move out of the shooting position, then shakes and wrist breaks would occur. Such unfortunaly happens in a very busy life that puts a lot of strain on the arms.

The point? In opinion, I'd say constant practice works to correct such failings but if practice isn't there, then the failings become part of the system and that isn't good.

In short, IMHO: 25 rounds a week is better than 100 rounds on one day a month.
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(After Apollo, Starbuck, and Boomer have been briefed about the minefield between the fleet and Carillon. "The future of the fleet depends on your skill."––Adama
"Or lack there of."––Starbuck, (w,stte), Book: Battlestar Galactica)

I do alot of dry fire, and work with the .22 conversion kit plenty, so actual full-power round count each month is only about 100 or so.

Someone beat me to it, but I also like the idea of dry-firing with a DA revolver.  After dealing with that long and heavy trigger pull, my Glock's action feels like nothing.

When I first got into military police, I bought one of those rubber like squeeze things that people get to build their hands. I got it to develop a steady trigger squeeze. Now, I didn't use it consistently and these days, it's a lot of mental training ("when the order comes thru, you will carry thru without hesitation", but that's the theory.



There is a lot of good to dry firing; I won't deny it. However,  I need the feedback to where my rounds are landing and short of a multigrand laser training system, I'm probably not going to get that without putting rounds down range.

As far as the actual round count goes: I go to the range, I buy a box of their ammo which tends to be expensive, around $25 a box of so. I do this because while I do have stocks at home which I've bought at cheaper prices, I don't want to cut into those stocks when resupply is questionable....but I know that the range can get ammo to use.
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("This is Maggie; she's Brain's squeeze."––Cabby to Snake, (w,stte), "Escape from New York")