Just looking for fun things to teach 8-18 year olds to shoot,just to keep it interesting

A tin can floating in a pond can provide much entertainment, though it may cause environmentalists heart attacks.

Charcoal briquette's:

- Big bags are cheap

- They explode when hit, so it's exciting

- They don't leave a mess like paper, can's, clay pigeons, etc

- They promote accuracy due to their size

- The left overs can be used for lunch!

Don't use them for lunch.

Add some orange landscapers paint.

This way the young gunslingers don't out shoot you.

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Dum vivo cano

Any kind of hard cookies, Vanilla wafers present a challenge for a pistol. Birds and animals will clean up the mess.

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Mike in SouthCentral Kentucky

Colored ice cubes. Explode and no clean up. Take a cooler to the range with them in it.

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War Eagle! '10 BCS & '13 SEC

If you want to teach them proper use paper targets. They will learn to see progress that way.

THEN, Let 'em blow away some more creative targets.

But that would be proper learning and I my self learned by my Dad on cans at the rock pit.

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Dum vivo cano

I always enjoyed shooting rats. When I was a teenager I had a friend with a small farm that had a horse barn overrun with rats, squirrels, and feral cats. When the women in the family took the horses out the barn became a target rich environment.

22's are always fun to take to the dump - cans, bottles, picture tubes (not so much anymore), etc. oh, and rats, lots and lots of rats!

Sugary Drink bottles, Self-sealing rubber targets... anything that goes PING......

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USPSA RO
IDPA - SSP MM

+1 on rats! I used to shoot a box of .22's at targets out of my Colt New Frontier and then go in search of rats with another box.

I like steel swinging targets. you know when you hit them, they come in different sizes, you dont have to reset them or place tape over them. More time shooting and less time reseting targets

You eat charcoal briquettes?Larry

golfballs make great plinking targets

Start with the classic paper plate - but let the kids either stick a bright orange targ-dot on it or color the middle section with a sharpie pen. Eggs work great. Spent shotgun shells provide a nice challenge. Ritz or saltine crackers. Tin cans are way better than aluminum pop cans. Ice cubes work. Clay pigeons against a dirt bank. I like metal plates swinging on a chain between two trees too. When we lived in CA you could get "old" or damaged fruit from a fruitstand for free.... a grapefruit, cantelope or honeydew melon atop of a fence post makes a great & graphic .44 or shotgun target. Clean Break

I used to shoot those old necco colored candy waffers. Dont know if they still make them or not.

Still make em. Those and those Pinkies candies are great. I also enjoy saltines. Hold em up on a string with clothes pins and shoot them.
Used up 12g shells are wonderful as well. Perched up on a 2x4 or the like they fall nicely. Can also drill out a little spot with a spade bit to keep them from falling off if there is a bit of wind. If the rugrats start shooting better than you just let them try and hit empty .410 shells.
I picked up one of those Champion/Do all self sealing orange targets for my. 223. At 100 yards it bounces nicely around.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I847 using Tapatalk 2

A big package of crackers from the Dollar Store makes for a lot of plinking targets that are easy to see, they do something when hit to keep it interesting and no cleanup. The birds take care of that.

I shoot at empy beer cans. In this part of Texas, here's no dearth of them along the roadside. After I've shot them out to as far as I can hit them, I pick up the shredded remains and put them in recycle.

I enjoy empty shotshells that are already at the range or my few shooting areas. They move a little to flying great distances when hit right. JM.02

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Go big or stay home

Let them have some fun and destroy something they hate like a head of broccoli or shoot a bull moose with a .22 to make it interesting.

When both kids were home they enjoyed one of those dueling trees. Helped them build not only accuracy but speed.

I don't know if they still offer them but, Walmart used to have racks of those free cd's for AOL by the checkout lane. They make nice shiny targets that you can tie a string through and hang from trees, prop them up in a berm like clays, or throw them in the air for shotgun targets.
Best of all,they were free.

tennis balls,racquetballs,baseballs,softballs and for the bad shooter try a basketball..........they just keep moving when hit

A jug of Tannerite will make it interesting too.

.22 shells. Empty of course.

It's a little late in the year, but if you have any of those plastic Easter eggs you can fill one side with flour and tape them back together. They make a nice white cloud when I hit one with the AR.

eggs if they are hit just right with a .22 they pop.

Tennis balls suspended by a cord. They will jump when hit, and absorb many many hits. You don't have to chase them or reset them, just keep shooting. Always place in front of a proper backstop.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

Shoot glock RTF frames.

The holes can only improve the feel.

Get one of the Ritz cracker throwers and use some .22 shotshells- loads of fun!
Not cheap though.

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Lost it all in a boat accident

Chupacabras

Since I have a unlimited supply, hard boiled eggs make great targets, and afterwards the birds have a field day.

I guess you don't want to hear "Road signs and bottles"

Let he among us who has not in his far distant yout pinged the odd glass bottle or that isolated road sign cast the first stone!

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Forum consigliere

My parents have a cabin in northern Wisconsin. Last summer someone left a half gallon jug of milk in the fridge. It was discovered this spring, and was a little past date.

The jug was all swelled up, lucky it didn't burst. We were afraid to open it, so we took it outside and dispatched it with a .22.

Does hitting signs with glass bottles count? Not that I ever did that.

These are some good ideas. I just picked up a .22 conversion kit for my Sig P226. I'm anxious to try it out.

What? Nobody wants to mention "Zombies"?
Head shots, of course.

I want to know why there are 36 responses to the O.P.'s Q and not one response indicating the very poor gun handling advice given to 8 y.o.'s .Ricochet is a very real problem shooting on to the flat surface of water on a pond.This would be last place I would seek advice on teaching kids anything given some of the responses.

One of the best targets I used with my boys was a bandalero of suckers from the dollar store. Get a scrap piece of 2x4 and drill a dozen small holes in it to stand the suckers in, back off and start shooting. The half dollar sized suckers are just the right size to be challenging, explode with a puff when hit, and are 100% biodegradable.

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- Change it back -

I did my fun shooting on my grandfather's farm in the early 50's. Dad bought me a used K22 Outdoorsman (still have it). So for me, it was Garrett Snuff bottles and small Prince Albert cans.

You just need to aim careful so you don't hit the golfers.
Also, most golf courses are likely to frown on this.

Cheap brand soda. Shake them up and shoot for effect.

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Memory of Randy Freas-Rimfired

When the kids and I were headed to the boonies to shoot we'd often stop at our favorite grocery store and either check out the dumpster or ask the produce guy if he had anything that needed blowing up. Sometimes he'd have apples or melons, once in awhile we'd get a whole case of lettuce. Lettuce blows up real good with a hit from a 223 or a shotgun, especially if you dip it in a bucket of water first. Best of all, the produce is biodegradable, no cleanup needed!

Well, you can feel free to take your football and go if it causes you so much heartburn, I'm sure.

I spent many formative years shooting a .22 and later other guns down into an old mine pit full of water with trash floating on the top. The horror! 20 years later, I still haven't managed to unintentionally harm anything with my rounds.

I really miss the days of shooting at old strip-pit (illegal) dumps. They were full of great targets. Old fridges, TV's the occasional car, paint cans, bottles and of course-rats! There were three such dumps within 10 miles of me and people expended thousands of rounds shooting them up. Alas, they have all been posted and covered-over.

For fun plinking at my club range we use steel soup cans, metal swinging targets and spent 12 gage hulls. I'll have to try the lollipops and charcoal briquettes as the range is going to ban clay pigeons because of the huge mess they are leaving in the gravel.

If you get stuck shooting paper- try the bug and fly targets- even with a scoped .22 rifle those tiny ladybugs and mosquito's are TOUGH to hit.

Why is it that when I read the title of the thread I instantly thought of Mel Brooks as Rabbi Tuckman in Robin Hood saying, "dere's trees and rocks and sqvuirrils"?

Can I plead Nolo Contendere? BTW is there a statute of limitations on mailboxes? Not that I ever did it but....

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μολὼν λαβέ

No such luck.
f.t.

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South Carolina-God's country

It crosses my mind that the young'ns here have never seen a dump, and don't really know what we are referring to.
But yeah, those dump rats, man were they fun!
A Remington single shot, a box of shot capsules, and a front yard full of dragonflies is sure a lot of fun too!

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Geoff. Since 1960.

How about paint balls placed on golf tees. It fun to watch them explode.

todd

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Blessed, not lucky

I like my dueling tree.

Ballons are fun for beginners! Cheap pretty easy to hit depending how big you make them. At my range we will stick 9head size ballons on a 4' x 4' sheet at 50 yards. We all have big heads so ~ 9 inch in dia. First one to hit all nine the fastist wins! Or firing one 10 round mag who hits the most. Standing is an option. Sitting at a rest with a bag is a option. Prone also.
You can also play a game like "Basketball Horse" where you have to shoot the same ballon on your sheet, in the same way as the hitter did. Cheap fun. Of couse you can vary the yardage also. We have done this at 75 yards but it gets slow.
So with .22lr we usually go at 50 yards. With new shooter's we will go at 50'. Fast game.

Golf balls, shotgun hulls, pieces of clays, cans, plastic bottles, are all fun.

We do put the cans and bottles in the recycle bins.

For "paper targets" I really like the self stick color changing kind. Caldwell makes some good ones.

Guy22

I'd forgotten about this. My brother took a section of 2x4 and drilled holes for the tees and paintballs on top. A fun target with our 10/22s at 50-75 yards. Hits at 100 yards are not nearly as regular as I'd like them to be, though.