50 Rounds to a Better You

By Corey Young

      Finding both the time and money for quality range training has been difficult.  First it was the pandemic and everything was closed. Then there was mass panic buying, driven by rising crime and fears of anti-gun legislation, which resulted in ammo hording and tons of new shooters. As a result, prices skyrocketed and a national ammo shortage ensued.

     During the height of these “troubles” basic 9mm ball was going for up to $1 per round if you could find it.  Fortunately, ammo prices have fallen and availability has increased. Most common calibers can be easily found and while pricing isn’t at pre-pandemic levels, they are more reasonable then even a few months ago. However, now we are faced with record levels of inflation, making everything we buy much more expensive and reducing disposable income for hobbies like shooting. 

     This makes every round we actually get to put down range increasingly important in terms of training value. While mag dumps to test the reliability of that new gun or magazine are still super fun, from a value equation they do very little to increase proficiency.

     I've been looking for a basic course of fire that would touch a majority of marksmanship fundamentals for a minimal investment. I settled on one box of pistol ammo, 50 rounds, as a reasonable round count without breaking the bank. While originally intended primarily for pistol training, the below course of fire is equally applicable, with some minor modifications, for rifle training as well.

Recommended Course of Fire:

5 rounds aimed slow fire ………………………….5 yards

5 rounds aimed slow fire ………………………….10 yards

5 rounds aimed slow fire ………………………….25 yards

5 rounds strong hand only………………………...5-10 yards

5 rounds weak hand only……………………….…5-10 yards

5 rounds reload drills………………………………10-15 yards

          (fire 1, perform slide lock reload, reset)

          (incorporate draw from holster if able)

10x rounds target transitions………………………10-15 yards

10x rounds recoil management……………………5-10 yards

                     (2x shots, i.e. double taps)

                     (can modify to 1x to chest & 1x to head)

     I’ve tried this course of fire with several different shooters now, of varying skill levels, and all have found it beneficial. I’ll use my brother-in-law as an anecdotal example to demonstrate the usefulness of this course of fire. After a brief period of instruction on the fundamentals (trigger press, sight alignment, safety etc…) he managed 3 of 5 on a half-sized silhouette at 25 yards. Pretty respectable for a guy who has only ever shot a pistol once in his life before about six years before.

     You be the judge. Is it worthwhile? Can it be improved? What would you change? What would you add if you had 100 rounds to train with? Try it out on your next range trip and let me know how you like it.