Shooting Log

Shooting Log

After consultation with several experts on Twitter (Jason, Carrie, Amanda and Dane), I took the advice to keep is simple and created the following shooting log to track our family results.

10pt9.com has as Shooters Journal on their site if you want something very formal. 

Data Collection 

My solution (confession, I'm an IT geek) is a spreadsheet with information stored in ranges so that I can pick them quickly. And, to keep it simple, a couple of free-form columns for notes. The columns in YELLOW are list driven (I have to choose from a specific list). This makes the reporting work. 

The GREEN columns can take any data. For example, I made a note for a session right after Christmas. We shot indoors -- in freezing temps. We could see our breath at the firing line. Why? The range pumps outside air down the lanes in order to keep lead away from the shooters. We also shot archery indoors at Cabela's - with an instructor. I felt this was an important milestone as Tot4 moved from leather glove to a trigger release. 

I need to make a couple of minor adjustments:

• The Date column needs to be Date/Time
• For 3P shooting, I'll need to add a column for "Position"

Click on any graphic for a larger image.

I went back and logged the 2200+ rounds (archery, pistol, and light rifle) from the last six months. As we move forward this report will start showing scores and trends. Again, the theme is simple... 

This report shows Shooter, Firearm, and Rounds. 

Why Track Ammo 

When we added a Nikon scope to our Henry Golden Boy, the scope pointed me to the Nikon Spot On BMT Site.  This site provides a calculation of bullet drop to match the reticle in the scope. It is ammo specific - just click a few boxes, and it provides the chart on the right.  

Just a few hundred rounds using CCI, Remington and Federal proved the tool to be really useful - dead on at 50 and 75 (or 50 and 69+ a bit of fudge). 

I'm also tracking ammo because of our Sig Sauer Mosquito. More than a few sites and YouTube videos say the Mosquito is prone to jamming with cheap ammo. Several claimed the pistol is a piece of junk. 

Well, I can confirm that CCI shoots just fine, and that the Mosquito has not shown any major issues with Remington. I have not tried Federal so far.

Bottom Line

We have the log, we have the commitment to shoot, now we just need to start keeping score. 

~Tot1