We could all use improved gun handling skills, and these shooting targets help make it happen. Shoot targets, they say. Do it regularly, or your proficiency with a gun will never improve. Isn’t that why we own guns in the first place, to see how good of a shot we are?
A plain old bullseye can only tell you so much about your accuracy and ability to properly use a gun. Sometimes there’s more to it than just aiming for the middle. Sometimes you need to take things up a notch.
We’ve got three shooting targets in mind that take a significant step beyond your typical paper grid. They’re made by RE Factor Tactical, who has made it their mission to create fun and effective means of becoming a better shooter.
The targets require more thought and concentration than most shooters are used to, providing an excellent way to sharpen the skills we all need to keep honed.
The IQ Target
An IQ Target really stretches the intelligence, which is precisely what it’s designed to do.
A seemingly endless combination of shapes, colors, letters, and numbers lets an instructor or training partner call out demands the shooter then needs to work through. They could make requests such as “Shoot all the blue targets,” or “Shoot the squares that contain a number.” Imagine the quick thinking needed to make that happen!
The IQ Targets come in two versions, one with 3-inch shapes and one with 5-inch shapes. That means you can use them for both handgun and rifle training, up close or from a little farther away.
The bottomless well of combinations this style of training target can provide is pretty impressive. Can you see yourself getting sharper with IQ Target practice?
The Essentials Target
There are plenty of training programs or procedures that smart gun instructors have developed, but they sometimes call for a specialized target to get the most out of the drills.
A good example is the Essentials Target, which is perfect for the 150-round accuracy test that runs you through 17 courses of fire. Each one of the courses has a designated target or area, and scoring is quick and easy. Your results are basically spelled out on an easy-to-interpret score card.
Some courses are timed, some are strictly based on accuracy, and each one is vital to your overall shooting capabilities. Unfamiliar with exactly how to use an Essentials Target? RE Factor Tactical will explain it for you.
The Defense Target
Of the three we’re suggesting, the Defense Target is perhaps the most applicable to real life. It starts with a realistic digital photo-based background of an actual person, and can be customized with stickers that indicate whether the person is armed, a civilian, a member of law enforcement, and more.
Each sticker is designed to seamlessly match up with the subject’s hands, chest, or hip, and RE Factor has made it as close to the average human anatomy as possible. When the stickers are swapped and the targets are changed, it forces shooters to quickly scan different places on the body, and make a determination on whether or not the subject poses a threat.
There are scoring zones on the target subject’s body to indicate how successful the shooter would be in wounding or killing if faced with a real scenario.
You can get a better idea of what a session with the Defense Target looks like by watching this video.
If those recommendations don’t get the point across, then we’ll make one last attempt. Training with your weapon isn’t something to be taken lightly, and if you aren’t moving on from simple point and shoot practice, you’re doing yourself (and your gun) a disservice.
When you’re ready to graduate to something more advanced and improve the skills you need the most, shooting targets like these three should be on the short list.
Throwing up a target at the crowded range with a guy wearing an FBI badge is definitely going to get you some looks.
Depends on the range. 🙂
I literally spit beer through my nose!
Tell them It’s a fake badge drill
Yeah as funny as all this is I don’t think I’d take those ones to a public range.
Was thinking that too. Lol
What’s up with the “?” in place of the apostrophe?
Anyone checking these articles?
The use spell check. Grammar and punctuation have suffered and you’re not the first to note.
That essentials target and related scoring info makes it look like a rich mans dot torture.
I think the IQ Target or the Essentials targets would sell better with all the faces of the Dem’s candidates on the stage last night and maybe replacing the FBI with either the aforementioned or maybe the one of the gang of 5!
You also need to practice shooting at animal shaped targets .
People get attacked by dogs, wolves, and bearS
You should practice hitting the Killzone of these targets as well
Actually, just learning to be able to hit what one is “aiming” at is the best place to start. Then, carrying the weapon all of the time and being able to reliably bring it to bear from rest would be next, along with some mindset training to actually release a round or two if one actually encountered a shooting situation. That’s where the rubber really meets the road. For the most part, the majority of us will encounter defensive situations, not offensive ones. In those cases the actual threat will usually be clearly defined before drawing a weapon. Of course there’s nothing wrong with additional training, mind work and adding additional “situations” but as far as I’m concerned, people with the ability to legally carry should actually do so- all of the time, and train to an ability to hit what they are shooting at. Those misses are still going to land somewhere.
Shoot steel with a hostage head or a T box.
Do they make ATF ones? I’m sure they’d be sold out quick.😁
Yeah, funny. And yet another example of the beginnings of a “red flag” or ERPO investigation, too. Who do you think reads this stuff? Is Zimmerman willing to go to jail for you should ATF want to know who “Greg” is in real life?
Grasshoppers. Most years there are tons of them around here. They’re free and it doesn’t take much practice to hit them consistently with a sixgun.
The “IQ target” might be great entertainment. I don’t think it is good training for real-world self-defense and combat situations.
In an actual self-defense encounter, the real mental process is simply realizing that someone actually is attacking you with deadly consequences and you must act to preserve your life. Then and only then do you draw and fire. And once you decided that is the best course of action, you just do it. You don’t sit there and go through another round of decision making such as this:
— Is that a lapel pin?
— Is it round and has letters in it?
— Is it blue?
— Does it have numbers?
… because I should only shoot at round lapel pins with letters that are not blue. If it has numbers or it is blue, I cannot shoot it.
That is NOT how you would and should be functioning in a real self-defense scenario.
Defense target link links to a video showing me how to apply stickers. Not what it’s like to use it as indicated. Cmon yall; get your sh*t together.
So useful..thank you
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