this may have been posted before - is so i appologize-
looking to find out how i should practice handgun shooting
when at the range do you:
1) shoot only 1 caliber per session?
2) shoot certain number of rounds per session
3) change distances
4) do you time your shots
what i am looking for is something to get me more accurate and
a practice setup that would help my wife

I shoot a ton of 22 LR rounds for practice. Any practice at breath and trigger control, no mater what caliber, is good. I usually shoot at different ranges at each practice.

I always take several guns, but the question you ask is how should a beginner go about learning handgun shooting. The answer to that is boring but simple:

Get a decent .22LR handgun with good sights. Your choice of revolver or semi-auto is open; either is fine. But it should be a fairly good quality gun because if it is inaccurate or unreliable, you won't stick with it long enough to learn the skills needed.

Star with a rest, and the targets close. You can use something as simple as a GI foam bedroll, but you should use a rest. Place your two wrists, NOT the gun, on the rest. Your goal is to learn to use sights with a very short radius, while manipulating the trigger. The rest takes out the natural sway/wiggle of your arms but allows you to grip the gun naturally.

Put a large target no more than ten yards from you. This is not a test of your ego, this is a learning exercise. Success here means you (or she) will look forward to more and more shooting later; failure because the target is too small or too far means the end of your/her eagerness.

Shoot - a lot. It will take more ammo than you think before your results become boringly precise and the whole process becomes muscle memory. Don't be surprised if you go through more than one full brick of ammo in this stage - really. Stop each session when your eyes get tired or you lose concentration. There's nothing to be gained by shooting more except bad habits.

As you slowly improve, you'll be able to move the target farther away, and use smaller and smaller targets. When you think you are ready, set that big close target up again and start anew - without the rest. It truly will be like starting over.

Only after you think of that .22 as another body part, and shooting it is as familiar as walking should you think of moving up to a more powerful gun. Make that next one a good .38 Special. You can get one that says 357 Magnum on the side, but for now, eschew even trying anything but .38s. You should take to 38s like a duck to water by now, but Magnums are a whole 'nuther bucket o' biscuits. Leaping straight to 357s would be like going from patty-cakes to Mike Tyson.

Each time you move up in power, start over with the rest and large targets up close; maybe not quite as large or quite as close, but easy enough that you can master the added levels of blast and recoil while still hitting something.

That's about it. Just remember: It must ALWAYS remain fun. When it isn't, you have either pushed too far too fast, or you have hit your personal "power ceiling."

Yup, Rocky pretty well covered it. Even when shooting the big bores, a .22 always goes along for nerve-calming and de-flinching between big-bore groups.

Cruiser
When doing serious shooting,I always limit myself to two guns,at most.
I don't time individual shots of a string,but do let the barrel cool between groups.
The number of rounds fired,depends on the time that I have to shoot;unless I am satisfied with my shooting.
Rifles are normally (for me) fired at 100 yards.Sometimes they must be sighted in at 50 yards first.
Pistols are fired at 25 yards;that's my limit.
Frank

I don't shoot much pistol anymore because of my vision. When I shoot rifle I almost always start with a 22 bolt action and shoot seated and off hand. If I'm load testing I shoot from a bench but if I'm trying to better myself, I shoot on my hind feet and seated. I always put up some 4"balloons at 100 yds and finish up on them offhand. When I shoot 10 rounds into 3" at 100 yds with a particular rifle from offhand I consider myself adequate. I usually don't fire more than 50 rounds of high power in a session because I find my fatigue factor in lower these days. I usually shoot a couple boxes of 22lr.
A friend an I have put together a moving target to practice with from a cable and pully. A balloon anchors one end and a milk jug is suspended from a wire on a roller. Shoot the balloon and the pully is released allowing the jug to move laterally on the wire. The object is to shoot he jug before it gets to the end of the wire-@30 yds. It sharpens up the second shot ability.

Would suggest if you are just starting out, keep it simple. You can always add "challenges" as you improve but if you push yourself at the beginning, you may become discouraged if you don't quickly get your expected results. Shooting only 1 caliber per session: Good idea. Keeps it simple. Shoot a certain number of rounds per session: Good idea. Even experienced shooters tire. No point in burning more powder when the body is unwilling to cooperate. Change distances: Not when starting off. You can always shoot at farther distances once you've pick up the "basics". Time your shots: Why? You can always do this later as one of your "challenges". Few beginners attain immediate sucess shooting a handgun. For most, there is a learning curve so while learning, also learn to enjoy the experience. Best wishes!

Web Wright (who held a couple of world records in 300m International Rifle at the time) said that despite all the various lists claiming to enumerate the many principles basic to marksmanship, the reality was there are only two: First, you align the sights so the the bullet will strike the target. Second, you keep it that way until after the bullet leaves the muzzle. All other details are optional.

Based on that, Ill deviate a little from the crowd here. Because precision air guns and match grade pellets are available for very modest capital outlay, I would actually start learning with those. The almost total lack of recoil and noise and the fact you can practice indoors at home are major benefits. The air gun's long barrel time forces you to practice good follow-through (maintaining your hold on the gun for a perceivable period after your brain believes the shot is on its way). The basic Daisy 717 pistol will throw the pellets pretty much through the same hole at the standard 10m (32' 9.7") target range. Once you can consistently hold the gun on the target, keep the sights aligned through the discharge of the pellet and still see the sight picture, then you have the principle foundation of marksmanship established. That's when going to the .22 is a good idea, because at that point any disturbance of the sight picture by recoil will not fool you about follow through. Instead you will learn to let the sight picture return before starting the next shot.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, once I got fairly well along with bullseye pistol shooting, whenever I thought the targets were revealing a slight flinch in my .45 work, I would start my range practice sessions with full-power loads in my .41 Magnum Blackhawk fired offhand. I didn't try especially hard to hit with it, but rather put the emphasis on being completely surprised by the moment it went off. A dozen rounds later I would pick up my .45 and it felt like such a pussy cat by comparison, the temptation to flinch was completely absent. Taking Web Wright's comments to their extreme, you need to find what works for you, but also need some experience to be able to identify that.

By the way, top shooters do a lot of dry firing with their centerfire pistols. The old rule of thumb was to dry fire at least twice for each live round fired at the range. One trick is to draw a small bullesye on a piece of paper that looks the same size as your discipline's targets do when you hang it on the wall at eye level and hold the gun muzzle just in front of it and view it through the sights. After double-checking that your gun is empty and the ammo is all put away in a locked box or in another room, you drop a pencil, eraser first, into the bore. You hold this just in front of the target on the wall and dry fire. When the hammer drops, the firing pin pushes the pencil forward, marking the paper. It's a cheap way to get groups and track progress.