To really get inside yourself, take up precision pistol shooting. I’m not aware of anything that you can do to get that particular calm, inward-perception, take-yourself-out-of-the-world state of mind other than putting all your inner focus on grip-sights-trigger.

There likely is something, like any complex psycho-motor skill, but I’m not aware of it.

Recently, I became dismayed at my inability to shoot well with a particular defense sidearm. Instead of moving to something else, I worked with it. I found that my skills with that gun were middling – sadly. At the end of the exercise, which had itself ended with some precision work, I moved on to a gun that’s purely recreational – the Ruger MKIV Target.

This 5.5” bull barrel 22LR 10-shot auto, with aluminum frame, weighs in at around 36-ounces, not a lightweight these days. The MKIV Competition, with a near-6.9” slab-sided barrel, weights around 46-ounces, with most of the weight in the stainless-steel frame. (The stainless 5 ½” MKIV target weighs 42.8 oz. for that very reason.) That grand pistol was here for T&E. I changed the stocks so I could shoot it with either hand.

I was sad to see it go.

I’ve had the MKIV Target since 2016, the inaugural year for the model. It’s been through a recall and I’ve shot it too little in the intervening time because I just rediscovered the medicinal effects of bullseye shooting. While I’m not following the rules for distance-time- and target, I am shooting one-handed at 25 yards, but using timed- and rapid-fire targets for slowfire as well. Some would say it’s cheating, but at my skill level, that’s of no importance.

In fact, I work on five round strings with alternating hands. I shoot five hits right-handed – score the target, stroll back and shoot the left-handed five round string.

Why? Well, who’s to say I’ll have use of both hands for the rest of my life? Not me. Besides, it helps keep me honest. I’m not going to preach that “It’s a handgun, not a hands-gun” unless I shoot with either hand interchangeably.

I’d taken the 9-year-old target gun to the range with me on my preceding trip. I was so wrapped up in the main event – evaluating service loads from both a service-compact gun the ammo’s made for and a subcompact defense auto that the load wasn’t made for – that I failed to pack my 22 ammo.

I didn’t make that mistake this trip.

I experienced some consternation with my shooting and, at the end, I settled down into some slow, sort-of-precision, the best I can muster.

The Ruger MKIV and some Winchester Super-X bulk pack ammo worked with the NRA B-8(CP) repair center. I began by shooting at the logo on another target with two hands from 25 yards to check the zero on the pistol with this ammo. I found it was hitting around 2.5” low. Instead of moving the sights, I elected to move my hold, preserving the current zero with the gun’s preferred load.

The first slow fire string – wobbly with the near-36 oz. auto – was dismal, 43/50. That’s sad as I try to hold myself to a 90% on everything.

It looks like those days are in the past.

I shot the left-handed string and it didn’t look a lot better. It wasn’t, at 44/50. That earned my 87/100.

No cigar.

Sound like sour grapes? It’s not. The calming of mind in pulling oneself into the basics of shooting is remarkable; medicinal. I found myself almost detached in scoring.

The shots were already gone, the only thing left was the target and the great day it was to be on the range.

In a follow-up, I shot Winchester Western 38 gr. HP bulk in the Ruger on the “B8-Master” course. I didn’t master it.

— Rich Grassi