Benefits of Shooting with Steel Targets

When it comes to target shooting practice, most beginner and intermediate level shooters choose to use paper or Styrofoam targets. Usually the reason behind choosing to use these types of targets is that shooters are attempting to minimize the chance of ricochet or injury. For this reason, most shooters avoid using steel targets, but there are actually several benefits to using steel targets. Here are some benefits to using a Steel Dueling Tree for target practice.

1. Reusability

Paper and Styrofoam targets can become easily worn out or damaged over extended use. Most of these types of targets rarely make it through one round of target practice. Steel targets have the advantage of lasting significantly longer than targets made of other material.
Other types of targets that have a small lifespan will cost you more money having to buy new targets. This can become quite costly considering most of these targets won’t even make it through one round of target practice. For the average shooter, this is several shooting sessions of quality practice time.

2. More Practice Time

As mentioned above, steel targets will give a shooter more time to practice and improve their aim. Besides extending the amount of time practiced, steel targets also improve the quality of time spent practicing. Traditional targets made of weaker material are obviously much more fragile. This can cause a shooter to have to pause while practicing in order to readjust or repair these kinds of targets after just a few hits. With steel targets you simply set them up, mount them, and proceed to practice without having to pause for readjustment. This saves time to ensure you get the most out of your practice time.

3. Instant Notice of Target Hits

With Styrofoam and paper targets, knowing when you’ve hit the target can be hard to spot, especially if you’re shooting from a significant distance. This gives the shooter another reason to pause their target practice. Pausing, putting the gun on safety, unloading, walking up to the target, checking for bullet holes, and walking back all eat up precious time on the range.
Steel targets eliminate the unnecessary need to pause practice. Steel targets offer an audio alert of hitting the target with a very distinct ding sound. Each time you hear the ding sound you know you’ve hit the target. If you’re using paint on the steel target you can simply cover up the hit spots with a fresh new coat of paint. Plus, it’s so satisfying to hear that awesome ding sound when you hit the target, and it makes shooting practice much more fun.

Even though you won’t need to buy as many steel targets, steel targets are a little more expensive. A quick google search on any site will give you a listing of reasonable prices to compare, but a good, standard steel target will cost about $200. Considering the lifespan steel targets have and the quality of practice you will get from them, steel targets are worth the extra price.