I think airguns have a role to play in building, and maintaining, one's skills with real firearms.
Not everybody has a membership to an indoor range, and some people may just prefer to do some plinking in their backyards. Certainly it's easier to find a safe and legal place to shoot outdoors if you're using an airgun than a real firearm, although with "CB" rimfire ammo or CCI's new "quiet" round, a .22 rifle can be pretty quiet as well. But even a CB short that only uses a 27 grain bullet at 700 fps will still be dangerous at hundreds of yards distance. Not so for a pellet gun that might shoot a 5-grain pellet at the same initial velocity but which will lose that energy so much faster (like small birdshot loads fired from a shotgun).
One drawback to using airguns for training is that they don't usually feel or operate like real guns, so you'll be building different muscle memory as you load it and cowk it. But presenting the gun to the target, aiming it, and pressing the trigger in a controlled manner usually will be the same as what you'd do with a real gun.
Recently I shot a bowling pin match. I wanted to get in a round of practice with my 9mm pistol before the match. I had not shot that gun much since March of this year. I think I fired it for 15 rounds back in August, making a steel plate ring at 20 yards. That's it from March until now. BUT I COULD NOT GET THE TIME TO SHOOT THAT 9mm before the bowling pin match.
So, instead, I broke out the break-barrel .177 pellet pistol (single shot). Unlike the C02 powered guns that have long and heavy DA trigger pulls, this gun has a single-action trigger pull that is about 5 lbs. Not so different from a modern striker-fired pistol like my Springfield XD-9.
I did a 40-shot practice course aiming at a target that I propped in one corner of my garage, and I did some of my shooting from within the garage, but for the longer shots I stood in the driveway 10 feet outside, shooting into the garage through the open door.
A couple of cardboard boxes stuffed with old rags, worn-out clothes, and stacks of junk mail and catalogs were my backstops. I had one box behind the head area of the human silhouette target, and one box behind the X-ring in the chest-- center of mass.
My practice session went well. I focused on raising the gun from the "high ready" position and getting a quick sight picture (not perfect alignment, but close enough) and shooting within 1 second (estimated; I didn't have a shot timer and the air pistol probably wouldn't even be picked up by the microphone on those shot timers anyway.)
The next day, I took my 9mm to the range and did pretty well with it.
Not everybody has a membership to an indoor range, and some people may just prefer to do some plinking in their backyards. Certainly it's easier to find a safe and legal place to shoot outdoors if you're using an airgun than a real firearm, although with "CB" rimfire ammo or CCI's new "quiet" round, a .22 rifle can be pretty quiet as well. But even a CB short that only uses a 27 grain bullet at 700 fps will still be dangerous at hundreds of yards distance. Not so for a pellet gun that might shoot a 5-grain pellet at the same initial velocity but which will lose that energy so much faster (like small birdshot loads fired from a shotgun).
One drawback to using airguns for training is that they don't usually feel or operate like real guns, so you'll be building different muscle memory as you load it and cowk it. But presenting the gun to the target, aiming it, and pressing the trigger in a controlled manner usually will be the same as what you'd do with a real gun.
Recently I shot a bowling pin match. I wanted to get in a round of practice with my 9mm pistol before the match. I had not shot that gun much since March of this year. I think I fired it for 15 rounds back in August, making a steel plate ring at 20 yards. That's it from March until now. BUT I COULD NOT GET THE TIME TO SHOOT THAT 9mm before the bowling pin match.
So, instead, I broke out the break-barrel .177 pellet pistol (single shot). Unlike the C02 powered guns that have long and heavy DA trigger pulls, this gun has a single-action trigger pull that is about 5 lbs. Not so different from a modern striker-fired pistol like my Springfield XD-9.
I did a 40-shot practice course aiming at a target that I propped in one corner of my garage, and I did some of my shooting from within the garage, but for the longer shots I stood in the driveway 10 feet outside, shooting into the garage through the open door.
A couple of cardboard boxes stuffed with old rags, worn-out clothes, and stacks of junk mail and catalogs were my backstops. I had one box behind the head area of the human silhouette target, and one box behind the X-ring in the chest-- center of mass.
My practice session went well. I focused on raising the gun from the "high ready" position and getting a quick sight picture (not perfect alignment, but close enough) and shooting within 1 second (estimated; I didn't have a shot timer and the air pistol probably wouldn't even be picked up by the microphone on those shot timers anyway.)
The next day, I took my 9mm to the range and did pretty well with it.