Monthly Archives: March 2009

First pistol practice of the season!

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I made it to the range today! The afternoon was sunny and seemed like it was in the high 30s. My fingers were stiff on the cold pistol, but the lighting was beautiful and the wind was light. This was the first time I’ve shot at the Saginaw Field & Stream club. It has an excellent 50 yard pistol range.

I had a small mixture of .22 ammo, which I shot in this order:  50 rounds of Remington Target (standard velocity lead), 5 rounds of Federal Lightning (high-velocity jacketed hollow-point), and the remaining 35 rounds were Remington Thunderbolt (high-velocity jacketed).

Thoughts on the ammo

This was the first time I’ve shot Remington Target rounds, and, frankly, they were great. They felt very consistent and they functioned reliably in my old Ruger Mk II.

The Federal ammo was cheap stuff, and, oh man, was it bad. Of the 5 rounds, 3 stovepiped. And, they felt very inconsistent. The Remington Thunderbolts are also cheap stuff, but they were consistent and functioned fine.

I ran through a practice 900 match (conventional bullseye pistol).

So, here’s how I shot.

Slow Fire National Match Course Timed Fire Rapid Fire Total
SF1 SF2 SF TF RF TF1 TF2 RF1 RF2
88-2X 88-1X 81-0X 93-2X 97-3X 94-3X 93-3X 97-1X 91-1X 822-15X

That adds up to 822-15X (out of 900 possible). Average score of 91.3.

Really, I had no right to shoot that well, since I haven’t practiced at all for over a year. So, this is a good benchmark to start the season with.

I hope to get out to the range every week, starting in mid-April, and I would like to compete in at least a couple matches by the end of the outdoor season.

The Google AdSense conundrum

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I have a little side project over at rangelistings.com. The site contains a page for each state with a map of where shooting ranges in that state are.

This is the first time I’ve posted advertisements on a site I’ve created, and I’ve run into a compelling question on how to make the ads more effective.

The ads that show up are on-topic, generally. However, an effective ad speaks to the audience, not to a topic, right?

I intend the audience for the rangelistings.com site to be shooters who are looking for places to shoot. Perhaps they, as in my recent case, are moving and want to to find shooting facilities in their new area.

Here is a sampling of the first lines of ads that show up for one of the state pages currently:

  • Personal Security Online
  • Monitored Security Alarms
  • Personal Security Device
  • How to Defend Yourself
  • Self Defense Pepper Spray

Topically speaking, those are all geared towards self-defense in some fashion. For an audience of shooters, one of them even seems silly (would I rather use pepper spray or a .45 for self-defense?).

So, what ads would be better suited to result in people visiting the site actually clicking on them? Here are a few ideas that I think would work better:

  • Ammo: big selection, low price
  • Gunsmithing classes
  • IPSC videos
  • Gun parts and shooting supplies
  • 1500+ gun auctions right now

So, ammo, gun parts, and gun auctions have little to do with the actual words listed on the pages of the site, but from the context of the people visiting the site, they actually make sense.

The site just launched, and Google hasn’t even fully indexed it yet, so I’ll not be hasty. However, I’d like to see the ad revenue at least pay for domain registration and hosting fees, and ads that actually appeal to the audience would sure push that goal forward.

The question is, how?

(And I’m not thrilled with the idea of subjugating the content of the website in order to twist the ads that show up. That’s pretty backwards.)

Any good ideas out there?