I have been hitting the golf balls consistently 5 out of 4 times at ~20 meters before encountering couple of ricochets followed by extensive read up on hazards of shooting golf balls. So printed approximately 1.5" circular targets (thanks to Wayne52) on 2"x3" paper. Only got 5 out of the 12 shots on the paper, none of them landing in the target circle. So back to the golf ball just to ascertain the gun-scope zero and got it 3 times in 5 attempts. Maybe this was discussed in one of the threads earlier, but couldn't find it, so any quick suggestions and remediation are welcome. I'm certain that more practice will improve the hit rate on paper targets, so will keep at it.
Next week after the election go around your neighborhood and collect some of those campaign signs they stick in the ground by the road. They're great for mounting paper targets. I just tape them on or some have adhesive.
For a good, free reactive target I use wine corks. I tie about 6” of string, or fishing line to them, then staple the other end of the string to a 2’long 2x4. You can line up a bunch on the same 2x4, then set em up, and knock em down. When that gets too easy, cut them in half. The other day i shot 8 half corks with 9 shots from my 853 at 30 yds, using a scope. If you have enough corks, don’t tie them down, watch those suckers fly![/I drink lots of wine, I'm gonna start saving corks!
Thank you everyone for the suggestions. I shoot offhand with RWS 48 using a fixed 4x scope. I have tried higher magnification but that only creates more movement in my offhand style shooting. Biggest take away so far seems to try shooting at smaller (& solid targets like dots or numbers) as against bigger circular targets.
I made up some multiple bull targets using CAD software and I use them to practice my "bucket and sticks" shooting form with my HW break barrels.