Plinking

Plinking refers to informal target shooting done at non-traditional targets such as tin cans, glass bottles, and balloons filled with water. The term arises from the verbal description of the sound a bullet makes when hitting a tin can, or other similar target, referring to the sharp, metallic sound, known as a "plink".

Firearms of all calibers and types are commonly used for plinking. At one end of the power range, .50 caliber rifles have been taken to the desert and used to shatter boulders. But undoubtedly the most common caliber used for plinking is the .22 Long Rifle rimfire cartridges, and the common airsoft gun since those rounds are relatively inexpensive and have a low report or a variety of air guns.

Reasons for popularity

There are at least three major reasons for the popularity of plinking.

Minimal costs and effort

First, plinking has been popular because, in rural areas, one could start plinking with a minimum of preparation and expense. In hilly country with clay soil providing a safe backstop it is as simple as gathering up a few stray cans. In many rural areas, up until recent decades plinking was essentially the only way to regularly practice marksmanship. Certainly, a rural shooter might improvise a formalized paper target but even then, the rest of the shooting experience had the character of plinking.

Shooting freedom

Second, plinking in general allows a shooter much freedom of choice in creating his or her shooting experience. In particular, the plinker is set at liberty from the very restrictive rules found at many gun ranges. Certainly, this freedom can be used to violate basic safety standards (see below). But other typical range rules which are not strictly matters of safety can also be ignored while plinking. Plinkers need not have fixed time periods of shooting before shooters have a chance to add, remove, check, or adjust their targets. In general, plinkers are free to shoot at their own pace.

Many gun ranges also place restrictions on rate of fire, for instance mandating that shooters only fire one shot every three or five seconds. Thus, shooters equipped with a semi-automatic weapon, fully automatic weapon, or a revolver cannot get the full enjoyment out of shooting their firearm. Since defense situations often require knowing how to accurately fire multiple shots in rapid succession, prohibitions on "rapid fire" shooting negatively impact firearms proficiency. While private indoor gun ranges often allow rapid fire they tend to bar surplus military ammunition from the range, charge more for shooting rifles than for shooting handguns, frequently disallow the largest calibers, and charge by the hour which forces one to compress one's shooting experience.

Furthermore, most gun ranges typically segregate the three major types of firearms, effectively forcing one to shoot only one or two of them on any given shooting trip. While at outdoor public ranges, one can sometimes shoot rifles and handguns in close proximity, shotguns are typically used at a separate skeet and trap range. At most indoor ranges, rifles and handguns are usually fired in separate parts of the range and shotguns are not allowed at all. By contrast, plinkers, can freely change between shotguns and pistols at a moments notice or freely use the full capabilities of a gun that fires both rifle or pistol and shotgun ammunition.

Plinkers can also readily combine shooting with other recreational activities. One can, for instance, bring firearms along for a swimming trip to the local swimming hole or creek. One can swim right before or after one does some shooting and without the need to even change clothes. Plinking is also perfectly compatible with a variety of other outdoor activities, especially hiking.

Target choice

The third major reason for the popularity of plinking is that plinkers are able to choose their own targets. This reason is related to the first two. Many targets regularly used for plinking are cheaper to obtain and more commonly available than standard paper targets. Second, plinkers are able to use reactive targets which, when hit, are more apt to display the full power of their weapons compared to paper targets hit with similar precision.

Overall, plinking is popular because it allows shooters to thoroughly customize their shooting experience.

Common criticisms

Some shooters disdain plinking because they feel it results in sloppy shooting habits, or because it may bring a bad reputation to the shooting sports because of the litter that individuals sometimes leave. Litter has caused many public access areas to be closed to recreational shooting and should be cleaned up after plinking to ensure that further closures do not occur!

Safety

Responsible shooters clean up after plinking and follow general safety guidelines when shooting at any target; when plinking, a major concern is to ensure an adequate backstop exists so bullets will not strike or ricochet towards unintended targets or populated areas.

Plinkers do not always follow all safety guidelines, in part, because some of the appeal of plinking derives from the freedom one has from the strict rules enforced at a typical gun range. Thus plinkers do not generally use typical range commands and it is not uncommon for plinkers who do not use prescription lenses to go without eye protection. Most plinkers will however yell out a warning before starting a shooting session and will make sure their comrades have ceased firing before going out to work with their targets. Plinkers unused to a formal range environment, particularly older plinkers from rural areas, may also omit hearing protection, especially when they are only supervising younger shooters or simply being bystanders. Overall, however, most modern plinkers have extensive range experience and practice basic safety precautions including the use of hearing and eye protection.

In nations such as the UK, with more stringent gun laws than in the U.S., casual shooting is more often done with an air rifle (air gun).

The future

It is difficult to project the future of plinking in the United States and around the world. A number of factors weigh heavily on the viability of plinking in the decades to come.

First, the overall legal environment for civilian firearms owners is of prime importance to the future of plinking. Increasingly restrictive gun laws will mean fewer and fewer places one can legally shoot let alone plink. Restrictions on guns themselves are also significant since the United Kingdom, after outlawing most firearms, is now considering further restrictions on air rifles.

Second, plinking can be likened to an endangered animal suffering from an increasingly severe loss of habitat. Suburban sprawl threatens established formal gun ranges with closure and this same trend has an adverse effect on plinking. Urban dwellers who move into rural areas for quietude often have a different set of values from rural gun owners who consider it acceptable to fire guns in their back yard at reasonable hours. These homeowners often successfully file noise and nuisance or even safety complaints to force plinkers to give up their pastime or take it elsewhere.

Unlike public or large private gun ranges, few individual plinkers have the wherewithal to fight for their own interests where said interests conflict with those of determined homeowners. While many gun owner groups and gun ranges have successfully lobbied state legislatures for "range protection laws" there have been few if any efforts to pass "plinker protection" legislation.

To protect them against suburban sprawl many remaining open spaces have been made state or national parks but this often has the unintended consequence of closing these areas off to plinkers.

As areas one can legally plink become harder to find, the cost of plinking increases because of travel time. Lack of suitable plinking venues in many parts of the United States has been a chief reason for the overwhelmingly rural character of plinkers in general.

Thus, the future of plinking is dependent upon a number of factors which are difficult to predict.

One possible outcome would be for plinking with firearms to largely disappear but for plinking with air rifles to make up for this, at least in rural areas. This would most likely occur if both the trend towards plinker habitat loss and the trend against more restrictive gun control laws were to continue.

Another scenario also assumes that that plinker habitat reduction will not significantly abate but that public and private gun ranges will realize the large potential market in displaced plinkers. If this happens, one might see some partial revival of plinking in a more rigid and structured context.

Also exacerbating plinker habitat reduction are the potential environmental risk raised by various concerned environmental groups. Several groups contend that concentrated shooting due to plinking in uncontrolled rural settings (such as forests) can lead to excessive lead seepage into soil and ground water, thus, contaminating the ecosystem for localized flora and fauna. Plinkers will often also leave behind the subjects of their plinking too (e.g. cans and bottles), which causes additional waste and contamination issues. These issues when compounded with population concerns such as urban sprawl, have caused many local legislators to look at the subject of plinking and restrict plinkers' ability overall to find suitable locations to plink even in rural settings.

Tank plinking during the Gulf War

During the Gulf War, the destruction and high attrition rate of Iraq's armoured divisions, because of coalition air attack prior to the land campaign, gained the term tank plinking among coalition air forces. This was as a result of the abundance of armoured targets and the extremely effective use of strike aircraft, such as the F-15E Strike Eagle, F-16 and the A-10 Thunderbolt, via very high sortie rates and utilizing highly accurate precision-guided munitions such as the AGM-65 Maverick air-to-surface missile. Though the F-15, F-16, and F-14 all sortied in the Gulf War, the A-10 Thunderbolt II received the vast majority of tank kills, firing more than 90% of the Mavericks expended in the campaign, besides its very effective GAU-8/A Avenger.

During the latter parts of the campaign, aircrews learned to carry out missions early in the morning. With the sand still cool after night, the heat from a tank's engine made them stand out on the infra-red imaging in the cockpit. This allowed aircrew to identify targets easily, and precision munitions were afforded an even easier kill.

The air campaign was so effective that at the height of the air assault, Iraq's armoured forces were being reduced by over 200 tanks and AFV's per day. Apart from the material destruction, it also destroyed the morale of Iraqi tank crews, and this was borne out during the first armoured encounters by coalition ground forces, where it was found that Iraqi tanks rarely got off the first shot. As it turned out, the crews were terrified of staying in their tanks, which had been transformed into death traps by the air assault, and as a result, the crews were camping some distance from their tanks.

See also

• List of rifle cartridges

External links

• "Power Plinker". Promoting the benefits of plinking.
• "[1]". Fast Company - Plinking as Emerging Web Jargon.