A Fireside event will run you between 200 and 350 rounds. New guys ask why. The honest answer is, because that is the minimum to learn anything.
You can fire 20 rounds at a range, hit a target, and walk away feeling competent. That is not training. That is recreation. There is nothing wrong with recreation. But it does not change you as a shooter, and it certainly does not prepare you for any moment that actually matters.
Real skill starts to show up around round 100. By then your initial nerves have burned off. Your grip has settled. You are starting to feel where the trigger breaks instead of guessing. You are catching your own mistakes before the coach calls them. The pistol stops feeling like a tool and starts feeling like an extension.
By round 200, something else happens. The reps have outpaced your conscious effort. You are not thinking about the draw or the press or the reset. You are thinking about the target, the call, the next problem to solve. The mechanics have moved into your hands. The brain is freed up to do its actual job.
By round 350, you are tired. Your support hand is sore. The brass is hot in your shirt collar. You have made every mistake you can think of and a few you did not know existed. You have also discovered that you are more capable than you walked in believing. That is the moment Fireside was designed to deliver. Not so you can post a target online. So you know, in your bones, what you are capable of when the chips are real.
This is also why you cannot fake it with one box of practice ammo a year. You can own a pistol. You cannot say you can run one until you have put real volume through it under coaching, under heat, under pressure. The number does not lie.
Bring more ammo than you think you need to the next event. There is a reason we say it every time.