Training to take

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Vigilance OKC

Marksman
Joined
Sep 22, 2020
Messages
28
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20
Location
Edmond, OK
Perfect practice makes perfect. I have watched lots of folks make basic marksmanship mistakes over and over and over while trying to do all of it themselves by "just shooting a lot". Now I really do agree it's all about the basics, but you can really cut you learning curve drastically if you get some instruction as to what your doing wrong, and to what makes perfect practice. A couple examples. Had a guy that was all self taught. Was an ok shooter, but struggled greatly with any rifle target past 50 yards. He was very frustrated and finally asked for help. I watched him shoot 5 rounds and I didn't see much wrong, so I asked him where he zeroed his rifle. I got a blank look. I asked him if he was zeroed at 100 or 200 yards (iron sight AR-10), blank look. I told him we should zero his rifle and his reply was "didn't it come zeroed"? He honestly didn't know. I wonder how many 1000s of rounds that would have taken to just practice through on your own. Next example 5 year Fed L.E. always struggled to qualify and a couple times couldn't. His boss asked me to work with him, because other than the shooting he was a pretty good Cop. Took him aside of the class and had him shoot 5 round at 7 yards with his 320 aiming at a 3" circle about shoulder level on the target. All landed low and left down around the fat roll. Asked him if anyone had ever told him don't jerk the trigger. He said yes, every time he qualed and anytime he shot on his own with friends. I asked him if he knew what that meant, he said not really. I had him hold the gun on target finger on the trigger, and I put my finger over his and told him to just sight the gun and feel what I was doing. We fired 10 round with me pulling the trigger for him with his finger under mine 70% were in the circle and the rest right around it. The next 3 days in a row I had him do trigger drills and dry fire and told him when you hear "don't jerk" mentally say I'm going to press my trigger straight back and smoothly. That guy now quals in the high 90s and has stayed there for two years. Maybe after 50,000 rounds he would have figured it out, but a bit of training sure cut the learning curve, and he now knows what they ment all those years.
Really good points and well said. I didn’t know how much your trigger pull made a difference for a long time. Dry firing and understanding what’s happening when you pull your trigger is a game changer.
 

Gunbuffer

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Mar 27, 2017
Messages
7,530
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9,498
Location
OKC
I've know plenty of guys who could carry huge amounts of gear, ruck all day, who's only contribution was loud noise, so I guess I'm confused about the point about "fantastic shooters". I would also proffer that there aren't that many "fantastic shooters", there are plenty of good ones, and there's plenty of good enough ones, but "fantastic" really cuts those numbers WAY down.
Fantastic post
 

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