Making the most of the rounds we fire.

[synergy]

Through my work, I get to see a lot of different shooters of different backgrounds and experiences. I get to see people who've never handled a gun before, to guys who've been shooting for 50 years. I get to see people who can shoot 1 hole groups...and people who need help just getting the bullets into the backstop.

The thing I've noticed, though, is that time spend behind the trigger, doesn't always make you a better shooter. In fact, the majority of the poor shooters I see...are ones who've had poor formal training in the past (mil and LE, with too high of a student:instructor ratio, with the focus on just passing a qual), and have either forgotten the key ingredients to shooting well, or never learned it correctly in the first place.

Essentially, experience doesn't translate directly to skill.


I've been working my way though a book on shooting, by J Michael Plaxco called Shooting from Within. I highly recommend it to anyone who takes their shooting seriously. One gem he scribed was:

Practice makes permanent...only perfect practice, makes perfect. (or words to that effect)

With that in mind...what I'd like to create here, is a list of what people have found to be efficient uses of ammo....what drills, tips, concepts...do you practice, and how has that helped your shooting?

Aside from the fundamentals of FS focus and trigger press....what techniques have positively impacted your speed or precision? What do you think about when you transition from target to target? What little modification to your reloads made you faster/ smoother? Things like that...

What drills do you think are worth spending your ammo on...and why?


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I'll start off with a tip that helped me with a grip separation problem I was having with larger caliber handguns. What I visualized, was that my support hand was actually squeezing my firing hand and gun together, and PULLING the gun out away from my body (I know, Weaver shooters will shake their heads...). What this got me doing was locking my support hand down on the gun better, and helped me out a lot with recoil management.

As far as something I feel is worth spending my ammo on... I like drills that re-enforce the balance between speed and precision. One drill I'll do is take a bunch of small targets and arrange them from big - small, or small to big. At 5 yards I'll do a 1" dot, a 1/2 of a business card, a full business card, a 3x5" card, a 5" plate, and a 8" plate....etc. The idea is to just hit the targets as quick as you can, but you MUST hit the targets. You can arrange the targets differently to track the gun from left to right, or up to down...etc. But I think this helps us better understand what we need to see, to hit a given size/ distance target.


Ok, now it's YOUR turn!

[PA Rifleman]

Originally Posted by synergy

....what techniques have positively impacted your speed or precision?

Learning to shoot flintlocks (AKA "flinchlocks") accurately completely eliminated all flinch with smokeless guns.

[XUSNORDY]

Practice makes permanent...only perfect practice, makes perfect. (or words to that effect)

Strange......just watched a baseball training dvd last night with my step-son. It with Cal and Billy Ripken.......they said the very same quote. Said that their father often said it....only a bit different..

Practice dosen't make perfect......only perfect practice makes perfect.

[Mr_Anderson]

the Boy Scouts taught me to shot. they pressed me about taking your time, and breathing. If you can not control your breathing you will miss. This was on .22 bolt action rifles. Last summer i bought a .22 and i went right back to shotting dime size groups at 25 yrs. pretty happy with that