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Of course to be a "shooter" requires that you shoot. What matters is proficiency, and while there may be the odd prodigy that is naturally an amazing shooter with very little practice, like most things in life, proficiency is linearly (or perhaps logarithmically) correlated with practice and spent primers.
It's not that you have to use the right equipment to be a "shooter", it's that being a shooter usually steers a person away from equipment that doesn't work as well as other options.
Am I less of a shooter because I chose for a few years to regularly shoot a couple hundred rounds a session of 45-70 and 30-30 with regular old ghost ring receiver sights at ranges up to 300 yards instead of using the best scope, or any scope at all? No real reason to do it except for fun. Obviously I was handicapping myself and I doubt I would have shot a deer with that setup at that range no matter how proficient I was. But I enjoyed it.
Was the old man I mentioned earlier who could shoot quail on the rise with a .22 but who would have been lost with dials and knobs less of a shooter?
Equipment has very little to do with anything. I bow hunt with a longbow. After a few years of that, using a rifle of any sort almost feels like cheating. I almost feel guilty shooting a deer with a gun. The only reason I do is because I like guns and I need an excuse for them in my own mind. The guy with the longbow is not any less or more of an archer than the guy with a $3k compound. He just chooses to concentrate on different interests.
For me, as a rifleman I choose to concentrate on shooting very quickly from the end of my muzzle to three or four hundred yards in field positions. I use moderate magnification and I’m not trying to see and hit a tick on a deer’s shoulder. If a scope is good enough to do that, then that is good enough. I value eye relief, field of view, weight, and a few other things over things that long range shooters might value.
