Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Competitive Shooting what you wish you'd learned sooner?

I'm about to teach my first class on Service Rifle Marksmanship. What subject(s) for those who have been in the game do you wish you'd known sooner?

This is a serious reply, not a smartalec comment: The cheapest way to get into it. When I was young enough to do it well I couldn't afford it. Sort of like hunting mountain goats.

Thanks Youper, our club provides our Jr. program with everything they need til they are 21 for free. all they have to do is show up.

That is great!

Real Great.

The proper age to start kids at a given discipline.

I've seen too many kids come into a program when they were too small for it & flame out. They do crappy, it gets in their head, then they check out, possibly permanently. (It will take me decades to see if the ever come back.) If a kid is too small for, say Air Rifle position shooting, they need to step down to something like BB gun or a bench league.

I'm watching one kid right now in a HP league that is too small even for Air Rifle. But, unfortunately, his father took it personally when I told him his kid isn't ready for HP and that he should step down to Bench or BB Gun. For a lot of fathers, I think it's an ego thing, thinking their kid is beyond their years and I hope this guy pays attention to the scores his kid is putting up. Maybe that will snap him out of it. But so far, he's been avoiding reality like the plague. I personally would not let the kid on my 600 yard firing line, he is dangerous. But I'm not in position to make that call.

My advice to you & your HP league is that if a kid has more than say, 3 misses at 600 that he be pulled from the line & the program.

The importance of natural point of aim and trigger control.

There are several ways to set up a sling, everybody thinks their way is the best, There are variations on position whether it is standing, sitting, or prone.

However NPA is a go-no go. it is either right or not, no such thing as close enough.

Same goes for trigger control. When the hammer falls the rifle should not move. The only movement allowed is "none".

Mike70560: You make good points. I thought the OP was asking about things specific to HP, but maybe not.

I was, and Mike is right. 2 important foundations.

m1rifleman,

You and your club should be commended for supporting the junior program.

I am the equivalent of a 54 year old junior. Back in the 90s I made Master XTC and Long Range with a match rifle, seldom shooting service rifle. After sitting out of the sport for 15 years (shot a few matches in that period mostly midrange) I started shooting service rifle last year with the intention of becoming distinguished. Shooting four local EIC matches last year and scoring between 462 and 470 I realized that was not good enough for points. Those boys in Carthage and Houston are tough.

After two terrible EIC matches this year (448 and 452) I really started looking at targets and thinking about what was happening. When the rifle does not settle back center of the target each time I will see targets with 5-tens and 5-nines all strung in the same direction. The first shots are probably fine and throughout the string I drift to the true NPA.

People can argue all day is a web sling is better than a leather, or should both keepers be below the frog or should one be on top or if the no pulse is better. They are all SR legal so I say whatever works better for you. But NPA is either right or not.

To ad to NPA, Dry fire, dry fire, dry fire dry fire... try to dry fire so much you think you'll break the gun.


It shows not only NPA but follow through, etc....

Nothing will work without NPA. With NPA and without lots of dry fire you won't get anywhere.

After that, ball and dummy drills are super.

And somewhere in there, likely not so much for starting kids, but remember cross training is never a negative. Shooting silhouettes made my offhand better, shooting bullseye pistol made my rapids better etc... small bore prone A36 targets made my 600 better.

1. Positions are not "one size fits all". There is not a single position that works for everyone. Instead a good instructor will incorporate the principles of a good position (bone support, no muscling, good head position, trigger moving straight back, etc) to help the new shooter find "his" or "her" own perfect position.

2. Don't try to time your shots in your wobble. Accept your wobble. Shoot your wobble. Work on reducing your wobble.

What do you mean by shoot your wobble? Shoot through it?

Thanks!

Accept that your sights will wobble. Center up your wobble with NPOA and break the shot as cleanly (without disturbing the sights) as possible within that wobble. With practice, you can decrease the size of your wobble. But the shots won't go center if you can't execute cleanly within your wobble.

I ran across this reference. Different ways of explaining;
http://www.bullseyeforum.net/t9601-accept-your-hold-definition#82187

It’s kinda like a two circle Venn diagram and knowing how much intersection is enough.

Learn technique, don’t get wrapped up In talk about “ the best equipment” ( gun, barrel, ammo etc).

All errors are additive. For beginners, the biggest gains are from within ourselves, not from “ the best equipment.”

I’ve seen it in every shooting sport In which I participated ( Smallbore 3-position rifle, air rifle, Bullseye pistol / 2700, flintlock competion, skeet/trap/ sporting clays, Traditional archery. ). Somehow it makes you better to others to talk a lot about equipment ( “Wow, he knows a lot about this stuff , he must be good. “).

Once your learn to compete, you can apply it to any discipline. Give a great shooter a moderately accurate firearm, and they will outshoot a moderate level shooter using a firearm capable of one-hole groups.

Master the basics. Stay humble. Push yourself. Compete against yourself. I had a piece of tape on the butt of my 22 target rifle with a saying on it : “ No man is in competition with another man. He is in conflict with his own errors.” I still believe in it.

Don't believe that spent primer crap that stick pushes, only WELL spent primers matter. Anyone can go bang. LOL.

I wish I'd learned to shoot like Justin Utley!

Don't discount having the best gun and ammo though, it will help you mentally... to know a muffed shot couldn't have been the guns fault... at least for me it did.

Practice does not make perfect.Perfect practice makes perfect.

1st, start with good equipment, so that you know without a doubt your poorly placed shot was your fault and not the rifle.
2nd, learn to shoot offhand and all the other positions will be a piece of cake.
When I would practice, offhand was all I did, 44,66,88 rounds for each session.
forget the LAST shot, it's gone and most of all it's just a hole in a piece of paper, not the end of the world.
Analyze your performance, keep good notes about zeros and loads, track your rounds fired. Barrels wear out faster than you think, especially CM.
LASTLY, have a good time, the better scores will come.

Learn the difference between “ practice” and “ training.”

“Practice” is reinforcement of a technique. Repetition.

“Training.” Is learning/ experimenting with a new technique.

Competitive shooting is a journey. Be patient. You keep on learning. Things you struggle with in year “1” are things you do automatically in year “2.” Etc. Keep a log/journal of your journey. Score results, practice times/dates, things worked on, things tried, failures, successes, equipment adjustments/ and why, etc. Again, what your write about in year “1” are different from each following year.

I love this thread. No smart azzes. One thing that our club did was to load up on NM AR15's. They are much easier for the youngsters to shoot well with rather than the M1. We put on clinics like the ones taught at Camp Perry in the early 80's. I was at them, and the instructors were all HM shooters. One thing that I saw with our club was the willingness of our top shooters to work with individuals on a one to one basis. Like having a mentor. Get your top shooters to pair up with a new shooter and go to the range and practice. Like Jeff said; NPA is so important. Work on each position. The body type of each shooter will dictate the best position to work on. There used to be three sitting positions, but D.I.Boyd told me that no one should shoot the open leg position. G. David Tubb used what he called the approach method for shooting standing. He spent a lot of time teaching himself how to do that. It works for him. Ron Fleishhacker used the cross legged sitting position. David used a modified cross ankle. That is where a coach comes in. Working with each shooter will solve a lot of problems before they become habits and it will instill good fundamentals. You know that there is no secret to shooting? It's all fundamentals.
Watch the front sight and favor center.

The point Craig makes about the position needs to fit you is SO important too. I remember a coach somewhere along the lines stepping on one of our JR shooters prone legs to get her foot flat, and I pulled him off to the side and said, lets just let her shoot the prone position FIRST and then worry about that foot.... after the 15 year old gal came off the 600 with a 197, he never stepped on her foot again....

And Craig had that same Small arms school I had on standing... LOL... put the rifle up, wait until the sight is center, activate trigger without moving sight, thats all there is to standing. Very simple. ROTFLMAO I did....

First thing I`d do is show your class how well that rifle shoots. And while you`re doing so, call each shot. Tell them why.
When I first started HP, I shot a $65 M-1, CMP rifle, for the first 3 years.
I then had the good luck to buy a 40-x, found my rifle printed exactly where the sights were when the gun went off. Improved my confidence in my equipment 200%, and showed me where I needed improvement. No more quessing...was it me or the gun?

Somehow I missed this important point when reading this the first time.... you didn't say it out loud, but what you have said, along with NPA, is that a DATA book is SUPER important. SUPER important once you get moving along. And IMHO even when starting. Doesn't matter if you are noticing that you start shooting high Xs at 600 along about the 12-13th shot for some reason( hint, come down 1/4 moa right quick at that point in the string) or if you are shooting 9 ring size rapid groups, just noticing that those groups are all a bit high or a bit left on this range at Lake Jackson( due to early morning lighting for me) etc... can allow you to adjust a bit and up the score, while you are still learning.

Great post. Keep an accurate data book. But you have no need for a score book. They are useless mostly. Read that again closely and understand it please.

Who is Alec? How do we know whether he’s smart or not?

Follow thru, Follow thru, Follow thru.