5 tips to make you a better shooter

[cmshoot]

I cut and pasted this brief article from The Firearm Blog.

"According to Tim Herron of Team Sig Sauer there is a lot of misinformation from Armchair Experts. He breaks down five things he advises to be a better shooter.

1. Dryfire. It’s real. And it works. It also costs NOTHING but an investment of your time and the benefits are endless.
2. Training Classes do not make a better shooter. Practicing what you learn from those classes is what makes you a better shooter. Training classes merely gives you new ideas to practice on.
3. Gear is never the answer. You can improve with what you have.
4. Focus your practice on purposeful things. Things that really apply. Literal tons of repetitions both in dryfire and live fire and immense amount of PURPOSEFUL rounds down range.
5. Finally, stop with the delusions of self grandeur. Want to start truly improving? Quit BS’ing each other on the Internet and get your rear end to work. You don’t learn this stuff by osmosis. And you certainly don’t get better at any of this by repeating the baseless BS you read or heard some supposed “hardcore operator or competitor” say out of context to someone else 3rd person.

Tim has some good points and some of them seem obvious. However I do argue against the “gear is never the answer”. If gear is not the answer then why do people not compete with Hipoints? To a certain degree gear matters. There is a reason people don’t use Uncle Mike’s holsters for serious shooting. Also gear can help with some shortcomings one may have. For example, red dots on handguns is easier and quicker for people with poor eyesight."

That's their article, here's my thoughts, point-by-point:

1. Dry fire is one of the best training tools. When I shot competitively in the Corps, we dry-fired much more than we fired live rounds.

2. I tell this to my students all the time. As an Instructor, I talk about why a particular skill set is important, then describe the drill we'll use to work on it, then I'll demo it live so all can see, then have the students shoot it several times, then do an immediate AAR on the drill. When I have them shoot it several times, that's so we can correct gross mistakes and give advice and pointers. Once all students seem to have grasped the core concept and are headed in the right direction, we go to the next drill. We haven't made you an expert in that skill set; we have given you a way to practice and perfect a skill set that is vital. It's up to you to put the necessary range time in.

3. I agree with the author. I'm not a "gear queer" by any stretch of the imagination, but you will perform better with some gear than others, and it's important to have the right gear for the task at hand.

4. A thousand times YES. Too many folks go to the range and "plink" instead of "practice". Decide what skill sets you want to work on, then pick drills to work on those skills. I do this BEFORE I ever get in my truck to head to the range. In addition to focusing on one or more skill sets, I always work on shooting and moving and finish up with support-hand only drills. I'm teaching a Competency-based Handgun & Lowlight Tactics course on August 27. Other than the lowlight portion, all drills are timed and scored with a pass/fail standard. At the end of the day, all students will receive a copy of the drills to take with them, fully explained. This gives shooters a good set of drills to practice on their own, with purpose.

5. Agree 100%

 

[Leshaire]

Its funny you say that about gear. I was thinking the same thing. I feel like thats such an old school mentality. There is always a right tool for the job, and each piece of gear is a tool with a job. If the job is to hold your gun, a nylon walmart holster is not the answer, if the job is to put bullets into a badguy, a poorly lubed low end firearm is not the answer, etc etc etc. Im not one to buy $3,000 rifles or anything crazy, as you know about me, but there is definitely a line to stay above when it comes to how shitty your gear can be.

 

[Wallace]

Through all the hobbies I have gotten into over the years, seems the constants across them all are always related mostly to these talking point I regards to betterment.

I remember being told when I was little, "perfect practice makes perfect". It's stuck for the most part. I mean, there are some days I go just to have fun and not worry so much about being critical of my every motion -> mainly with sporting clays with my buddies, but for the most part I always push to better my skill set each range visit.

Wish I had more time and money for good training and range time, but I get in what I can I guess.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[freedom]

My less knowledgable takes on the article and the comments.

1. A trigger pull is a trigger pull. A great tool, especially when combined with #4 since certain things aren't diagnosable without the noise and recoil present. I know one fellow instructor that claims his ratio of dry to live fire is close to 1000/1. He dry fires "by the numbers" everyday but sometimes goes several months without actually shooting.

2. Like @Wallace said, perfect practice makes perfect. I've been through budget classes that I think would cause more harm than good.

3. I agree with both the article and cmshoot. I love my aftermarket triggers but never bought one until I could shoot to a certain self-imposed standard. It was actually a present to myself for being able to shoot consistent sub 3moa groups with iron sights in prone. Milspec triggers aren't great but if you can shoot one well a better one is icing on the cake.

4. Bad habits are for some reason much easier to learn than good ones. It doesn't matter what you "know", if when you do get a chance to shoot you throw it all out the window. I'm a better shot now than I've ever been, even though I shoot much less often than I used to because several years ago I started following similar advice that @cmshoot gave and had a goal for every trip to the range, even down to every shot.

5. I teach with a group whose goal is 4moa with a off the rack rifle and standard ball ammo. It's hard. I see people struggle over the course of several weekends plus the practice that they put in as an individual to shoot to that standard. Many if not most think it will be easy, probably because every serious shot they've taken is off a bench with bags or a bipod.

Those aren't flyers. You did that. Stop treating them like they're something that just happens and figure out what part you played in it.

That one group you shot and took a picture of is a fluke. If you can't do it 5 times in a row, you can't do it.