ayoob files: dueling rifles - Jeffersonian's Home Page

BETTERSHOOTING DAve ANDersoN
DrillinG FOr
Anyone who
says accuracy
isn’t important
is a fool. it
takes practice
and tens of
thousands of
drills to shoot
like this under
pressure — but
only hits count
in the real
world.
AccurAcy
Why can’t Johnny (and Janey)
shoot? For the same reason they
can’t read with comprehension,
write a grammatically correct
paragraph, or figure a tip on a restaurant
bill without a calculator. They’ve never
learned the basics. They haven’t learned the
value of drilling, over and over, until basics
become subconscious skills. There was a
time (I know, I was there) when primary
school students were drilled in the ABCs
— the building blocks of written communication
— and in basic arithmetic. Was it
boring? I guess it was. So what? A generation
or more ago educators decided drilling
students in the basics is unnecessary,
boring, mean and nasty. Plus it stultifies the
students’ naturally creative little minds. No
time to waste learning the multiplication
tables when there’s world to save!
The message internalized is, “There’s no
need for drills and discipline and hard work.
Sure, I could do it if I wanted but since
everyone keeps telling me how smart I am,
I’ll just skip those steps and go straight to
the fun stuff.” I read an article by a teaching
assistant at a prestigious university. He
teaches remedial reading and arithmetic
skills to freshman students. He says students
arrive with two qualities: (1) reading,
writing and arithmetic skills at about the
5-6 grade level, and (2) an unshakeable,
arrogant certainty they are the most brilliant
people who ever walked the earth. Apparently
the self-esteem lessons are the only
education goal actually achieved.
We can
see how great
champions stand
and grip the pistol.
More important is what we
can’t see — the months and
years of intensive training in basic
shooting skills. travis tomasie
showing great form here.
MilliOns AnD MilliOns
What does this have to do with shooting? Shooting well is a skill.
Becoming a good shot requires disciplined practice over a long period
of time. But just as many schools accommodate students by lowering
standards (does anyone fail a grade anymore?), many new shooters have
adopted the “good enough” approach. It’s common to see shooters barely
keep their shots on a silhouette target at 5 yards and then call it good enough
for self-defense. Most likely it will be. Defensive situations generally don’t
require a high degree of shooting skill. Factors such as awareness, decisiveness,
courage and sometimes a bit of luck are more important. I hope if the
situation ever arises, it’s good enough. But it isn’t good.
Let’s stipulate, safe gun handling trumps everything else. In terms of actual
shooting skill, trigger management is most important. Trigger control can be
described in a sentence: Press the trigger straight back, adding pressure at a
constant rate until the sear releases, without imparting movement to the gun.
Now you know. But knowing and doing are different things. A quality trigger
press is learned by pressing the trigger, not thousands of times, but tens of
thousands, hundreds of thousands of time. Doug Koenig, who manages a
trigger better than anyone I’ve ever known or heard of, said he couldn’t even
begin to estimate the number of dry fires
over the years, but it’s likely in the millions.
So WhAT
T
here are lots of drills, and
different approaches to drills.
Some shooters like a standard
set of exercises. They’ll do one-shot
draws, double taps, reloads, strong
hand only, weak hand only, short
and longer range accuracy. If this
works for you, fine. People learn in
different ways. I find such practice
sessions useful in maintaining overall
gun-handling skills. But to really
improve, I get much better results by
working on one skill at a time.
When I was competing in IPSC
competition I shot 5 days a week,
200 rounds per session. Each session
was devoted to a specific skill.
It might be 1-shot draws, reloads,
weak hand only or shooting while
moving. For every skill there was an
objective. It might be ten consecutive
the trigger finger
is placed squarely
across the face of
the trigger. take up trigger
slack if present, and release
the shot by pressing straight back,
building pressure at a constant rate
until the sear releases, without imparting
movement to the gun. Sounds easy.
reloads all under 1.5 seconds, with all
hits in the A-zone. If it took a week
or more of individual sessions to
achieve the objective, so be it.
There was one exception.
Accuracy is critically important. I
know, many won’t agree and many
more don’t want to hear it — but
it is. Every session began with 20
rounds at 25 yards, standing unsupported.
They had to be all “As” for
a perfect score of 100. If not, the
original session plan was scrapped
and the session would be devoted to
25-yard precision shooting. Drilling
the basics. Was it boring?
Sometimes — but so what?
*
44 WWW.AMERICANHANDGUNNER.COM • MARCH/APRIL 2013