# How to learn to shoot?



## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

So, I will preface my question with a story.

I am an oldest child so when I was young I didn't have brothers and sisters to play with for the first several years of my life. I wanted to play baseball but I didn't have anyone to throw the ball to me so I could hit it. Well, one summer my grandma was in town, I was probably 6. She showed me that if I put my bat on my right shoulder (I'm right handed - as God intended ;-)) I could throw the ball up with my left hand, quickly swing my left hand over to the bat and hit the ball as it fell.

What my Grandma didn't know to tell me is that a right handed hitter puts his left hand on the bottom of the bat under his right hand. I learned how to hit a baseball right handed with my left hand on top of my right hand on the bat. (I know you just put your hands together to imagine hitting a ball with your hands like that and scowled - admit it )

From then until the time I was 17, everyone laughed at me for not knowing how to hit. I've always been big - heck at 17 I was on the defensive line and benching 305 pounds. I didn't have to know how to use physics to my advantage to hit the ball harder, I had the strength to just hit it with my goofy hand position and drive it farther than most could with their hands positioned correctly. In fact, at the Stake ball diamond, I've only seen 3 balls go over the fence, ever. 2 of them were mine in back to back at-bats. One was my normal goofy handed hitting and the other was after the old men in the stands convinced me to try, just for their amusement, to see if I could hit it with my hands positioned correctly on the bat, right hand on top. The bottom line was I hit the first ball about 15 feet farther than the second ball but both cleared a 16' fence at 343 feet. 

So, that leads me to my question. 

As a kid, I had a BB gun and basically learned how to shoot at cans in my parent's backyard. My family didn't own guns and it took me until I was 12 to convince my parents to let me have a BB gun. I had never shot an actual firearm until I was 12 at Camp Steiner and I never shot anything bigger than a .22 until I was 14, when we moved and I met some new friends.

I grew up shooting with my friends, supervised by their dad, who became a good friend of mine as well as I got older. Their dad is amazing with a revolver in his hands. From age 14-18, practically every Friday we were listening to him tell us stories about his days of competitive shooting and hunting, etc.

I learned by trial and error how to shoot a BB gun. My friends' dad taught me much more about how to shoot well.

I'm not by any means a super great marksman. I'm not bad and most times I do better than most of my friends. I put an elk down in one shot with an 06 at 348 yards. So, I can shoot, but I feel like I'm really just shooting at minimum expectations.

SS (Springville Shooter) was talking about going back to the fundamentals in another thread and that got me thinking, I haven't ever had any formal training or education on the fundamentals. I learned breath control and trigger control shooting at cans in my back yard as a kid. I know those are fundamentals but I don't really even know how to use them to improve my shooting. It's just feel for me, basically.

But I couldn't pull up on a 1000 yard target and get anywhere near it. 

So that's my question. How can I learn to shoot? How do I know if I'm swinging my bat goofy-handed? If I formally learned the fundamentals of shooting, could I not substantially improve my shooting? And, how do I learn those fundamentals?


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## Stickboy (Oct 28, 2010)

Great questions. My suggestion, of coarse not knowing where you are located, first would be do some research into the appleseed project. It looks like the closest event might be Colorado, Wyoming or Arizona. That could be quite a drive. Another suggestion would be to look up the CMP (Civilain Marksmanship Program). They sponcer Service Rifle Competitions. These competitions routinely have an instructional component that stress fundamentals (no artifical support and open sights only). You might also consider droping into the shooting complex south of Price. There is a fella there by the name of Clint that runs a precision tactical match once a month. These matches never had an instructional component, but Clint would more than likely be willing to discuss fundamentals (NPA, Trigger control, Muscular relation, sight picture, building a firing postition, stock weld..ect). If none of these are options, I would suggest snipershideforums(Clint is also on the hide with screen name dessert rat dad). There is a section there that covers basic marksmanship and advanced. You can read until your head spins off. There is also a course that is put on by lowlight the forum supreme moderator. You give them like $10/mnth and they ship you leassons via the web. I would say get yourself a good .22 trainer to save money on rnds...but that isn't as likely as it used to be.

Good luck.

-c


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## Bo0YaA (Sep 29, 2008)

While I agree with Stickboy, my advice would be put as many rounds down range as possible. Get to a point where you can put 3-5 shots in under an inch at 100 yards than move to 200 and so on. If you do not reload, its going to me much more difficult to get proficient at long range shooting. The chances of you being able to find factory ammo capable of producing good groups out beyond 300 is pretty tough. Not impossible by any means but pretty tough none the less. The key to becoming good at anything is practice practice and more practice. I can almost guarantee you that SS has put more rounds done range in a year than most people do in 5 or 10 years. If you know how to squeeze a trigger rather than pull of slap a trigger and you know the proper way to breathe than I would say its all a matter of practice and finding the load that works best for your weapon.


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## fishreaper (Jan 2, 2014)

That is one of the problems with shooting. It is arguably just as expensive if not more so than golf, and can be just as difficult to be above average. even reloading, while you may be saving 50% per by the time 50 triggers go by, you've lost 25 dollars minimum, God forbid you have to resort to premium bullets to retain good accuracy (Sierra's however, are cheap and are known as the remedy for most of your accuracy problems, if you were to ask Chuck Hawks. Berger's seem to have a good rep too, and they're both always in supply)
This is on top of the fee to get into many public ranges, the daunting memberships or the gas spent getting from destination A to B and back to A. 

The best advice I can give as someone who is likely even less experienced, is start shooting as far away from your comfort level as possible. I can almost tell you without a doubt that this SS fellow probably missed the first handful of rounds at 500, 600, or 700 yards, much less 1000. He's probably put down a good metric ton or two of lead down range.

I'd be happy to go shoot more, if only the closest public range wasn't 30 minutes away and a 16 dollar entrance fee. Don't get me started on the price of a round of skeet or trap.


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## Springville Shooter (Oct 15, 2010)

fishreaper said:


> I can almost tell you without a doubt that this SS fellow probably missed the first handful of rounds at 500, 600, or 700 yards, much less 1000.


I can absolutely guarantee that I still miss shots at all these ranges and much closer all the time.

As far as fundamentals, the basic premise is to be as repeatable as possible. This means that everything you do is the same each time from sight picture, to trigger pull, to follow through. The best way to improve this is to obtain an extremely accurate rifle....I'm talking one that will group 1/4". I prefer this to be a light recoiling cartridge without much muzzle blast. Mine is a 243 Win. Shoot groups at 100 yards working on sight picture, cheek weld, breathing, and trigger pull until your number of flyers, or shots outside a tight group are few and far between. If you are having flyers, figure out why and make a correction. A good trick that I use is to have a friend load your rifle or leave it empty without you seeing. You will not know whether or not the rifle is loaded when you pull ther trigger. Pay close attention to what happens when the rifle is empty, if the crosshairs jump, move, or drift, you need to make a correction. If it goes click and your sight alignment stays rock solid you are on the right track.

I am not any kind of expert, just a guy who loves all things shooting. I have learned a few things over the years and am more than glad to help anyone out if I can. If anyone is willing to travel to south Utah County and wants to go to the range, let me know. I usually have something fun to shoot.------SS


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## fishreaper (Jan 2, 2014)

To be perfectly honest,embarrassingly so, it wasn't until I started reloading where I had to go to the range to test concoctions when I stopped flinching even under my .243. It wasn't the recoil, but the boom that made me tremor. the shockwaves from other people shooting ar-10's in 308 around me also made me flinch a bit, so I had to time it in between their strings for me to get a decent shot off. After about thirty minutes, I finally got over myself. It doesn't really bother me anymore. Perhaps forcing myself to get a shot off in a certain amount of time helped the speed of getting on target.

I still haven't pulled off a 5 shot group under an inch but once. I almost always have 3-4 and one flyer trying to keep my crosshairs timed with the target. 

Perhaps a fuji apple to a golden delicious comparison, but also an homage to being humble and my own problems. It's not fun living in the world thinking you're the only person with a few kinks.


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## Springville Shooter (Oct 15, 2010)

I wear plugs with muffs over the top at the range because I too have been known to flinch due to muzzleblast. When I talk about going back to the basics, I often have to do this after too many loud, punishing magnum shots. When the groups start to look like a buckshot pattern, I know its time for what I call "Cooper Therapy". This and a few hundred 22 rounds with the kids and I am usually much improved. Also, there seem to be days where I just can't hit crap. When I was younger I used to panic and imagine all kinds of scenarios like my barrel being shot out or my scope going bad. Now I just go home and realize that I am having a BSD (bad shooting day).--------SS


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

Some really great suggestions and some good thoughts here. I appreciate them all - even though no one admitted to putting their hands goofy handed and pretending to swing a baseball bat to see how it feels.

While I am the first in line to agree that I need more practice, my concern is that I don't want to practice my bad habits. I need to find out what my bad habits are and break them.

I recently picked up a 223 with a target barrel that I've been reloading some test rounds for (to see what it likes to shoot). On my first range outing with it and some bulk reloads I made, I shot this 3 shot group at 100 yards:



The circle is 1". I put this at about 2/3 to 3/4 of a minute.

I was shooting an 06 before I got the 223 and shot this 3 shot group at 100 yards, although I think this was just lucky because I've never been able to replicate it:



Maybe I'm over-thinking this and I just need to go to the range and shoot more.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

Springville Shooter said:


> I wear plugs with muffs over the top at the range because I too have been known to flinch due to muzzleblast. When I talk about going back to the basics, I often have to do this after too many loud, punishing magnum shots. When the groups start to look like a buckshot pattern, I know its time for what I call "Cooper Therapy". This and a few hundred 22 rounds with the kids and I am usually much improved. Also, there seem to be days where I just can't hit crap. When I was younger I used to panic and imagine all kinds of scenarios like my barrel being shot out or my scope going bad. Now I just go home and realize that I am having a BSD (bad shooting day).--------SS


What kind of 22 are you shooting and at what distance?


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## RandomElk16 (Sep 17, 2013)

Was the bulls eye your first shot?


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

RandomElk16 said:


> Was the bulls eye your first shot?


I think it was my 3rd shot.


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## RandomElk16 (Sep 17, 2013)

Dodger said:


> I think it was my 3rd shot.


Hmm.. After my second 3 group I learn which shot I can write off if they dont overlap. Dont write em all off but cold barrel, operator error, or possibly the bullet having slight load difference do occur. But sometimes its the gun. Still a good group! Now try and do the same at 200.

What is your trigger pull set at? Just trying to think of little things that go along way. SS can cover all the big boy things


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

RandomElk16 said:


> Hmm.. After my second 3 group I learn which shot I can write off if they dont overlap. Dont write em all off but cold barrel, operator error, or possibly the bullet having slight load difference do occur. But sometimes its the gun. Still a good group! Now try and do the same at 200.
> 
> What is your trigger pull set at? Just trying to think of little things that go along way. SS can cover all the big boy things


Ha ha ha, thanks. I was using some bulk reloads that were not meticulously reloaded. By that I mean that they were reloaded carefully, I just didn't measure every single one to make sure they were exactly the same and I was using cleaned range brass. So I didn't even expect the group I got out of the 223.

I've loaded up about 400 rounds, weighing every one, meticulous about OAL and everything to try a bunch of different bullets. Eliminating as many variables as I can so I can just find bullets my gun likes. Then on to the next variable.

The gun is supposed to have a 2-3 pound pull. It's an adjustable 2 stage trigger. I think it is at about 3 pounds, but I need to check that specifically.

And, yes, user error is definitely a possibility, and in fact, a distinct likelihood. ;-)


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## fishreaper (Jan 2, 2014)

Over thinking could be it. I know if I hold the sights of a compound bow aiming for too long, I'm never going to hit it my mark. My best groups, especially further away, come from just pulling back and firing as soon as I get on target, rather than just bouncing the pins on the target trying to time it. 
Over thinking, time consuming, frustrating, and require an endless wallet. What is it about shooting and golf that attract me so much?


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## Springville Shooter (Oct 15, 2010)

Looks like you are a pretty good shot to me. Shooting sub MOA I would not worry about practicing bad habits, just practice and work with your loads. Eventually, you might want to have some tuning done to your rifle in the form of bedding and floating. All these things help consistency.-----SS


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## Springville Shooter (Oct 15, 2010)

Dodger said:


> What kind of 22 are you shooting and at what distance?


I have several but my favorite two are a 1950's Remington bolt and a newer Marlin bolt. The Remington has really fine open sights and is super accurate. The Marlin has a scope and is also very accurate. I generally shoot at very small objects at closer range so my sight picture is good. My all time favorite is small pieces of broken clay pigeons. I find that this helps me concentrate on the fundamentals of shooting without the added challenge of noise and recoil.....plus, its super fun! Occasionally, the kids and I will have a little contest where we shoot at full clay pigeons at 50-75 yards. I also like to shoot the Marlin at paper from the bench at a distance of 25 yards or so. If I am doing it right, I can often put 5 shots in a hole just over 22 caliber. Once again, this makes it easy to concentrate on shooting with no worry of noise and recoil. I have never spent the big bucks on a 22 because I have always had cheaper models that shoot very well and although I have a few, I generally avoid semi-autos when trying to improve marksmanship because I personally cant resist the urge to haplessly lay rounds downrange.--------SS


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## roper (Sep 27, 2010)

Most say that "practice makes perfect", however I think that "perfect practice makes perfect". Meaning that you can practice bad habits just as easy as good habits. But with that being said golf, shooting guns, rifles, shotguns, handguns, bows, roping, shooting baskets, hitting the ball "wrong handed" or any other activity that requires muscle memory, consistency is about as important as anything. Sometimes you may have a "thing" that you do that will only let you "get so good, if you find that is the situation, "professional help" may be required. 

Just my $.02, and probably worth just what you paid for it .


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

Thanks for all the thoughts and suggestions. 

Sounds like I need to spend some time at the range.

I have an old Remington 510 22 that might fit the bill for a practice 22. I might need to put some new sights on it but, it might do the trick.


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