Guns and shooting advice?

[DesertDan]

KittyT, you're my kinda gal!
Congrats on getting involved in the shooting sports and encouraging your boyfriend to as well.

Shoot straight and speak the truth!

Cheers!
DD

 

["Skeet" McD]

Dear Kitty,
Looks like you've been busy since the last time we traded messages here: good for you! What club did you finally decide to join?

Any plans to head out for bird season, or deer, this year?

"Skeet"

PS: don't forget to check up on the Second Amendment stance of the candidates in your district. See you at the polls!

 

[Diamondback]

Kitty, if you're into shotgunning, you might find Guns Magazine's new Women's Guide to Shotgunning DVD with Shari LeGate helpful--just saw the ad for it in the Reality Check annual and immediately thought of you.

 

[Packin' Heat]

Fire at the end of a breath.
Hold any pistols with both hands.
Make sure any rifle is snug as your bones against your body; it should rest in the little space right above your armpit. Hold it very tightly to support recoil.
Take your time with the shot. Fire naturally right when the your sight finds the target. You almost shouldn't know you're going to fire until you do.
When firing a rifle, the leg of your firing side (usually right) should be slightly behind your body and bent a bit for recoil reasons.

 

[KittyT]

[QUOTE="Skeet" McD]
Looks like you've been busy since the last time we traded messages here: good for you! What club did you finally decide to join?

Any plans to head out for bird season, or deer, this year?[/quote]

Hi Skeet! I haven't joined a club yet because I haven't yet had the funds to buy any of my own "toys". I'm just going to the monthly SAS practices and any other special events they host (like last weekend's Annual Shoot, a ladies only all-day event with around 50 attendees!) Once I procure a target pistol, i will likely join the Braintree Rifle and Pistol club, since many of the SAS gals are members there, and they need members for both their pistol and rifle teams.

Kitty, if you're into shotgunning, you might find Guns Magazine's new Women's Guide to Shotgunning DVD with Shari LeGate helpful--just saw the ad for it in the Reality Check annual and immediately thought of you.

Thanks, Diamondback, I'll have to check it out! I do enjoy shotgunning but I'm TERRIBLE at it :-/

 

[Diamondback]

Also, I was taught not to fire at the end of exhale, but to let out half a breath, fire and finish as you follow-through.

YMMV, there isn't really any "one size fits all" in this field...

 

["Skeet" McD]

I do enjoy shotgunning but I'm TERRIBLE at it :-/

Dear Kitty, sounds good! Keep at it, and save those pennies. If you travel...you can sometimes find much better guns at much better prices than you can here. I've had good luck in Michigan, for instance, where my wife's from. I've heard that Florida can be good as well, but have no experience in that regard.

Regarding shotgunning: it is the absolute, polar opposite of rifle or pistol shooting; and it has long been noted that it's almost impossible to really excel (rather than "just be very good") at both disciplines for that reason.

Shotgunning seems to me to be a sort of whole-body, dance-like affair—and you are sort of creating your shots out of whole cloth (at least the way I shoot, which is the older, low-gun style); there are so many variables, and you can assemble them in almost any order: like an algebraic equation, as long as they sum to zero--putting the shot where the target is at the same time--there are a million ways to make it work: raise the gun later and increase the swing speed; snap it up and then swing more leisurely—you get the idea. And, of course, the technical term for what you do with a shotgun is
"point it" not "aim it;" if you take the time to actually aim....you'll be behind the target. This obviously is a very different kettle of fish from target shooting: in shotgunning, the target is moving; the gun is moving; your body is moving; in target shooting, everything is stationary, the more the better, and you never squeeze the trigger until both sights and the target are lined up....shotgunning I think of as "subjective", if you will, and rifle and pistol "objective."

They're all great...I think I ended up a shotgunner because, as a musician, the artistic (and timing) aspects of the discipline appealed to something deep in me. Perhaps you are finding that there's something about rifle and pistol that speaks to something deep in you, as well: and that's just fine. But, if you decide to give shotgunning a try...remember that all the things you've spent so much time on making habitual at the target range will now be, as it were, working against you....so give it time! It will come, if you want it badly enough.

Or so I think.

Shoot straight!

"Skeet"

 

[Diamondback]

fftopic: Skeet, I was taught to shoot pistol as a "whole body affair"--legs widely spaced, torso bladed, strongside arm cantilevered straight out, weakside leg behind as a "structural brace" against recoil, basically it looks like a Bruce Lee punch only it has a gun sticking out of the hand.

Here again, this is just one person's technique although it comes from a respected if controversial instructor, and YMMV.

 

[HHISIII]

Once I procure a target pistol, i will likely join the Braintree Rifle and Pistol club, since many of the SAS gals are members there, and they need members for both their pistol and rifle teams.

Might I suggest a P9S? They've been out of production for quite some time and thus can be difficult to procure. However, you should be able to find one in decent shape with 2 mags but no box for ~$500
Roller delayed blowback nearly identical to the system used in the G3 rifle, fixed barrel and a pretty damn nice SA trigger pull once you're past the slack make for a very nice target pistol right out of the box. There's a target model that fetches a bit more that has an adjustable overtravel for the SA pull. It's a pretty versatile platform as well, the barrel thickness allows for it to be easily threaded and the fixed barrel means no other modifications are needed to suppress one. I've also seen barrels as long as 8" for the 9mm.

Many people, myself included, report 1.5" groups at 21 feet and pie plating at 100yds.

 

[KittyT]

Also, I was taught not to fire at the end of exhale, but to let out half a breath, fire and finish as you follow-through.

This is what I was taught as well.

 

[Undertow]

fftopic: Skeet, I was taught to shoot pistol as a "whole body affair"--legs widely spaced, torso bladed, strongside arm cantilevered straight out, weakside leg behind as a "structural brace" against recoil, basically it looks like a Bruce Lee punch only it has a gun sticking out of the hand.

Here again, this is just one person's technique although it comes from a respected if controversial instructor, and YMMV.

There's a name for this stance, although it escapes me at the moment. That's what I was taught as well, by a career police sgt. during my CCW class. It's more aggressive, you have better aim, and you're less likely to bend backwards as in the isosceles stance; not to mention you naturally provide less target space to be hit.

 

[Foofoogal]

http://www.metcalfgunshows.com/~metcalf/arkansas_gun_shows/

There is a gun show this weekend in Ft. Smith.

------------
One of our sons first jobs was helping with skeet shooting. I will always say it helped him with his calmness for his now career.
Jumpy he ain't

 

["Skeet" McD]

fftopic: Skeet, I was taught to shoot pistol as a "whole body affair"--legs widely spaced, torso bladed, strongside arm cantilevered straight out, weakside leg behind as a "structural brace" against recoil, basically it looks like a Bruce Lee punch only it has a gun sticking out of the hand.

Here again, this is just one person's technique although it comes from a respected if controversial instructor, and YMMV.

Dear DB and the rest of you who responded to this: It's clear I wasn't doing a very good job of saying what I meant—sorry for the confusion. The point I was *trying* to make was that the whole body is in movement when gunning: the feet may move to where you'll be when you take the shot; the waist is swivelling like a gun turret; the arms are mounting the gun (if you shoot low-gun, like I do)...it's all happening at once, and (hopefully) all of a piece. That seems to me the distinction between it and paper punching. Tactical shooting (I would expect) would be much more like it?

While I don't consider myself in any way an expert on any of these disciplines, I certainly am massively aware of my ignorance on rifle and pistol target shooting. But I heartily concur: any shooting takes mindfulness of the entire body and involves all of it. Or should :>)

Thanks for making me make myself a bit clearer--or at least trying to.

"Skeet"

 

[1961MJS]

There's a name for this stance, although it escapes me at the moment. That's what I was taught as well, by a career police sgt. during my CCW class. It's more aggressive, you have better aim, and you're less likely to bend backwards as in the isosceles stance; not to mention you naturally provide less target space to be hit.

Hi, I don't know the name of the stance, but the police and others allowed to wear body armor use isosceles. Isosceles gets more of you behind the vest.

Atinkerer: In 4H and Boy Scouts we teach that the Golden Rule of Gun Safety is to keep the gun pointed in a safe direction at all times. I always mention that the rule applies EVEN when you're shooting it. It had BETTER be o.k. to hit what you're aiming at...

Later

 

[thunderw21]

[QUOTE="Skeet" McD]Dear DB and the rest of you who responded to this: It's clear I wasn't doing a very good job of saying what I meant—sorry for the confusion. The point I was *trying* to make was that the whole body is in movement when gunning: the feet may move to where you'll be when you take the shot; the waist is swivelling like a gun turret; the arms are mounting the gun (if you shoot low-gun, like I do)...it's all happening at once, and (hopefully) all of a piece. That seems to me the distinction between it and paper punching. Tactical shooting (I would expect) would be much more like it?

While I don't consider myself in any way an expert on any of these disciplines, I certainly am massively aware of my ignorance on rifle and pistol target shooting. But I heartily concur: any shooting takes mindfulness of the entire body and involves all of it. Or should :>)

Thanks for making me make myself a bit clearer--or at least trying to.

"Skeet"[/QUOTE]

Well said.

While I've done very little of it, tactical shooting is very similar to how you described it. It's just as much a physical activity as it is a mental one. It takes a lot of practice to get movements down and every piece of the body must work in harmony.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

 

[Diamondback]

There's a name for this stance, although it escapes me at the moment. That's what I was taught as well, by a career police sgt. during my CCW class. It's more aggressive, you have better aim, and you're less likely to bend backwards as in the isosceles stance; not to mention you naturally provide less target space to be hit.

Undertow, I believe it's called "StressFire" or "Shotokan Punch"--those are the two terms that Mas Ayoob, the guy who introduced me to it, uses anyway.

 

[HepKitty]

my advice: do NOT put a gun in my hands because I'm a terrible shot lol

 

[Lone_Ranger]

There's a name for this stance, although it escapes me at the moment. That's what I was taught as well, by a career police sgt. during my CCW class. It's more aggressive, you have better aim, and you're less likely to bend backwards as in the isosceles stance; not to mention you naturally provide less target space to be hit.

You are referring to the Weaver stance.. It was developed by Deputy Sheriff Jack Weaver during freestyle pistol competition in Southern California during the late 1950s.

Also incorporated into the "Modern Technique of the Pistol" developed by Jeff Cooper.

 

[Diamondback]

Depends: Weaver is two hands, Shotokan Punch only one.

 

[Undertow]

Depends: Weaver is two hands, Shotokan Punch only one.

Weaver was the name to which I was referring, but :arated: to the Shotokan Punch!