One thing I've always wondered about is how much less perishable rifle skills seem when compared to pistol skills. I get to shoot rifles past fifty yards maybe once or twice a year, and even if I'm no longer the rifle shot I was when shooting 3-position smallbore in college, I can usually manage to avoid beclowning myself.
Go a couple months without going to the pistol range, however, and I might as well take one of those remedial courses where the instructor gets up in front of the class and begins by identifying the end from which the bullet emerges. (Thankfully, I got in plenty of range time over the last month or two, plus that ToddG class was still fresh in my head, so I didn't look like an idjit shooting in front of people this weekend.)
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16 comments:
It's simple. The trigger finger is closer to the brain when firing a long gun.
Jeesh! I thought everybody knew that!
:)
Yep - I can be back down to small groups after a dozen shots with a rifle. I have never consistently put in the time with a pistol to get to that level.
I had a loooooooong gap between range trips and discovered a wicked bad flinch... fortunately, an old buddy from high school is a 'smith and instructor at one of the local ranges.
The flinch was gone after two visits (and having to be coached on all the fundamentals that I'm already supposed to know).
I've never worried about looking like an Idiot at the Range to others. Just as long as I'm being Safe, the only facts I have to deal with are my own Shooting Skills, and any Malfs that might occur.
But having said that, that does free up my Mental State to REALLY give myself a good Butt Chewing for not Shooting as well as I should.
Of course, that does mean if the Range/Environment/Guns/ Gear and Ammo are fine,
who do I have to blame but myself?
I call that "Incentive."
Pistols by their nature are less forgiving. You have to be more precise with a pistol at 50 feet than you do with a rifle at 50 yards - to a point. Once you get out past about 350 yards with a rifle, it becomes a whole different ballgame. I have to shoot my rifle a lot to stay up to snuff on the distance shooting, and if I go for more than a couple of months, it takes me a few to hit the gong at 1,000 yards. So I think it is just a matter of precision. You shoot pistols at what are typically considered to be their maximum effective range all the time. 25 yards or so... If you did that with a rifle, it would be 400, 500, 600 yards, out to 800 plus depending on the rifle. If you shoot a rifle at maximum effective range all the time, like you do with a pistol more or less every time you go out, you'd be having trouble hitting the target with the rifle, too.
Good rifle shooting is based on form. Remember your form and you are back. Pistols are more muscle memory and feel that only come from practice.
After two years of non shooting, I kind of dread to see just how badly my own skills have degraded.
As I tell folks at the Appleseed Clinics, dry firing using the proper steady hold factors and the 6 steps to firing the shot is cheap and effective practice.
My 200-yard riflery goes to hell and I drop from 420's to 380's if I miss two months - mainly offhand, but the the 8 and 9-ring suffers when I want to punish the X-ring.
I dunno about you pistoleros with the arms held out like that...
@Les,
That's a pretty $wangkee point of view you've got there. Just sayin.'
Uh, Tam, if you ever feel the need again I teach the class explaining which end the bullet emerges from! Doing it this weekend BTW.
I can give it to you gratis, but based on what I have read over several Blogs, you don't need it right now =) In fact perhaps you can tell me sometime?
Um... Having watched you shoot this weekend, methinks you protest a bit too much... :-)
I don't have any pistol skills to degrade, so I ain't worried about it.
Fortunately for me, I have found that some band nerd skills transfer to handguns. Particularly, the parts about moving some fingers and not others.
I very very rarely get to shoot my hand-pieces, but when I do, I and the other people are pleasantly surprised at how well I did.
By, "well", I mean "not utterly abominable", of course.
In the United States services, cooks, bakers, and bandsmen are considered to be the last-ditch defense, when all else has failed.
As I wrote to The Donovan the other night,
"Clarinets! Rally to me! We still have a chance!" (even though the saxophones have already deserted, and don't get me started about those...)
I have some more anti-saxophone hate in my spleen, but I think I'll save it for my own blog. There is, however, a reason why lots of leases used to have a saxophone clause in them.
Personally I have found pistols to be a lot less forgiving.
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