New shooter needs help

[The Unknown User]

Alright, to make a long story short, I have a new Glock 19, I haven't shot it yet, and it's my first handgun. I intend on becoming very proficient with this over time.

However, I don't have the time right now to take those two-or-more training classes, so all I can really do right now is go the the club I'm joining today. They do allow people to do practice drills (e.g. drawing from the holster, retention drills, etc.), so I'm just looking for some things to guide my practice.

Some things I want to do, that I'd like critiqued:
- Practice drawing from my IWB carry holster
- Practice drawing, and aiming down the sights. I'm finding my G19 naturally points where I want it to point. Most of the time, when I do draw in my room, I find I get a perfect sight picture.
- Double-taps
- Mozambique (2 to the sternum, 1 to the head)
- Sighting properly with follow-up shots

Is there anything else I should add, or anything else I should try to focus on? I don't just want to go aimlessly put holes in paper terrorists and torso outlines cut from cardboard. I want to shoot with a purpose.

 

[Mainiac]

Practice safety, and pratice, practice, practice. Schedule some kind of self defence firearms training. Learn how to fight, practice the same way you're gonna fight.

 

[ronwill]

May I suggest buying, or renting, a DVD on firearms training. There are many good ones out there and, while it doesn't replace personal training, they will give you some ideas on how to train. The NRA Store has some good ones and you can rent them at:

http://smartflix.com/store/how_it_works

 

[Linda]

I haven't shot it yet, and it's my first handgun

BEFORE you ever think about doing holster draws, please become proficient with shooting your Glock 19 first. With no external safety on a Glock, we don't want to hear about you shooting your foot off. Finger off the trigger always, until ready to shoot.

-You'll want to practice point shooting.
-Moving shooting (probably not possible at an indoor range).
-One handed shooting, both strong and weak hand.
-Shooting from the ground

There's so much and so many positions to practice shooting from.

 

[1911 guy]

Random thoughts.

First, make fer durn sure you are practicing a proper drawstroke. The firing hand (probably the right) should get a firm grip on the gun before it leaves the holster. It should also be a shooting grip, that is, no wiggling around in your hand as you try to align the sights. The biggie is to make sure you have your trigger finger along the slide until you decide to fire. That's a thing with all handguns, not just Glocks. You'll hear "booger hook off the bang-switch" a lot around here.

Second, draw the pistol upward toward your armpit. As you reach the top of the stroke, rotate the muzzle downrange and push the gun out, picking up the support hand as you go. Trying to do the Quick-Draw-McGraw thing, just sweeping it in an arc from the holster, is both slower and sure to end embarrassingly at least once when your pistol goes clattering across the floor. The gunfight gods have said: "behold, that sucketh mightily".

Third, practice "driving" the sights into your target. As soon as you begin to push the pistol foreward, learn to pick up the sights in your peripheral vision and get them on target the moment your arms lock out. The end result is a drawstroke that puts the sights on target with no waving around looking for alignment.

Fourth, keep your finger off the trigger until you want a hole in something, even if your sights are on target. Handgunners should be aware of O'Shea's Law which staes that Murphy was an optimist

Now we get into the stuff you don't want to hear. Double taps, controlled pairs, whatever you want to call them (there are correct definitions, but that doesn't matter right now) are a matter of acquired skill, not a technique that can be learned without practice. Unfortunately, the practice required to get to blazing fast and accurate follow ups isn't very glamorous. The best training for fast shooting (to a point) is slow shooting. Banging away and wasting ammo is fun, but you'll learn nothing about what you and your sights are doing under recoil.

I'd put two or three rounds in the mag to avoid the temptation to blast away. If you're more disciplined than I was as a beginner, load it up. From a smooth presentation (draw or ready position), put the sights on target and fire, keep your eyes on the sights. Where they go determines what you need to do to get them back on target. Without seeing you shoot or knowing your level of experience, that's as much as I can give you.

Practice slowly. You're developing muscle memory, so do it right. Five minutes of good practice every day beats the pants off of an hour of laborious practice once a week. Learning a drawstroke for the first time, I'd give it a good ten seconds from empty hands in front of you to a pistol on target. Speed up when there are no fumbles or wiggles to adjust. Shave a couple seconds off each time.

Edit to add: The above posters have some really good points. However, remember that this is your first handgun and you need to learn the basics. When you were learning to drive nobody told you to drive 100 miles an hour. It's possible to do safely, but not without the proper foundation of skills. Grind out the foundation, then do all the cool stuff (and a lot of it is cool and fun to practice) well, instead of playing catch-up your entire shooting career.

 

[Scoutsout2645]

Crawl...Walk...Run This progression applies to guns as well. Getting on line at the range and whipping your pistol out of it's holster to plug that target may look real cool--in your mind. But without learning the fundamentals first you'll probably miss and you might have an accidental fire hitting the ground in front of you, your firing port wall or yourself. Unsafe shooters draw the ire of the other shooters there and may not be allowed back.

I'm repeating a lot of 1911's advice here, but that's because it's so important that it bears repeating. Develop your ability to HIT the target first--breathing, trigger control, sight alignment, etc. Slow firing teaches muscle memory and allows you to figure out, and correct, mistakes in your shooting technique. Work at developing consistent, tight shot groups at 7-10 yards (the most common "shoot-out" ranges), 10-15 yards, then 15-25 yards. Focus on form--small mistakes at 7 yards become huge ones at 20 yards and above.

Once your muscles know where they have to be to hit the target, then work at coming up from your low ready position (weapon out, pointed out and down, around mid-chest height). Practice being able to get your weapon up and on target ACCURATELY. Speed will come with practice. Practice dry firing at home from the holster--clear the holster, point at the target, punch the pistol out to your firing stance (plenty of good videos and books to learn on your own)--until you can do it smoothly and can keep your finger off the trigger until you're on target.

Work on getting multiple shots off smoothly and accurately. As you develop a rhythm your body will learn how to control the gun to get your sights back on target. Speed comes with practice. Anyone can go out and pull the trigger as fast as their finger will move, but unless you're hitting the target all you've done is spent money and learned nothing.

If you've never shot before, my first recommendation is this: if you can find the time to get to the range, then find the time to take a skills class. If that's a physical impossibility, find a guy (or gal) at your club who shoots well and ask for help or advice--good shooters love the sport and will often be willing to help out noobs who are genuinely eager to learn skills, not just cool shooting styles they saw in some movie. Open ears, an acceptance of constructive criticism and willingness to practice will get you far.

 

[Drgong]

deleted

 

[1911 guy]

More thoughts on grip, trigger and sights.

Maybe I should define the firing grip before you start down a road of bad habits courtesy of my previous lame explanation.

Both your pistol grip and your hand have contours which enable you to memorize a particular way and place to grasp the gun. The firing grip should be roughly a straight line from your shoulder, throught the elbow and wrist, to the muzzle. I say roughly because everybody is a little different. You'll know you've got it right when you can bring the gun to eye level and the sights are aligned. If you've got to twist it to see the front sight, tweak your grip a little. When you've found the "sweet spot", memorize it just by putting the pistol into your shooting hand with the other hand. When you've got it down, start to establish that grip from the holster.

When you sight on a target, your focus should be solely on the front sight. If your grip is correct, you'll be looking at it through the rear anyway, so forget about the rear. Concentrate on putting the front sight on the target.

Dry fire, or "firing" without ammo, is a sure way to improve your shooting. There's a "sweet spot" for your trigger finger, also. You'll want to put your finger on the trigger so that when it it pulled, it travels directly to the rear. Too much finger on the trigger will pull your shots right, too little will push them left. Dry fire and see which way your sights are drifting during trigger pull, adjust your finger placement accordingly.

Again, start slow and get the fundamentals down cold. When you've mastered them (or at least are competent, very few have truly mastered them) they will make further progress much easier. The good news is that finding the proper grip and finger placement can be done in ten minutes, memorizing them is a matter of your personal learning curve. Could be another ten minutes, could be a month of daily practice. The correct *application* of these is what ties us in knots for years to come.

Clint Smith said it best: "There are no advanced techniques. There are only fundamentals applied faster and farther away." A solid grasp of the basics makes anything you want to achieve a real possibility, from plinking tin cans to cleaning house at a match. I've yet to achieve the latter, but I'm working on it!

 

[The Bushmaster]

I would recommend that you do a lot of [just plain] target shooting before you even think about fast drawing that thing...When you get proficient with that handgun on targets then start to branch out...

 

[DrLaw]

Always looking to help a rookie, I will say that I cannot add more to what the others here have already said. Read them, study and learn what they said, and then practice what you have been told.

The Doc is out now.

 

[KBintheSLC]

Welcome to the wonderful world of Glock. Practice a ton, and practice proper technique from day one.

The biggie rule for a Glock is... Never keep your finger on the trigger until you are ready to bang. That trigger is your only connection to a "safety".

Practice "point shooting" a lot... this means you shoot with both eyes open, and you are focused on the target (as opposed to "aiming" in which you only use one eye, and you focus on the front sight). Point shooting is more realistic in a real fight, and it takes some time to get used to.

Cleaning... keep your Glock clean, and be VERY minimal with oil, and you should not have any issues with it.

Besides that, maybe buy a case of 500-1000 rounds or so, and get out there.

Have fun, and stay safe.

 

[DOBIE12]

New Shooter

You have gotten some good advice in this thread. Equally important, familiarize yourself with your State's laws concerning use of deadly force. Next is mindset, give this alot of thought. I recently worked the homicide of a young man who was disarmed and murdered with his own weapon.

 

[1911 guy]

Aaarrrggg!

Some things you need to forget about for right now. They include shooting fast, drawing fast, and point shooting. All these are useful and readily acquired skills, but they build on the fundamentals.

Quote: Practice "point shooting" a lot... this means you shoot with both eyes open, and you are focused on the target (as opposed to "aiming" in which you only use one eye, and you focus on the front sight). Point shooting is more realistic in a real fight, and it takes some time to get used to.

Let's disect this. First, don't prctice point shooting yet. Add this skill when you've got a firm grasp on the basics. Secondly, you don't close one eye when using the sights of a handgun. Or a rifle. Or a scope. Closing one eye limits your peripheral vision and can induce paralax. Thirdly, what skills are realistic in a gunfight depends largely on what skills you train with. If I spend all my time chattering and throwing poop, that will become my default action. Not exactly appropriate for most situations.

Learn the basics, then add skills to the toolbox.