Marksmanship

If you can shoot on your own property, I've found it nice to always have a couple plates hanging up downrange. Paper shooting gets boring, and you have to put up new targets all the time. With the plates you can just walk out the back door and start shootin!

Might look into an Appleseed event.

I lack the words and intelligence to to say this elegantly, but I hope you will get the general idea : practice.

Yeah, those steel plates off the back porch... do you have a berm, or can you push one up? How far are you wanting to shoot?

Dry fire. Your livingroom becomes your range, and you can practice 7 days a week, 365 days per year.

Practice doesn’t make perfect, PERFECT practice makes perfect. If you aren’t structuring your practice time towards objectives, what are you actually practicing? Determine applicable skills, define a practice plan around developing and sustaining those skills, and then execute. Really not so complicated.

Varminterror said:

Dry fire. Your livingroom becomes your range, and you can practice 7 days a week, 365 days per year.

Practice doesn’t make perfect, PERFECT practice makes perfect. If you aren’t structuring your practice time towards objectives, what are you actually practicing? Determine applicable skills, define a practice plan around developing and sustaining those skills, and then execute. Really not so complicated.

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I remember Cal Ripken Sr and Cal Jr saying that.
It really made an impression with me.

I agree, one needs to practice with intention.

I’ve seen my pistol skills really improve this year. First by getting some great instruction, then by using what I learned to work on practicing what I was told.

Some practice involves involves working on fundamentals to get the muscle memory down. Dry fire works well for this.

Some practice involves going fast to develop speed. And some involves a mixture.

Personally I try to make practice both useful and fun. So I work toward goals but also find drills that keep things from getting boring.

In the Marines many moons ago we would form a circle around steel barrels with targets painted on them. We would then dryfire those M16A2s about 100000 times.
This was good training for all aspects of shooting. Sight alignment, trigger control, natural point of aim, bone support, and so on. You can't hurt your A2 clone by dryfiring it. So click away.

Varminterror said:

Dry fire. Your livingroom becomes your range, and you can practice 7 days a week, 365 days per year.

Practice doesn’t make perfect, PERFECT practice makes perfect. If you aren’t structuring your practice time towards objectives, what are you actually practicing? Determine applicable skills, define a practice plan around developing and sustaining those skills, and then execute. Really not so complicated.

Click to expand...

You mentioned air rifles, if you still have one, and a safe space to use it, why not set up a trap and practice. I built a plywood trap lined with duct seal and set up a 10 yard range in the basement off my old pub table. Could have gotten 15 yards with a hole in the wall, but I would have been firing blind through the second room. Not safe with kids wandering through.

3-gun.

Not a 'pure' accuracy test like some other disciplines but I find it to be a very practical discipline from field positions.


It is one thing to shoot a sub-moa group from a bench with bags and levels, etc.

It is another to engage and hit 4 moa rifle targets from 20-600 yards from standing, kneeling, or improvised prone positions off of various real world structures like windows, cars, rooftops, gates, etc.

I see you are in St. Louis. You are very close by to some great 3-gun clubs.

This evening I took my 11.5 suppressed AR pistol to the range.

I have some 8" plates hanging from 100 to 230 yards. I shot them offhand. I shot them resting the handguard on a flipped over wire spool. I shot them prone from behind a log, using the log as a rest. I shot them prone using a 30rd magazine as a monopod.

My offhand has improved significantly but there is no replacement for grabbing some structure.

Informal as all get out but the skills transfer over to shooting a carbine at various distances.

Appleseed. Three position for beginners or a refresher for "experts"

-kBob

ontarget said:

In the Marines many moons ago we would form a circle around steel barrels with targets painted on them. We would then dryfire those M16A2s about 100000 times.
This was good training for all aspects of shooting. Sight alignment, trigger control, natural point of aim, bone support, and so on. You can't hurt your A2 clone by dryfiring it. So click away.

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Grass week. I think about that from time to time while I'm dry firing. You might have left a zero off. Seems like it was 4-6 hours a day for four days twice a year....

Infantry might have done more.

I can't recommend Appleseed enough.
https://appleseedinfo.org/
https://becomingriflemen.wordpress.com/

This is a great series.
https://artoftherifle.com/reference-section

https://www.everydaymarksman.co/tag/marksmanship/

Part 1 & 2

Practice

I've practiced dry-firing in the past, aiming at birds flying by and other moving objects. It helps to become proficient in mounting the rifle or shotgun, making it an automatic motion and very quick. My technique for flying targets is to make a quick guess as to how much lead is necessary; look ahead of the object that distance; and starting behind the object, quickly squeeze the trigger when the barrel/bead reaches the lead point. When actually firing at a moving target, the gun should never stop moving until after the the target is hit, maintaining or improving the lead for a second, or more shots, as necessary.

As others have said, practice, but also practice with a purpose. Break down some fundamentals of each position, feet, support, cheek weld, sight picture, sight alignment, support hand placement, grip, and of course trigger control.

Dry fire daily and with purpose, treat every dry fire like it’s the final shot for a championship

Plan out a course of fire, limit yourself to the prescribed shots, if you miss, then you miss

Take notes for each few shots, “standing 100yd, shot 1, poor sight picture, miss high, shot 2, hit, everything felt good, shot 3, rushed it and jerked the trigger, missed right” or whatever
Finally, find a way to video yourself so you can compare notes to the video and do a self debrief
This is how I worked to improve my prs and 3 gun game, improving marksmanship along the way.
If you can find a competition to take part it that will help, or a friend/shooting buddy that can help make up a course of fire it will help

I have a laser/dry fire range set up in my basement, but 95% of the time I use it for pistol in support of IDPA and 3Gun practice.

On my property I have steel set up from 200-760 yards, so that's what I normally use for practice and rather than the "classic" 3 position practice, I work more on "field expedient" positions or how I normally engage deer; prone off backpack, bipod, tripod, kneeling against a tree, and off-hand (100-). Couple weeks ago I had some friends out and we ran a deer hunt stage; TGTs from 200-375, no electronics, wind gauges etc. It made normal chip shots with the precision guns challenging.



White specs across pond are steel


I also do quite a bit of shooting from the same positions using a .22LR and a set of small game silhouettes.

As for a practice regime, as the other's said have a plan, don't plink. I like shooting matches as they serve as both feedback and a forcing function. We have a tendency to practice what were good at, shooting a match will quickly demonstrate what you suck at. Last 3Gun match for instance we had steel at 200 from a sitting position....after sprinting. Did not have a good time on those targets. So lately I've been working on sitting.

I shoot a 4 position indoor 50' NRA Smallbore winter league.
Shoot 10m offhand Air Rifle and Air Pistol league in the winter and have a 10m range in the basement for air rifle and air pistol.
Summertime is offhand silhouette Rimfire out to 100yds and Centerfire out to 240yds.

HB said:

I grew up shooting 3 position air rifle and smallbore. I’d like to get back into skill level my 18 year old self had.

Does anybody do an informal “training”? Plinking with a .22 can work wonders but was wondering if anybody in THR land specifically does marksmenship practice geared towards becoming a better overall rifleman.

I recently picked up a 20” A2 style rifle and I handload. I wanted a good baseline rifle to practice with.

Whats your regimen? Steel plates? Paper?

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Well...

ALL I shoot are field positions.

Both the 10/22 and RAR (compact) .22 LR's are fixed w/ TechSights Aperture sights and 1-1/4" web sling..


Targets are usually tomato paste cans and golf balls at 50-100 yards.



GR

I do a lot of shooting with rimfire rifle and handgun at rimfire IHMSA/NRA metal silhouettes in the back yard. In addition to shooting the regulation distances, I shoot what I call "field course". I mark my position with a golf ball, and then hurl an orange golf ball as far as I feel, into terrain pockets, near trees or tall grass, partially obscured, etc. I then place a bank of 4 targets ram through chicken in this location and fire from whichever position is appropriate from the original ball drop. I also practice prone on rams and pigs at longer than standard distance up to 200 yards. A real challenge with .22 target velocity ammo.

When it comes to CF rifles, I shoot a lot of Mosin Nagant at my local club's plates. I still have a pile of ammo for these from when it was cheap. They have plates incremental from 12" to 2" at 100 and 200 yards, and larger ones at 300 and 400. I fire on these almost exclusively offhand. I then shoot a limited amount with my AR service rifle, M1 Garand or K-31 and appreciate the refinement of these rifles vs. the Mosin Nagant.

Your pursuit of REAL marksmanship is most laudable. Best of luck on separating yourself from the herd welded to benches or bipods and joining the ranks of the American Rifleman. Appleseed as mentioned above is a good exercise, and the CMP Vintage/Garand matches are a good outlet for semi-formal competition.

HB said:

Does anybody do an informal “training”?

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I informally plink, but formally train

I too will put in a plug for Project Appleseed. There is also Revere's Riders which offers similar rifle marksmanship events but also pistol and AR carbine training events.

If you have a prior foundation in three positon shooting and have a working 22LR rifle, I think a 25 meter Appleseed or Revere's Riders weekend basic rifle event would be a good start at knocking the dust off.

I have a fenced in back yard with a lane at one side of the house where I can hang a target and dry fire at it from 25 meters away. I have been spending a fair amount of time doing that, mainly from the offhand postion (where I am far and away the weakest) but also experimenting with various sitting positions. This allows me to get a lot of practice and experimentation in without having to walk downrange at my rifle club to check targets, and does not burn up any ammo.

Skylerbone said:

You mentioned air rifles, if you still have one, and a safe space to use it, why not set up a trap and practice. I built a plywood trap lined with duct seal and set up a 10 yard range in the basement off my old pub table. Could have gotten 15 yards with a hole in the wall, but I would have been firing blind through the second room. Not safe with kids wandering through.

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Air rifle will teach you things that recoil of a CF rifle mask. One of the first thing you will learn from shooting air rifle is the value of follow through on the shot due to the longer lag time in the barrel.

Regards,
hps

hps1 said:

One of the first things THAT WILL HUMBLE YOU from shooting air rifle is the value of follow through on the shot due to the longer lag time in the barrel.

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Fixed it for ya

Skylerbone said:

Fixed it for ya

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You got that right! Fortunately, I went from highpower to smallbore to air rifle so the RF kinda let me down easy.

Regards,
hps