actual good advice from "Swamp People"

One of the gator hunters set up on land to try to shoot a gator because someone had tore down all their lines. The guy was said to have been a sniper in the military and he actually had some very good advice for would be marksmen. He talked about how to control your heart beat when taking a shot. He uses a different method than I use but I'm sure what he does will work very well. I've heard it explained the way he does it before but I've never tried it. He lets his breath all the way out which leads to your heart not beating for a couple of seconds. That gives you plenty of time to take your shot. I just time my shots to go between times my heart beats. It works but it takes some practice to get a shot off at just the right time. Either way should improve your accuracy. Even the slightest movement of a rifle can translate to a miss on a long shot. And a heartbeat can make your rifle move especially if you're shooting from a prone position. Learning to overcome that can make a big difference in your accuracy and I actually heard a Hollywood production give you good advice on doing that. That's the really amazing part.

Like I said I've never tried to use the method he describes but it does seem as if my heart slows down a lot after I exhale when I'm very relaxed anyway. It doesn't stop of course. They call that "dead". But it will only beat about once every two seconds and that makes it much easier to shoot between beats. The only hard part is to be able to feel when your heart is beating so you know when to pull the trigger. It takes some practice to time your trigger pull to just the right moment between beats but it can be done. I know I'm not the only person that knows this. I'm just surprised to see it said on any Hollywood production. They aren't usually that smart. Not that I'm all that smart but they're just generally pretty dumb about such things.

BTW that wasn't a rerun. It may have been done before but my timer is set to only record new shows. So unless they listed it as new when it wasn't then it wasn't a rerun. Besides those guys from Texas were on the show and they haven't been around all that long. I will admit to not knowing about all their episodes. The one thing they do is repeat the same story line over and over and over. If you've seen one you've pretty much seen every episode so I'm not someone that's watched every episode.

BTW I certainly know that running or any exertion can make your heart beat much harder than normal. I've been watching the Olympic shooting competitions, where the ski cross country then shoot, since I was a little kid and they bring that up all the time. I didn't really bring this up to tell people about shooting between heart beats. I was posting because I was surprised that Hollywood actually gave out useful info. I only explained things for the people who might not know about shooting between heart beats.

Again it's not my theory that your heart slows down at the end of a deep breath being exhaled but I have heard it elsewhere. As for not paying attention to when your heart beats I've heard that many, many times and I practice it myself with noticeable results. Learning to recognize when your heart is beating is not difficult. I learned that by sitting with my hand on my heart so that I knew for sure when my heart was beating and then looking for clues that I might feel to tell me when my heart beats.

I do know that it this is taught in some military circles. I looked for a link or two and found many. Here are a couple:

http://www.gunsamerica.com/blog/sniper-school-101-part-1-before-you-go-to-the-range/

http://www.scatt.com/articles/17/pulse-technique/

http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/ready-aim-shoot-marksmen-heartrate-shoot/

This could be a very long list. It seems that even those really good shooters who don't know they're doing it shoot between heartbeats too. That's what I read anyway.

I thought that too SabbathWolf until I tried shooting between heartbeats. It does make a difference. Considering what a slight amount of movement it takes to make the difference between a 1 hole group and a half inch group every tiny movement makes a difference.

BTW the way I've been shooting for years is to let my breath half the way out. It avoids the straining of holding a full breath and it keeps your body from moving to try to get a breath. I haven't even tried the method mentioned on the show though. I'll give it try the next time I get to do some shooting which unfortunately isn't nearly as often as this time last year. Dang ammo shortage anyway.