Remember this: Just because you can aim it doesn't mean you can hit it until you practice. Unless you are gifted.
I was test shooting a .22 Marlin rifle for my accuracy and the gun's when I thought: what would it take for a newbie to start out shooting?
I practice with a Grizzly BB gun that I use on smaller things. It is good for target practice.
I removed the sight and picked a target that would move. You can be right-handed, but the left eye is dominant and vice versa. At this point one does need to be able to match your master eye. Regarded the stance and corrected it because you are trying to stand like you are shooting a bow. Left foot forward and bend at the waist were implied.
I practice for 20 or 30 minutes in the morning or evening but twice on weekends. I shoot at styrofoam cups so I could see where I was hitting and to concentrate on the target not the gun. Usually, people just starting out without assistance do spend more time on the gun instead of the target.
Later to focus my mind on the target I set up a series of cups with stupid images on them. I would yell which one to hit but each time it was in a different direction. Some would be hanging in the trees, in a bush, buried in the ground, etc. It was pretty funny. This was how I conquered gun fixation. I wanted to do instinctive pointing of the gun. It would seem that the sights themselves is what causes this because the shooter gets disabled by the sights or maybe I should say 'dependent'. If you took the sight away, I would question how accurate a new shooter would be after about ten shots?
Of course, my evil plan is to teach myself this so I can graduate up to the 12-gauge pump shotgun. As with rifles that will teach aim. I'll use a .22 for that because it's not so noisy and it has a scope, but the shotgun is a different matter.
The goal here was: shoot where you look.
This is also a useful tool in horseback riding. When in saddle, a horse will move in the direction your head or face is looking because of the subtle turn in direction of your body. The other sneaky trick to this is the repetition of the shooter utilizing the BB gun more frequently. Hunters do not always shoulder guns often because they know how to work the gun, but new shooters have to practice the body position and the follow through of posture, eye, trigger, bullet, target. The process here was to form a repetitive follow through to the end where the BB meets the cup.
After I got that down to accuracy, I decided to get a clean drinking bottle with some rocks in it. While holding the BB gun with no sights I would toss the bottle up into the air like a skeet and aim without firing. I then put the BB gun down and just use a pretend gun. That was humorous but could focus on the target and not the gun.
When you take into account that you can get 2400 count zinc plated BB for about $5 compared to a box of twenty five gun shells starting out, its cost effective to use a BB gun especially if you're slow at achieving your endeavors. If the shooter is gun shy or nervous at the big boom stick that would help them focus on the hand eye coordination instead of the fear. Dealing with noise fear will come later. I also took into consideration swing and lead of the target.
There are four basic types:
1. Spot Shooting (aim gun, wait for the target to get to that point then fire).
2. Swing Through (come from behind the moving target ahead of it them shoot. Dwell time is compromised.)
3. Pull Away (moves gun with target then goes in front of the target then fire because you've built your swing time with the speed of the target.)
4. Sustained Lead (Aim in front of target then maintain for split second them fires).
I went through the different ones on dry fires and asked myself which one I liked best.
Forcing myself to focus on the target and not the gun improved my angle and speed of the target.
I tossed the drinking bottle. I tracked the movement with my eyes, then empty fired the BB gun. I did that over and over with no BBs.
At this point, all I have been doing is noiseless shooting.
The best thing about using the BB gun was the repetition, shooting without recoil, and low expense.
~Courtesy of the AFOH~
