You Listened too Well

One of the things that stands out about the precision rifle shooting class I took this weekend is that the instructors told me pretty much everything I had heard from other “experts” or from my own guesswork was wrong. In fact, unlearning these things was a big part of the benefit of the class.

Let’s see.

1. When shooting a rifle with a scope, you should always take a breath, release half of it, and then shoot. NOT! NOT! NOT! It’s a total myth. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard it, and I’ve repeated it. It’s true that it will give you a brief instant of stillness that can be helpful, but when you really need to see well, lack of oxygen can affect your vision. For long-distance shooting, you breathe normally and shoot after you exhale. This is called shooting during the NRP or normal respiratory pause.

2. You’re supposed to hold your index finger so it points straight ahead and then bends 90° at the first joint. The last two segments of the finger are supposed to be perpendicular to the rifle’s bore. You press the trigger with the center of the pad of the last segment. This way, the part of the finger touching the gun moves in line with the bore and won’t move the gun to the side.

3. Do NOT let the shot surprise you. Make it go off when you choose. Waiting for a pistol to go off works great, apart from the fact that it turns you into a person who can’t shoot well at a desired instant, but you don’t do it with rifles.

4. Do NOT preload your bipod. Preloading means pushing your gun forward to put stress on the bipod legs. This takes the wobble out of them. The military teaches snipers to do this. So why not do what snipers do? They’re the best, right? No, they’re actually not. Civilian shooters are better. Snipers are trained quickly, and preloading a bipod is a fast way to tighten up groups when you don’t have time to get people to shoot correctly. Unfortunately, it also puts a bending torque on the rifle. You don’t want your rifle to be flexed when you shoot.

They also taught us to push the trigger all the way back and hold it until the shot lands. Not until you hear it. Until it LANDS. This helps you not to slap at the trigger.

They said you shouldn’t wrap your thumb around your gun. It’s one more point where something can go wrong, and it’s not necessary.

I took them at their word, and I was more careful than they suggested. I didn’t even tighten my hand on the grip. There was no reason to. My fingers rested against it loosely. I’m not really sure what held the gun in place every time it went off. It worked great, though.

Another shooter told the instructor what I was doing. I think he wanted the teacher to correct me. The instructor said what I was doing was good. Point for me. It definitely worked. Before my scope went nuts, I was hitting targets pretty casually. The teacher said I had a good trigger pull, and I can’t recall him correcting me about anything form-related.

Let’s not talk about the many times I dropped the magazine when I was trying to shoot the bolt carrier forward, or the times I tried to shoot with the safety on. Like I told him, I’m not an AR guy.

The more I listened to these teachers, the more I understood that nearly no one on the gun forums I visit has any idea what they’re talking about. The air is heavy with wrongness. One of the snipers said he used to try to talk to people on forums, and he quit, because it was a waste of time.

Regarding the rifle’s pistol grip, there are people on forums arguing about whether a grip should be straight or angled. My position: who cares? It looks like you shouldn’t be using it to begin with.

They taught us something I already believed, which is that you should not clean a gun very often. Crud in a gun’s barrel makes it more accurate. A newly cleaned gun takes a number of expensive shots to get its accuracy back, and obsessive cleaning doesn’t do anything for the gun. One of them said he shoots his 6.5 Creedmoor until the groups open up, and then he cleans it. He had a .308 in the classroom, and I believe he said it had only been cleaned twice.

I was surprised to hear two military snipers say the Army and Marines don’t get the best training. You may live next door to someone–maybe a dentist or an insurance salesman–who can outshoot most military snipers. That’s something for looters and snowflakes to think about. When they start trying to murder the rest of us on a large scale, they’ll be facing a good number of people who shoot better than Chris Kyle. Facing them: a bunch of untrained, nonpracticing simpletons with stolen Taurus 9 millimeters, using shooting technique that comes from music videos.

The class was worth its weight in gold. Or maybe lead.

I’m trying to pick a rifle. Once I choose one, I will be ready to get good at the things I was taught. This would be a good time for coons and coyotes to look for a new landlord.