Getting “stuck in a rut” is one of the easiest things that we as humans do. We are all creatures of habit. Often we take comfort in doing what we’ve always done because that’s the way we’ve always done it. This applies to any activity we engage in. It is easy because you do not have to work on changing or improving yourself or whatever you are doing. We have all caught ourselves in some type of “rut” situation.
This most definitely applies to shooting, and I see it almost every weekend when I teach the NRA Basic Pistol and Instructor Pistol courses. Nearly all my students who attend classes want to expand their marksmanship. Afterall, who does not want to improve? When I ask my students if they ever try different marksmanship techniques, the response is usually “No.” When I ask them why not, their response is almost universal, “Because this is the way I was taught.”
There are three things that you can do to help you get out of your rut: changing your technique, changing your caliber, and changing your attitude.
Change Your Technique
The easiest way to improve your shooting is to change your technique. In almost every NRA Basic Pistol Class that I teach, there are one or more students who are not happy with their shot placement on the target. The good thing about this is that they usually recognize the issue. For some it may be pushing or pulling the gun to one side or the other, a lack of consistency with each shot, or failing to get an acceptable shot grouping. The NRA Training Department calls this “self-analysis.”
The problem comes when I ask them how long they have been living with their sub-par shot placement. They usually answer, “for several years,” or even worse, “I have always had this issue.” Many of these students have been going to the range consistently but never try something new to improve their shot placement. Remember Albert Einstein’s words: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Everybody is different, and that means we do not all shoot the same way. In other words, be flexible. As an NRA Training Counselor, I teach the proper shooting techniques. It is important to remember that we are all built differently and have unique strengths. If one of your students has been experiencing the same shot placement issues for years, start adjusting his or her techniques. That might be as simple as sliding one foot forward a few inches, rotating the shooting hand wrist a degree or two, or making a slight adjustment to the grip. These instructor techniques are called “tricks of the trade” or having different “tools in your toolbox.”
Remember, if you are an instructor and have a student who has shot placement issues even though they are properly demonstrating the NRA shooting techniques, it is your job to open your “toolbox” and try something new to change up their technique. Instructors should always strive to find something that works, even the slightest adjustment, to give the student positive results. Neither the instructor nor the student should ever accept sub-par shot placement by thinking that he or she is as good as they are going to get. There is always room for improvement.
Change Your Caliber
The choice of caliber is a very personal decision by many individuals. Unfortunately, some of these students make unwise or misguided decisions when it comes to caliber choice. Many times this occurs because the student takes advice from a trusted individual in their life or the “expert” behind the gun counter. As an instructor, you must approach this very delicately. There is nothing worse than telling someone that they are shooting “too much gun” for them to handle. I say this from the experience of having students in class who cannot handle the recoil of their particular choice of caliber.
Everyone has an upper recoil limit. Again, we are all built differently. This means that we all cannot handle the same recoil for a variety reasons. It has been my experience as an instructor that individuals who grew up working with their hands (building fences, swinging a sledgehammer, using shovels, hammers, saws, etc.) can usually handle more recoil than those who grew up working with computers or gaming.
It seems that recoil has become more of an issue than it has in the past. There is nothing wrong with moving to a smaller caliber to help manage the recoil. Depending on the state in which you reside, you may be allowed to carry a .22 LR for personal protection, as in Texas. It is better to have a smaller caliber that you can comfortably and accurately shoot than a larger one that you have trouble shooting because of recoil. Shooting a firearm that has more recoil that you can handle can result in failing to stop the threat or even hitting an unintended target.
There are ways to reduce the recoil of a particular firearm if an individual is set on carrying a caliber that is “too much” for them. Unfortunately, these options add cost to the final product. Many common semi-automatic pistols made with synthetic or composite materials may also manufacture the same firearm in steel frame models. Added weight can help reduce the recoil, but the additional weight can be burdensome to the shooter. Some firearms can be ported or have a compensator added by a gunsmith to reduce felt recoil. Like the steel models, the price can go up significantly with these added features.
Change Your Attitude
For many, improving their marksmanship starts with changing their attitude. The reason that we have a Second Amendment is to protect ourselves and others from threats to our life and property and to resist tyranny. It is not about carrying the coolest gun or what everyone else is carrying. It is important to realize that gun ownership and the subsequent carrying a firearm for personal protection is not about “keeping up with the Joneses.” It is to give you the opportunity to protect yourself and/or your loved ones.
Changing your attitude to improve your marksmanship can also be about accepting reality. For example, if you have small hands, acknowledge it. This means that a pistol that has a double-stack magazine might be too large for you to shoot accurately and consistently. It may be in your best interest to opt for a firearm with a single-stack magazine. What you give up in number of rounds carried, you might make up with improved shooting. If your shooting improves, more than likely you will be able to stop the threat quicker with a single-stack magazine gun. Remember you are much better off stopping any threat as quickly as you can because the longer the threat exists, the greater the chance of you being injured or worse.
It is important to remember that we are all built differently and that is why there are so many options for the carrying of firearms. A gun that fits a big burly man standing at 6’-04” probably will not be the ideal gun for a small-framed woman who stands at 5’-04”. Yet, I often see individuals with big differences in their sizes come to class, but they show up with the same make and model pistol. In situations like these I always have more “tools in my toolkit” for students to try different handguns of different sizes to improve their confidence and marksmanship.
Everyone should always strive for improvement as a personal goal and for the mastering of the activities in which we engage. What I try to show my students is that getting out of a rut is not as hard as it seems. It is all about changing what you are doing.
