So You want to learn how to shoot?
Written: Feb 28 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: It is a sport with many rewards
Cons: It receives almost nothing but bad press and false reports.
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| mattjoe's Full Review: otdr/Other |
Since there is not yet a category for shooting, and I have been asked by a few friends, what type of gun should I buy? and; How do I go about learning how to shoot?
If you are up here I'd say come on over and I'll work with you, but since you aren't, I'll have to try to write this on here.
First you are going to have to find somewhere to shoot and someone to teach you. Ideally you will find someone who has been shooting for a good amount of time and a bonus would be someone who is an NRA certified instructor. These people have had to fulfill certain requirements in order to gain certification to teach. The NRA is a great organization, and if you do choose to own a gun, you ought to support them also, they are the major group fighting to keep your rights.
Safety, This is where you have to start.
The gun has the potential to be a very dangerous item. It can cause serious injury and death, care must be exercised.
Rule number one is always treat a gun as if it were loaded.
Everything else is secondary.
Whenever you are handed or shown a gun you should check to see if it is loaded.first.
Remember, a bullet can never be recalled once it flies out of a barrel. Even realize that a .22 cal despite being a very weak round has the potential to travel over one and a half miles. It is a very light round and can travel very far out of rifles. It will have lost basically all its energy by that point, and will have dropped a considerable amount, but is still capable of traveling that far.
Before you even pick up a gun to learn how to shoot you should first read up on anything you can to teach yourself the parts and workings of different types of firearms. These are for the most part intricate machines with many working parts. Basically there are four types of guns, Handguns, revolver and automatic, Rifles, single shot, bolt or lever action, semi automatic, and fully automatic (rare to own, very expensive and highly regulated sine 1963) and finally Shotguns, semi automatic, Over Under, single shot and Side by Side.
You should learn something about all of them. You should learn how they all operate as you will likely encounter any and all of them at a place you will shoot. Why do you care to learn the function and characteristics of these? If you are off shooting somewhere, possibly at a club or other public places, you should know how that gun is being handled so you know if the owner or operator is safe. Can you tell if a gun is ready to fire on visual inspection alone? Many times you can. You should know this, your well being could be at stake.
So what should you do when you finally get to go try shooting?
Well, it depends what you are going to learn on. If you are going to learn on a pistol do not ever learn from someone who says, yeah come on down I have a nice .44 Magnum you can try. This person is a moron and irresponsible. You do not hand a novice a handgun with the power of the 44 magnum. This is a quick way to turn someone off to the shooting sports and to help people develop a fear of guns as sporting goods in that person. You must wear safety glasses, any reading glasses and many sunglasses are sufficient. You must wear some form of hearing protection. Trust me when I tell you that if you do not, you will experience a ringing in your ears for days, and you will wonder if it will ever stop. You may be lucky and it will, at which point you can now figure out how to get those closed captions off your TV screen.
When you have found someone who is willing to teach you, you will know if this person is a good teacher or not if the teacher watches you closely and sticks with you for a good amount of one on one training. Do not stay with a "teacher" who gives you the gun, lets you use the ammo and then says gimmie a holler if you have a problem, and then wanders off to do his own thing. This is the Law School approach to learning, and is not a way to teach. Find someone else to help you, the normal gun club has hundreds of members, and there is always someone who is willing to teach you. You are taking up their sport, and they want you to learn. You will normally find the most knowledgeable and helpful people at the gun club itself as opposed to the gun dealer. Look in the phone book or do a search on the web for gun clubs in your area. The gun dealer may also know of some. Just show up someday, do not worry about the signs that say Members Only. Everyone was not a member at one point, so you can go on these clubs, and go to a club house and ask for more information. Don't be shy, in my experience these people have always been more than willing to share their knowledge and help you learn.
What should you learn?
Where should I even start? Well, Safety is of course rule one.
Learn how the gun you are about to shoot functions.
I would imagine how do I hold my gun is next:
Grip. Take your dominant hand, and place it in front of you, make a fist as if you were holding a gun, now place your opposite hand underneath the hand outstretched for support.
NEVER hold a gun this way. This way offers hardly any more support and control of your gun than if you were holding it one handed. The correct form is: grip in your dominant hand, your other hand then wraps over the one holding the gun. This offers the most stability possible for your shooting.
Practice firing it unloaded. This does no damage to today's guns. Older guns could be harmed this way, new, quality guns are able to take this. Practice your trigger squeeze, do not jump and anticipate the recoil of the gun. A smoother trigger pull is of the utmost importance to accuracy. Flinching is a natural response to shooting, the sound and recoil causes you to react. These reactions are generally in the form of a flinch, this will result in you pulling your gun off target at the moment you shoot. Right handers will pull down and to the left, left handers down and to the right. You will be discouraged by missing. You can correct this problem. It takes time, and you may have relapses from time to time, but you can bury that reaction through practice. Excellent hearing protection will also help lessen this problem. Earplugs AND headphones are an excellent choice. You see your brain will not activate defense reflexes from the noise if the noise is lessened.
Now Line your sights up and shoot.
Oh yeah, and be safe. Next time I return to this topic I will answer the question: I want a gun, what kind should I get?
Recommended:
Yes
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