Are you looking to improve your marksmanship while you have more time on your hands now? Here are five easy-to-follow and helpful tips to make you a marksman!
How to Boost Marksmanship
Buying a gun and learning how it works isn’t the same thing as being a true marksman. In fact, that can only be achieved through persistent practice and dedication.
That being said, there are some tips you can use to boost your marksmanship in the short term, which may be particularly valuable in the near future, especially with the pandemic affecting things.
1. Practice Dry Firing
If you're a true beginner to marksmanship and have no idea how to accurately use a handgun (or any other type of firearm), you need to practice dry firing before you move onto live ammunition.
If you aren’t aware, dry firing is the practice of shooting your pistol without any live ammunition in the weapon.
You do this for two reasons: one, so you can get used to the feeling of the weapon in your hand and two, so you can practice pulling your trigger smoothly without jerking your weapon up and messing with your accuracy.
Mastering a smooth trigger pull and feeling how the weapon performs in your hand without the telltale kick of recoil is key to becoming used to your self-defense weapon or a piece of hunting equipment.
Only once you’re comfortable with the weapon should you place a single cartridge inside.
2. Start Slow and Up Close
We’d also recommend beginning slowly and up close. Don’t try to hit masterful shots upwards of 200 yards when you are just starting out.
Get up close to your target and place shots in the center of mass until you feel your arms starting to get used to recoil.
Like with almost any other skill, becoming a master marksman takes patience and motivation. Giving yourself the time and luxury of building up your confidence slowly is much more likely to provide you with the motivation you need to master this skill.
On the flip side, trying to hit crazy shots from a far distance will only deflate your motivation.
3. Take Your Time
You should also take your time when lining up your shots. It’s true that in a self-defense situation, you may be called upon to be accurate in a split second.
But no one is accurate in a high adrenaline situation if they haven’t practiced for hundreds of hours beforehand. Even then, human accuracy can be spotty.
When you’re practicing your marksmanship, go slowly, take deep breaths. Focus on hitting all your shots as best as you can instead of squeezing off as many rounds as possible.
4. Use a Gun with Good Sights
This tip may sound self-explanatory, but what we mean is that you should always pick and use a firearm that has the sights you can easily work with. If you can’t work with the iron sights or the optics included with a firearm, it’s ultimately useless for your purposes.
You may need to add additional sights or optics to the weapon after the fact or have them adjusted by a gunsmith.
5. Master a Good Stance
Finally, you can seriously impact the quality of your marksmanship by mastering an excellent shooting stance. Your shooting stance can affect how accurate your shots are, as it affects how much recoil impacts your arms, chest, and eyesight.
A good stance will force proper balance throughout your body and will keep your arms fully or mostly extended without locking the amount. Your shoulders will absorb the majority of your recoil and allow you to take a follow-up shot quickly if need be.
Work with an experienced marksman if necessary to get this part down pat.
Becoming a Marksman
While the above tips are far from comprehensive, using them will help you boost your accuracy and become a better defensive shooter in the short-term future.
Remember to always be practicing your marksmanship if you want to truly become a master at this art.
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Thanks for the op to join this informative group. There are only a few that have and communicate real proven tips and advice. Some others are promoting nothing but arguments and personal opinions wars. Be safe