Basic Gun Control

One of my coworkers wanted me to accompany him to the local indoor range for some paper punching, so naturally I obliged. I hadn’t shot in a while so I wanted to work on my trigger control. We threw some targets out maybe 20 feet and unloaded about 3 or 4 mags.

After that I started to watch him and pay attention to the three fundamentals, stance, grip and trigger control. This guy has been shooting for a while, but would still be classified as a novice in IDPA standards, essentially he’s the typical average Joe off the street. After watching him it was clear he really needed some help. I offered some advice on what I thought he was doing wrong just from observing. Due to the lighting and me not wearing my glasses, I couldn’t see the holes in the paper. He looked at me with some skepticism when I called his group, but that quickly turned to amazement when the target was brought back and the group was exactly where I told him (low left).

His stance was a really awkward looking semi-weaver, the grip was almost the olde cup n saucer and his trigger control was like he was having a seizure.

I straightened him out into an isosceles, changed his grip to the typical competition style Enos/Leatham grip and let him run another couple of mags through the gun. His group had tightened but was still low and just a tad left of center. His trigger control was still herky jerky, but that was ok, I wanted him to first feel the difference in stance and grip. It didn’t help that he was shooting a DAO 9mm compact (the brand/model is irrelevant). After I’d put a couple of mags through it, I got him to dry fire it a few times and told him to stage the trigger, since it had quite a long pull. His group tightened up again and raised up closer to the center. There were still some low fliers where he was flinching, but we can work on that later, since that’s a project unto itself.

I gave him some dry fire homework to do making sure that he only works on those three things and sent him Todd Jarrett’s excellent video on how to grip a gun.  I can’t wait to hit the range again and see what he can do.

But it just goes to show, shooting IDPA for 5+ years and doing thousands of reps of dry fire really does put your basic skill level WAY above the average Joe. And just think, my skill level is nowhere near the levels of the top dogs.

I turned around and something had changed

You know, sometimes life gets complicated really quickly. Just when I wanted to get going again a couple of things changed and I wasn’t able to shoot as much as I’d hoped. I was distracted with taking on additional work on the side, a new side gig in photography, my dog developing cancer, then various family events popped up and one of the local ranges closing meant that I missed most of the locally sanctioned matches.

Naturally this has caused me to take a huge step backwards in my abilities. With the current political and economic climate, I think it’s time I renewed my basic gun handling skills and got back out onto the range. I know that my skills will have declined, so my times and placement will suffer. That’s ok, I will take the next couple of matches slowly and get back up to speed in my own time.

One of my coworkers is a shooter, so I have asked him to twist my arm to get me back out to the local range. A couple of other coworkers have also expressed interest in trying out IDPA. They don’t have any gear at all and have never shot a gun of any type. Before they go to an IDPA match I will have to take them to a local range a few times to make sure they have a grasp on the basics of gun operation and handling.

I’ve cleared out the man cave and loaded up some ammo. I’ve also been to a local indoor range and started giving a different coworker some basic shooting tips.

I will be posting here a lot more frequently as things settle down and I’m able to get back out to the range more often.