How about for beginners

P

phenrichs

Inactive
I have seen alot of threads on range practice and quick shooting and the like. How about a good "for the beginner" thread.

Basics of handgunning: stance, grip, sight picture, ranging.
I have been rifle shooting for years and have spent a very limited time with pistols of varying type and caliber (all owned by friends) so I am not a complete beginner. However I know that other than basics and safety it is a different world as far as doing it correctly. Anyone can pull a trigger and put a ball down range. I want to do it accurately. I have a local range that will allow me to rent and practice but can I ask them to show me the right way? Is that allowed?
 
Any range worth its salt will have some form of instruction available. Either directly through the range or with private instructors that use the range facilities.

All you have to do is ask.
 
There's a lot of very good introduction instruction as to the basics available on the web.
Do a search on youtube, liveleak and myoutdoors web sites for Clint Smith, Todd Jarrett, Matt Burkett, and Gunsite for starters.
All have dvds to buy, as well.
 
See if there are any NRA certified instructors near you who are putting on a Basic Handgun class. An in person class with live instruction will always be better and more effective than just trying to get it all over the Internet.

And in any case, an absolutely great site for a beginner is http://corneredcat.com/. It's directed toward women, but it's full of useful and authoritative information for any beginner (and every shooter, for that matter).

If you're going to try on YouTube, stick with the names g.willikers mentions in the preceding post. There are some absolutely God awful guys playing instructor on YouTube who have no idea what they are doing.
 
No harm in asking and to me shows you are serious about shooting and wanting to learn and do it right. You can also seek private instruction to learn the art of handgun shooting.
 
Beginners need to go to http://www.thearmedcitizen.com/ and check out the huge numbers of people (in the archives) who've managed to defend themselves with a firearm and yet have NEVER had one minute of specialized training. There are those here who'd have you believe that unless you have a Ph.D from Frontsite you can't defend yourself with a gun. HOGWASH!! Two or three million people do it each year and I'd bet my next paycheck that fewer than .5% of them have ever had any firearms combat training. Outside the home situational awareness is key and inside the home it's "open fire on sight". It ain't thermonuclear science folks, it's just common sense.
 
The first step is to buy a .22. All of the grip, stance, trigger, reload techniques in the world aren't very helpful if you can't put thousands of rounds down range to instill it all into muscle memory.

You can shoot a .22 for pennies per shot and get very good, very fast.

Buy the .22 first.
 
HoraceHogsnort said:
...check out the huge numbers of people (in the archives) who've managed to defend themselves with a firearm and yet have NEVER had one minute of specialized training...
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[1] How do you know how much, or how little, training and practice some of those folks have had? That sort of information just isn't provided.

[2] I often wonder how many people have tried to defend themselves and failed. That's not the sort of information we seem to get on these RKBA websites.

[3] We do sometimes see stories about folks who made bad decisions about when to use lethal force and wound up in a great deal of legal trouble. See, for example:

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=365213

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=365683

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=370984

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=411205

Could proper training have helped these folks avoid these "life altering" legal entanglements?

[4] You have no idea what your problem, if you have one, is going to be. So you have no idea what you may need to have to be able to do to solve it. If you find yourself needing to defend yourself in a violent encounter, how good will you need to be to prevail? I sure don't know. You don't know either. If you're good enough, you'll be okay. If not, you'll be another statistic. It's up to you how hard you work at developing your survival skills.

[5] Police often have some good training, and sometimes they lose. Do you think that means that less training is better?

[6] There’s more to training than learning to hit the target. There’s learning about how to decide if shooting is even the right thing to do. There’s knowing the applicable laws. There’s getting good enough so that you don’t have to think about how to operate your gun and can focus your attention on assessing the situation and deciding what to do.
 
HoraceHogsnort said:
I'm not buying it fiddletown.
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I wouldn't expect a member of the "Training? I ain't got no training. I don't need no stinkin' training crowd" to buy it.

If you don't want to bother training and instead want to try to rationalize that you'll do okay in an emergency even so, be my guest. It won't be my problem.

But unless you're clairvoyant, you don't know what your emergency will be. And as long as you don't know that, you can't know whether or not you'll be up to it.

Have a nice life.
 
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g.willikers said:
Is it better to depend on luck or skill?
Relying on luck is easier and cheaper, but Lady Luck has no heart.
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I think it was Samuel Goldwyn who said, "The harder I work, the luckier I get."
 
It is very useful to denounce training as necessary so that if or when you go to court, you cannot articulate the reasons for your action.

Yep, that's a great plan. Note BTW, that if folks are antigun or you are a woman, some potential jurors may take offense at your skill level.

Thus, you need a good lawyer who is cognizant of those issues during voir dire and during the presentation of your tale.

In cop trials, lack of training has been a real issue. In civilian trials, some DAs have tried to play the civilian commando nutso card. But expert trainers can defuse that.

However, if you don't believe in knowing such stuff - good for you.
 
Basics of hand gunning: stance, grip, sight picture, ranging.
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Where are you in South Dakota?

The reason I ask is that I will be putting on a Bullseye Pistol Clinic later this summer at Newcastle WY, which is in NE Wyoming just across the state line from South Dakota.

This isn't a Self Defense course, but it will stress the basic fundamentals of pistol shooting, which is needed before you can shoot any pistol.

I don't charge for my course. Its similar to the SAFS they have prior to the National Matches at Perry or any other service championships.

Let my know if you are interested and I'll put you on my mailing list for when I come up with the dates.
 
Thread drift

Um... folks? Some of us are kinda doing a disservice to the OP here.

Phenrichs didn't ask whether or not training is necessary. Clearly, he's recognized the merits of training and has asked for tips to that end.

How about a good "for the beginner" thread.

Basics of handgunning: stance, grip, sight picture, ranging.
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How 'bout we help the guy out and save the "training ain't necessary" debate for another thread? ;)
 
I have a local range that will allow me to rent and practice but can I ask them to show me the right way? Is that allowed?
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You can alwasy ask - most of the time they will try to help you. However, note that on weekends, indoor ranges get busy and there may not be someone able to instruct you on these things. If you pick an off time, then there may be someone available to spend some time with you.

I'm not of the mindset that you need a firearms expert to teach you the basics of shooting, just someone familiar and competant with handguns. Afterall, who taught most of us how to shoot? It wasn't Mr. Ayoob. It was our dads, uncles, grandpas or a friend. And, in turn, many of us have taught folks handling a gun for the first time how to shoot it. But, many of us are far from being any kind of expert.

I see no problem with you asking someone working at a range to help you with the basics of shooting a handgun, as long as you pick a slow time at the range.
 
i'm kind of in the same boat as the guy who started this thread in the first place, and see no reason to start another. I've owned and shot handguns for about 2 years now, but have had no formal instruction whatsoever. Now that i'm in iraq, and have been reading all these threads, i really think it's time to take my skills and training a little more seriously. anyone have some more links that i could read up on while i'm here? (that would cover stance, grip etc) after hearing about how accurately other people shoot, and the distances they shoot at, i realize that i must be doing something wrong. at 10 ft, i hit all over the place on a 1x1 target, and that's just not good enough for me. thanks in advance
 
anyone have some more links that i could read up on while i'm here? (that would cover stance, grip etc)
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PM me with your e-mail address and I'll send you the Army Marksmanship Unit's Pistol Marksmanship Guide in .pdf format.

Its the best reading on the fundamentals of pistol shooting written by the best shooters in the world.
 
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