What has made you a better shooter?

many moons ago i asked a old time competition shooter to train me to shoot. he asked for $150.00 (a huge sum over 20 years ago). he told me to show up at his house the next Saturday with my pistol. we went to his home shooting range and he went over the basics of shooting a handgun. he watched me shoot and coach me on my technique. we discussed holsters and tactics. after about 200 rounds we went back to his house. he showed me the basics of cleaning and upkeep of a semiauto pistol. then he went into the garage and came out with a 5 gallon bucket almost full of ammo that he had loaded up for me (the money he wanted). he told me to go home and shoot half of it and come back. when i came back he watched me shoot and corrected my form. he started taking me from bulls eye targets to human form targets. he taught me to shoot on the move and from protection and barriers. again he sent me to shoot the rest of my ammo up and come back. when i finished i took him back as many fired shells as i could find. we shot together that sunny morning and felled many a steel plate. when i was ready to go he brought out another bucket of ammo and a catalog of reloading equipment. i started reloading the next month and i have never looked back. dern smart old guy. he is dead now but i think of him often.

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Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what is for lunch.
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the outcome of the vote.
Let he that hath no sword sell his garment and buy one. Luke 22-36
They all hold swords, being expert in war: every man hath his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night. Song of Solomon 3-8
The man that can keep his head and aims carefully when the situation has gone bad and lead is flying usually wins the fight.

[This message has been edited by riddleofsteel (edited May 31, 2000).]
 
One thing:

Imagining Klinton's face on a target, and remembering that I can't buy a 15 round magazine :)

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AK-47, When you absolutely have to kill every mother&*$#er in the room...accept no substitutes.

Browning Hi-Power, What went wrong during 65 years?
 
The Silver Bullet 1719,
Bad idea. There are people in the world that can, would and will take that the wrong way. It's their job to do so.
 
DRY FIRING!

Even if not blowing ammo, spend alot of time handling your pistol.

When I'm at home, one of my pistols is usually in my hand. (when there's no company)

Drawing my pistol, or sometimes just gripping it, focusing on the front sight, and SQUEEZING.

MAKE SURE IT'S NOT LOADED, of course,

This has definately helped build muscle and grip memory, and also CONSISTENCY

Make sure you're body is memorizing the
right habits. This has helped me TONS.
 
Competitive shooting. Improvement comes quickly as you work up through the classes. When you break through to Master you soon discover it is still a long, long trek to the top of the heap. I never made it...
 
I agree with SPORT the most.Lots of good info here at this web site helped me the most. www.bullseyepistol.com Click on (ERROR ANALYSIS AND CORRECTION). I take the chart with me to the range, and it helps more than anything else.It's like having an instructor there beside you telling you what you are doing wrong. :cool:
 
1. Buying a progressive reloading press. This allowed me to shoot far more than I could otherwise. In addition, without buying a shotshell reloader, I could have never learned to master the shotgun.

2. Owning an RWS .177 pellet rifle. Brand doesn't matter that much, but the RWS is very accurate. You learn a great deal about trigger control with them.

3. Practice, practice, practice.

4. Using progressively smaller targets. Moving farther and farther back from the target. Everyone else with the P.D. I worked with thought it was funny that I tried to hit the B-27 from 100+ yards with my .357 during practicing...till they saw me qualify at 97% of a possible 300.
 
Practice
Reloading
participating in an Internet Match club

And a used ugly looking 1926 Colt Officer's Target Model in .38 Special.
 
1. TFL, which has really educated me.
2. Practice.
3. Slow fire, at longer ranges (>50 feet), at six inch diameter targets.

This said, I am not a pro now, by any means!
 
A long time ago, in a land far, far away... OK, OK, when I was in college in eastern Idaho, I used to hunt jackrabbits with a ruger standard .22 pistol. I was out nearly every weekend during the summer. I burned a lot of ammo, but flushing jacks and potting themm with a pistol sure was a good (and fun) way to learn how to use a handgun effectively.
 
#1) Getting rid of the POS plastic adjustable sight on my Glock

#2) IDPA

#3) dry firing

#4) practice

#5) drawing & reloading drill (as follows) using a full mag & an empty mag. Using the full mag, I load the gun w/ a round in the chamber, then I put the full mag into my mag pouch & the empty mag in the gun. Then I holster the gun.

I then draw & fire (that one round in the chamber) to slide lock & change mags (w/ retention) to the fully loaded one in the mag pouch, drop the slide and fire one more round (remember the gun is NOW LOADED).

Then I drop the full mag & put it back into my pouch & re-insert the empty mag into the gun & reholster it & repeat this exercise.

I know it sounds convoluted but I get to work on my draw & reloading at the same time, and only use two shots per drill. I think it works better than it sounds. With a 50 rd box of ammo I get 25 presentations from concealment & 25 mag changes with retention.

The drill works pretty smoothly, but I only do it when I have the range to myself as it probably looks weird/ackward to other shooters.
 
Training by my SSgt. father and reading Army training manuals, along with several thousand rounds through my Ruger 22/45.
 
what helped me was reloading, I never shot
much when 50 rds cost $10, now I make my own bullets and spend my cash on primers and powder. makes shooting alot more enjoyable.
 
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