How do you train

[kaylight033]

I was just wondering how everyone trained. I have to use a state range by my house and just punching holes in paper gets old real fast. Would rather use what little range time I get effectively. Any suggestions welcome. Hope the post made sense.

 

[Wyandot Jim]

Join a SASS or IDPA club it is fun and you will learn. Yep punching holes in paper gets pretty boring.

 

[Mobuck]

I guess I've never 'trained' in my life. My 'training' came from real life, first hand experience. My advice for concealed carry: spend as much time on draw and presentation as you do on actual shooting.
I have an employee who attended a week long 'training' seminar at one of the big name shooting schools. Later, he asked me a lot of questions and decided the 'training' was not quite as great as advertised.

 

[HW11]

And to add to the above post. Learn how to identify and fix a malfunction on a simi auto correctly if that's what you carry. If it's not working it's just a very short stick until you make it go bang again.

 

[Thumbcocker]

I can't speak to training since most of my shooting centers on full size handguns for field use. That said, nothing beats reactive targets. Plastic bottles full of water, balloons, clay birds etc. An old time favorite was Necco wafers. Colorful, reactive, and on a slow day you can munch on a few. An added bonus is the pieces dissolve in the next rain.

 

[Johnnu2]

I DON'T.....

70's+; so far so good....

J.

 

[contender]

It depends upon WHAT you are training for.
Self defense?
Hunting?
Better accuracy at longer ranges?

Different purposes requires different training.

But by your post,, I'm assuming you mean self defense.

I agree with Jim. Get involved in a competition of some type that MAKES you have to think, move, reload, under some form of stress. USPSA, IDPA, & SASS all make you compete under the timer. And if you compete regularly you will have malfunctions, make mistakes, miss targets, hit wrong targets, & basically experience a lot of what MIGHT happen in real life.
You will learn "motor memory skills" with your firearm. You will learn to operate it w/o thinking. Just like driving a vehicle,, nobody who has driven a car a lot thinks about all the little steps it takes to operate a vehicle. You have trained your brain & body by repetition what needs to be done w/o physically thinking of each step.
Competition will do the same thing for you.

We shoot USPSA here at my range. My next match is this Saturday. I STRESS to any & all newbies that you will NOT start out being like those of us who've been doing this for a long time. AND,, this is VERY important; "DO NOT BE EMBARRASSED OR THINK YOU CAN NOT DO IT." None of us were born with any skills. We had to grow & learn skills, With time & practice,, those skills can & will improve. Even the world champions were newbies once.

 

[rugerguy]

... we learned back in the late 50s at the Boy Scout Camp and then shooting chipmunks in a old stone quarry with 22 semi auto Sears rifles, then BB gun fights with acorns and on and on,,,,,now the once in a blue moon out in the back yard at an old tree stump just to make sure the guns still work, heck, short stint in the Air Force, then the AEC , then CPD and numerous security companies both private and gov. contractors, and no, at my age, I KNOW I will hit what I am aiming at and WHEN to do it........
and for some 'dude' or 'newbie' going off to Thunder ranch or some such, no way to remember all that stuff in any short period of time...hell I still do not even know or remember the "wind doping, and long range shots from my chats with Carlos Hathcock or my other Marine Corp ( and Army) Sniper friends, longest shots for me were 600 yards and I cannot SEE that far anymore....2oo yards to back of the property and I am good to go........

.......practice, practice, practice....then practice some more

I know, I know , we did it when ammo was cheap , or it was "free"......

 

[Rclark]

Simple here. BB-Guns... then dad taught us to shoot with the .22s (rifle and revolver - no semi-autos allowed), a hunters safety class, and then plenty of practice down thru the years. That was my 'training'. Did the same for my boys.

 

[Wyandot Jim]

To expand on what Contender was explaining.
I'm pretty sure that most of us all learned to shoot BB guns 22s going to the range and and taking our time shooting paper and such. Yes that makes you a GOOD SHOT. But add some pressure like having the paper shoot back. Will you still be a good shot under those conditions. I do hope you never have to find out.

Here is my story and I'm sticking with it. I have shot all my life and considered my self a pretty damn good shot. Even qualifying with the Sherriff Dept. I always scored 280-295 out of 300.
When I started shooting SASS and the pressure at first is enormous when the buzzer goes off along with trying to remember the order of fire was an eye opener. I had a very hard time finding my arsh with both hands and my scores were pretty bad like bottom 1/4-1/3 with 50-75 shooters. But as time went on and practice of moving, drawing smooth, acquiring front sight all became natural and the scores started moving up and I started ending up in top ten or top 5. I also started shooting both left and right handed. I guess what I'm trying to explain is there are two different types of shooting. One being a good shot and the other trying to save your arsh.
I have shot with some RF Members at our Ruger Fest that will confirm my ability.
One of of our fun events was I would shoot my Blackhawk and they could try and outshoot me with their bottom feeders. Shooting 5 rounds at steel targets and begin at the sound of the buzzer and gun on table. Very few if any could. Why couldn't they because I was used to the pressure. Most were better shots than me. But they would have come in second place in a gunfight.
And that my friends is what Contender is telling you.

 

[contender]

Thanks for the kind words Jim. I'll echo what you have put forth.

My backstory as to why.

I grew up shooting & was a pretty good shot. In the Army, expert was an easy qualification. And as a hunter,, I started as a teen shooting for a whitetails neck. Why? A quick kill & ruined no meat. Accuracy counted a lot.
Then in the early 80's I started handgun hunting. I'm a fair shot,, but I really had to work to assure a proper handgun neck shot. Luckily, my T/C Contender helped a lot. By the late 90's,, if someone had asked me; "Can you handle yourself with a handgun?" due to all I had done, I would have stated without a doubt, "Absolutely."
Then I went to my first USPSA match, and I found out how good I was NOT! It humbled me quickly. I realized there were a whole set of different skills I'd need to be a really good all around shooter.
I was 40 years old at that time. And we all know our bodies decide that's a general timeframe of things not being quite as good as they were when we were 20ish. So I had to work harder to be a better shooter, and even try & break a few bad habits I had been doing all my life. Heck, I'm 64 years old now,, and just a few months back I discovered WHY I was still having an issue with a specific type of target. Try & break a life long habit where motor memory skills are solidly ingrained. NOT easy.

Good schools (such as Thunder Ranch or GunSite) offer excellent training,, but they are working to teach a lot in a short period of time. You MUST take the skills learned there & apply them on a regular basis to teach your brain the correct motor memory skills.
A well run competition such as we've mentioned allows you to do that while under the stress of a timer AND self imposed demands.

 

[Dave Schwaab]

Work on Draw, Presentation and Accuracy, so you can defend yourself if needed. Don't worry about "training". Those tactical videos on YouTube look pretty cool, but you're NOT part of Seal Team Six.

For the "fun" part, get a target with multiple targets on it, assign numbers to the targets and shoot them in random orders. Perhaps even using dice to pick the first to be shot and the order, or direction, to shoot them in. May not be as much fun as falling plates on a steel challenge run, but it really does present a challenge to get consistently good runs.

 

[Teflon97116]

One of my favorite pistol drills for overcoming flinch is to have someone load the cylinder of a .357mag 6-shooter with a random mix of magnum rounds, .38spl and spent brass. Spin it, close it and hand it to the trainee. Repeat as needed in single- and double-action. One never knows what the next hammer drop will bring...
- Pop
- BANG!!!
- or click

Jerking the barrel down with a click instantly reveals an anticipatory flinch - which we all know undermines accuracy significantly. That reaction, clearly out in the open for the shooter and the trainer to see, is a no-BS basis for developing a smooth, gradual pull, and a crisp fast one.

Work on all of the above until the flinch is gone.

 

[willicd76]

Am I wrong in assuming you are an LEO?

 

[Teflon97116]

Am I wrong in assuming you are an LEO?

Last century in the military. I made up the drill off-duty and use it myself as a refresher.

 

[Teflon97116]

For semi-auto pistols/rifles, this works for me. YMMV.

As the round discharges, keep the trigger depressed. Don't let your finger bounce off the trigger. Hold it "buried" like that for a moment while you refocus on the target and front sight. During that half-second, slowly/gently start to ease the trigger back out (never losing contact). Pay attention and you'll feel the trigger reset. Right there, and no further out, you're chambered and ready to shoot again.

Why let the trigger out an additional 1/4-1/2" with your finger flapping around in the breeze? You'll totally miss the reset! Watch other shooters letting their trigger fingers bounce around and you'll never be able to un-see it. Use this drill and you'll shoot their pistols better than they do! Faster, too!

This eventually becomes second-nature. It will also:
- Make you familiar with the feel of your own various weapons (they're all different)
- Help you quickly become familiar with new weapons you've not fired before
- Help you select the next firearm you buy
- Make you far more accurate

 

[willicd76]

Last century in the military. I made up the drill off-duty and use it myself as a refresher.

Sorry, I was referring to the OP who has apparently disappeared. We're I still an LEO, the last place I would come for training advice would be an open forum of strangers. Doesn't make much sense to me.