Basic Marksmanship (Proper Sight Alignment)

reply to post by DaddyBare

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Oops sorry double post

[edit on 2-9-2009 by hangedman13]

reply to post by DaddyBare

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I looked but might have overlooked it but, when looking through your sights keep both eye's open! Also a newbie mistake is to pull a pistol back {too many movies} after firing.

I like your approach DaddyBare good work!!!

Raise your hand if you know what THIS Is! =)

[edit on 2-9-2009 by EyesWideShut]

[edit on 2-9-2009 by EyesWideShut]

I have found " marines right handed correction targets" to be usefull...

i think that description in a search engine should find them to download

You brought up something I hadn't thought about since boot camp (Like a million years ago) that being how do you know what eye your aiming with... just cause your right handed doesn't mean your right eyed... a simple way to tell is to to hold your finger straight up and sight down the end of it... now in turn close each eye, right, left... which one did you sight right or left?

If your right handed but left eyed or vise versa ...your going to have problems but they are fixable.. you'll have to retrain your brain...
to do that you'll need an eye patch... if your right handed cover your left eye and practice shooting... in time you wont need the eye patch, just save that for when you want to play pirate

Weeeee, now i can go buy a gun.

reply to post by DaddyBare

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great post
now
please do the same for GHOST RING type

I just got a Mossburg 590A1 and it shoots low as in 8 inches at 15 yards
help

my best advice is repetition,

go to a gun range consistently,

keeping your skills sharp is your best bet.

reply to post by DataWraith

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I use airsoft for point and fire practice. It's translated well to the shooting range with my 9mm Ruger.

reply to post by DaddyBare

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I'm right handed, left eye'd. I never trained with a patch, but don't have the double vision problem when sighting. I can choose to use right if I'm using a rifle, either with a handgun. As long as the sights line up for one eye, it's good.

may I suggest , I agree...

but

trigger pull is more important than picture .
and picture is vital .

good thread .

Proper sight alignment.
Trigger squeeze (slow and smooth... not quick like someone said above don't cup the damned trigger. only the pad of your index. straight pull. straight back)
Breathing (in... out... in... out... pause while you fire)

The best way to learn to pull the trigger properly is to place a cleaning rod in the barrel of your weapon, have a partner balance a dime on the rod and squeeze the trigger (unloaded weapon obviously) and keep the dime on the rod.
Dimewasher drills.

They work miracles.
Those are the fundamentals of marksmanship. Work on those three things and you can fire a weapon with the best of them.

Oh, and knowing how to adjust on target in accordance with distance.

[edit on 2-9-2009 by JayinAR]

[edit on 2-9-2009 by JayinAR]

reply to post by readerone

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I agree. Trigger squeeze will get you into more trouble than anything.

It might be to early to bring up scoped weapons, but i wanted to get this in before i forget

Before you can shoot correctly, you must have that scope properly mounted!!! (when asking one gun shop how they do it, their answer was by "looking" at a door jam!.. now you will learn that is the worst/uninformed way to mount a scope )

How to properly mount a scope (warning the author is trying to be funny):
www.youtube.com...

One more point to add is, after the scope is sitting level on a leveled barrel/scope-rings, is you must watch those bubble-levels (BOTH OF THEM!) THROUGHOUT the scope-screw-tightening process or else the over-tightening of one side will in fact rotate your scope. You can basically turn the screw on one side of the scope like 3-rotations and watch the scope move way off level!

If your patience survives this meticulous process then you will have undoubtedly tightened up your shot-groupings at close and long range shooting and saved a lot of money in ammo.

If you ever noticed that when trying to sight-in a gun that adjusting the UP/DOWN or LEFT/RIGHT, that your point of impact sort of veers off on a 45-degree angle from the last hit... then this is most likely your problem! An improperly mounted scope means UP/DOWN is now UP/DOWN-WITH-A-LITTLE-BIT-OF-RIGHT-OR-LEFT!!

If you ever noticed that you can be a tack-driver at 50yards but out at a 100yds that all of a sudden your missing by 5 inches! Then ya... your scope is slightly mounted wrong . What's happening is you wasted lots of ammo on sighting in that close range target and then found out your gun was nearly useless if you wanted to shoot at any other distance

Here's a reallife example:
Weapon = Benelli Super Black Eagle 2 + rifled slug barrel + Federal barnes expander 2 3/4" (ya we bought 2 3/4" because enough people said they shoot better then the 3" version and at the cost of the bullets, we didn't want to risk it )

At 50 yards, i had a point of impact of about half-inch from bullseye. At 100 yards i was BARELY on the paper, somewhere in the upper right of the target!!. After all hopes that the scope was already level were shattered... yep had to break out the screwdriver and spend about a half hour getting that scope properly leveled.

How was my shooting after? DEAD CENTER at 50 yards, 2" high at 100 yards, perfectly aligned left and right at all distances in between! I put 3-slugs in the same hole at 100 yards as i carefully adjusted my elevation settings! to get as close as possible to that 100 yard bullseye without compromising my 50 yards shooting. Basically i marched that point of impact down in a most uber-surgical fashion! After i was done at 100 yards, i took one shell to check my 50 yard impact and i cut center. There i'm sighted in for the fall deer hunting season lol.

This is a shotgun people... not something typically known to be this accurate... This is also the first time i matched my Encore muzzle loader in accuracy...

Iron Sights are more reliable than scopes anyhow.
If I'm effective at 300 meters with iron sights, why in the world would I need a scope?

Paper shooters sight in so the bullseye sits on the front sight.

Generally speaking, it is better to sight to point of impact because real targets rarely are round black dots of fixed size and range.

Thought I'd add my .02.
Two schools of thought on sights. Point of impact and center mass. Depending on which you're doing, it affects how you aim. POI front sight looks like a lollipop stick and target is lollipop. Shown earlier. Center of mass, target is "centered" for lack of a better term around the front sight.

If shooting a semi-auto watch your non shooting thumb, don't let it get whacked.

Breath control: breathe in, let it out about half, hold then squeeze the trigger. Don't hold your breath longer than about 5 seconds.

Trigger SQUEEZE (note emphasis) don't anticipate the shot or you will jerk the firearm off target.

Last point: practice,practice,practice!

You adjust your sighting on a target depending on where your weapon is zeroed at.
If I zero my weapon for 300 meters and I am shooting a target that is only 75 meters out, I must aim below center mass or I will miss high every time.

reply to post by Bugsmasher

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Variations on breathing to avoid pulse from affecting aim. Two or three deep breaths, let the last out halfway and you should have enough time to squeeze off a shot without disruption. Sight alignment is more important than holding exactly on target.