»QUESTION: There are a few questions we get from people all the time — “How do I get started with firearms?” “What should I buy?” “What kind of training is necessary to ensure I am safe and know how to use my gun properly?”
»ANSWER: The answers to these questions require a little communication with each individual to establish what his or her specific, initial goals are and what his or her longterm plans happen to be. A discussion as to why that person is leaning in a particular direction will help all parties involved understand the possibilities and probabilities of accomplishing those goals, which will, in turn, show how to maximize the outcome with the least amount of effort.
After that discussion takes place and a direction is selected, a starting point is established. That’s not to say that a side trip can’t find its way into the road to accomplishing the desired result, but it will keep all participants driven to accomplish the original goal (and perhaps a few extras along the way).
Since this publication tends to lean in the direction of responsible gun ownership and personal safety, we’ll focus on those areas with perhaps a few digressions.
The first order of business is to become educated on how to handle a firearm safely before and after it’s loaded. The simple tenets of muzzle management and trigger finger discipline provide an excellent foundation to build on for both general safe handling and successful shooting. Plenty of other rules and firearms standards of etiquette can be added, as applicable, but muzzle management and trigger finger discipline are the place to start prior to proper nomenclature and handling.
A good place to start is to select a gun that fits the hand well enough so as to point naturally when the hand and arm are extended.
Nomenclature is important in that a functioning knowledge of the names of the parts of the gun greatly enriches communication and understanding between you and the student. Where handguns are the primary focus, revolvers and semi-automatics should be addressed to provide a greater understanding of the positive and negative attributes of each. Simple things, like serial number location and where to find identifiers for proper ammunition selection, are often overlooked but are important to students new to firearms.
When covering maintenance — the specifics of cleaning, lubrication, preservation and function checks — it is a good time to explain and demonstrate all of the safety mechanisms and how they work. This instills confidence in the student as he or she learns how the mechanical device actually operates.
A good next step is to enter into the discussion of caliber, size and type of gun that would best fit the student’s needs for the immediate future. Hand size, strength, body type and gender should be considered, especially if the intent is to carry concealed after the training.
Perhaps a short discussion on Newton’s law referencing recoil and its relationship to the size and weight of the gun in specific calibers used for defensive purposes would be beneficial. Many people look at a gun for convenience and perhaps visual appeal. These are primary reasons that lots of guns that are small and have fancy finishes find their way into the possession of many first-time buyers who haven’t taken the time to answer the critical questions of what, why and how. Modern folklore tends to push buyers toward calibers unmanageable by the first-time buyer. (After all, everybody knows that a .45 will knock a man flat with just a mere hit to the pinky finger, right?) The assumption is that the shooter will hit with that .45, but a hit with a .22 trumps a miss with a .45 all day, every day.
A good place to start is to select a gun that fits the hand well enough so as to point naturally when the hand and arm are extended (as if the shooter were pointing at the target with his or her index finger). The second part of the equation is for the index finger to reach and be able to pull the trigger without repositioning the gun in the hand from the initial fit. This applies regardless of whether the handgun choice is a revolver or semi-automatic.
After the safety aspects of handling a handgun are firm in the student’s grasp, a brief sidebar on ammunition will add to the learning process.
Caliber-wise, a proper jumping-off point for an “all-purpose” or defensive handgun is 9x19mm in an auto or the .38 Special, most often found in revolvers. Both calibers are adequate for defensive use and are manageable in medium-sized handguns for the vast majority of gun owners. Any good firearms trainer should be able to coax, at a minimum, acceptable performance out of a student using these guidelines.
After the safety aspects of handling a handgun are firm in the student’s grasp, a brief sidebar on ammunition will add to the learning process. Subjects like the differences in cost and performance between training and carry ammunition, as well as how to properly mate load to gun, build knowledge and confidence at the same time. Nice-to-know information could include dissecting a cartridge down to its individual components and how those components function together when fired in a handgun.
Armed with the knowledge of safe handling, nomenclature and how the gun functions, the student is ready to learn how to accomplish the actual objective of shooting: hitting the target. It’s really a very simple matter of stabilizing the muzzle (where the bullet leaves the gun) on the target and causing the gun to fire by pulling the trigger without adding any more movement to the gun than possible. It’s no more complicated than that.
To preface the next few steps, I feel it necessary to explain that we sometimes deviate from traditional training methodologies by removing roadblocks to success as opposed to suggesting that a student perform certain tasks with an undetermined amount of repetitions to achieve success.
For the first-time shooter (and others having difficulty with the flinching), the first steps should be noise and recoil inoculation drills that will remove those roadblocks.
We take into account that humans are hardwired for self-preservation. What this means to a person learning to shoot is the loud noise of the gun firing and the movement of the gun toward his or her face and eyes at the moment of discharge is disconcerting. This leads to stimulation of involuntary movement to protect vision and physical safety, which moves the muzzle off-target and results in a less than desirable hit. The action usually exhibited by the shooter is closing the eyes, pushing the gun forward to counter the anticipated recoil and jerking the trigger to get the unpleasantness over with as quickly as possible.
This type of behavior, often referred to as a flinch, is common to many shooters — new and old — because they have never been made aware of the root cause or been coached through overcoming that natural response to the discharge of a firearm.
For the first-time shooter (and others having difficulty with the flinching), the first steps should be noise and recoil inoculation drills that will remove those roadblocks. In the 30 minutes or less it takes to address those concerns, major barriers to progressing forward are removed.
The first five or six shots at a target should be on something like a paper plate or clean sheet of copy paper at a range of 10 to 15 feet, just having the student align the sights on what he or she perceives as center. What we are looking for here is a nice round group, which means the student is consistently operating the gun biomechanically with his or her hands and fingers. If the group is half-dollar size or less, it indicates that he or she is, in fact, seeing and using the sights without adding motion to the gun as the trigger is operated. Some really good diagnostic work can be done here, which will pay dividends in the marksmanship development.
The Reset Drill is little more than firing the Bullet Hole Drill with the addition of controlling the trigger backward and forward from the first shot release through the end of the drill.
This can be followed by the Bullet Hole Drill, which challenges the shooter to shoot a group at a previously shot bullet hole — the goal being all shots touching in one ragged hole. This teaches the shooter to maintain consistent visual attention on the sights through the exit of the bullet from the muzzle and helps the trainer to diagnose when the student falls prey to improper follow-through.
This leads us to the Reset Drill, which enables the shooter to fire multiple shots accurately and consistently. The Reset Drill is little more than firing the Bullet Hole Drill with the addition of controlling the trigger backward and forward from the first shot release through the end of the drill. The idea is to move the trigger, causing the gun to fire; reset the trigger, controlling it forward to the reset point as the muzzle lifts off the target; and then move the trigger back again as the muzzle settles back on target, discharging the subsequent shot as the muzzle stabilizes in its previous location on the target. Initially, technique is the focus of the Reset Drill, but speed will come quickly.
Using these drills as a foundation, you can increase distance, introduce time limitations, increase the number of targets the shooter must engage and more before adding a holster and the concept of carrying spare ammunition when carrying a gun.
The best advice that can be given is to perpetually remain a student, no matter your level of proficiency and capability.
At the beginning of this article, I referenced defining goals and specific reasons for owning and perhaps carrying a handgun. After a firm foundation of safety, proper handling and marksmanship is in place, an individual can start to equip himself or herself and train with more specific goals in mind.
Responsible citizens carrying concealed will start to learn about the legal aspects of concealed carry in their areas, what kinds of holsters and extra ammunition carriers might best suit their needs, what carry locations will afford the best comfort, and so on. The consideration list seems infinite.
The best advice that can be given is to perpetually remain a student, no matter your level of proficiency and capability. The path to effective firearms training begins with a desire to learn and only ends when the desire no longer exists.
