Peter Lessler - Gun Digest Shooters Guide to Handgun Marksmanship

This book is not about handguns. Nor is it about holsters, or concealed carry, or fighting tactics, or winning practical shooting matches. There are many good books, DVDs, and schools on such subjects, and I encourage you investigate them. This book is, instead, about three concepts. First, its about how to think about keeping yourself aware, safe, and ready in environments where self-defense with a handgun may be necessary. Second, its also about learning to shoot a pistol with consistent sufficient accuracy, recoil control, and the learned physical and mental reflexes that allow the development of the high-speed application of that accuracy. Finally, its about learning all the necessary handling techniques to support fast and accurate shooting: safe gun handling, the draw from a belt holster, reloading, and clearing malfunctions under stress. These are the foundational skills that form a complete skill set and allow progression to a high performance level. They will serve you equally well in a self-defense encounter or in shooting a practical competition event simulating such situations. (Why the aspect of competition? Because a mid-level competitive practical shooter is probably at the ninety-fifth or higher percentile skill level compared to all other handgun owners, including the government employee types.) This book will help you get there.

The method of properly using a large-caliber pistol for the purpose of self-defense underwent a major advance in the latter half of the twentieth century. Led by former Marine Lt. Col. Jeff Cooper and a group of his friends comprised of civilian recreational shooters, law enforcement officers, and hunters, this effort used open, freestyle competition to develop and compare ideas, equipment, and techniques against scenarios based on personal combat experiences and other actual instances of shootouts. By the end of that century, techniques allowing great advances in fast and accurate shooting had been devised, along with an understanding of how both the pistol and the human mind are best used in defensive situations. What has since been named the Modern Technique of the Pistol was born, it being equal parts marksmanship, gun handling, and mindset. The following section deals with these concepts, but geared to the beginner and intermediate shooter. While there is no substitute for training under with qualified coach, it is my intent to provide sufficient material here to enable a beginner to learn, understand, and practice the Modern Technique correctly and with some capacity for self-analysis when a proper coach is unavailable.

The U.S. Army method of teaching skills is the crawl-walk-run method. One thing at a time, learned at a basic level, then more things, then performing at more advanced levels. Trying to make people run before they have mastered walking or even crawling is usually counter-productive. Ive seen a number of people in competition and training environments trying to do things far beyond their capacity and without recognizing the gaps in their abilities. Often they have no idea what theyre missing, and pride and ego prevent their listening to well-intentioned suggestions. They have the expensive and fancy gear and they watched some guy on TV or a DVD, and to them, thats what matters, right?

Wrong. Without knowing all the foundational skills, your performance will suffer. Without patiently working on each skill, the boredom of high repetition and the ego-bruising of honest self-evaluation sets in and your performance will suffer. Without a solid crawl-walk foundation, you will never learn to run at the high level most of us desire.

Did you see the Jim Starr quote? Running usually means performing what you already know how to do at the walk without error, but faster. My approach in this book focuses on the crawl-walk part. It is the most important part and, if I can get you from crawl to walk, well, youll have all the skills necessary to progress to the run on your own, or with help from a local competitor who runs well. So read, think, and train with this in mind. Care, patience, and determination in learning the following foundation can get you to that ninety-fifth percentile faster than you think.

Good shooting is good execution of the fundamentals.
Great shooting is great execution of the fundamentals
Jim Starr, coach of the Colorado junior high power rifle team,
quoting a champion shooter.

Before we delve into the art and science of pistol marksmanship, lets look at the basic gun handling safety rules, as codified by Col. Jeff Cooper.

This does not mean you keep all your guns loaded all the time. It means you always treat a gun as though it were loaded even when you know its not. The reason for this is that some people seem to think its okay to handle a gun less safely if they think it is unloaded, and the problem with that mindset is that they may be mistaken! I didnt know it was loaded! is the cry heard after an accidental (actually negligent) discharge. Know how to check if a gun is loaded or unloaded. Perform this check every time you handle a gun, and regardless what you know of guns condition, always treat it as if loaded, all the time.

Keep in control of your guns muzzle direction at all times and always keep it pointed in a safe direction. That means knowing and being aware of what and where a safe direction is. You are responsible every moment you have a gun in your hands.

The trigger fires the gun. You have no business casually placing your finger on the trigger while handling a gun in any manner other than the actual and specific act of firing. This is probably the worst habit untrained people display; their finger goes right on the trigger as soon as they pick up the gun. If youre not prepared to shoot, keep the finger straight along the outside of the trigger guard.

Do not fire at a sound or an unidentified shape. When practicing, make sure you have a safe backstop to halt every bullet you fire. Bullets tend to go through things, so, even if you hit your target, the bullet can keep going. A miss keeps going, too. Make sure you control where every bullet stops. A bullet has no friends once it leaves the gun muzzle, and you cant stop it or turn it back.

These rules must be adhered to at all times when handling guns, either on the range, at home, in a gun store or gun show, etc. There are no exceptions! Lives are at stake. Keep your wits about you and your mind on what youre doing whenever you handle a firearm. If you cant do two things at once, put the gun down, attend to whatever is distracting you, and then resume the gun business. These four rules must become second nature if you are to have anything to do with firearms. You are responsible every second you have a gun in your hands.