As I work myself back into pistol after being off for injury for 6 months, I’m assessing and working on parts of my skill sets that have atrophied and I got to thinking:
What does it mean to be a good (pistol) shooter (by your own personal definition)?
To be ahead of the gun. To see the sights lift, and know where your shots went. My goal for pistols, shotguns, carbines and rifles. i guess this applies to a lot of other disciplines as well.
"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master"
Short answer: High "B" class.
On demand:
Smooth consistent sub 1.25 hits from concealment to the "A" zone.
Very quick "A" zone hits from 3 to 25 yards.
2.5 second Bill drills at 7 yards
Facility in any jackass position.
The ability to deliver precise fire to a B-8 black at "assessment speed", as promulgated by DB and WD.
Thorough understanding of the effects of sudden life threatening emergencies on the mind/body, and well practiced steps to control/mitigate them. Regular, calculated exposure to time stress, risk and danger.
Managed expectations of the effectiveness of bullet wounds on the human mind/body. The understanding to shoot enough, but not too much.
Well understood Deadly Force law and best practices before, during and after incidents.
Cultivated zanshin, mushin and fudoshin.
Great post.Originally Posted by feudist
Also, this maybe a deflection of the question but I am more interested in becoming a gooder shooter than a good shooter. I’m happy if I can keep learning and improving.
So, I would add Shoshin to @feudists list of mindset features. Always be a student. Embrace a growth mindset and the failure that accompanies it.
“There is no growth in the comfort zone.”--Jocko Willink
"You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
A good shooter applies the Cooper rules.
Background: In the country where I live, if you want to shoot in IPSC, you have to take a course and pass an exam. The instructor in this course said: "The most important thing in IPSC is safety." My additional thought: Most important for safety are the 4 Cooper rules. On the other hand, I have been swept sometimes (muzzle of an allegedly empty pistol pointed in my direction). Don't like this kind of shooters at all. I talked with a police officer about it, who trained in our shooting club. He said, when a police officer does this to one of his colleagues, then "he gets an elbow". I think this is good medicine for the sweeper, but have not applied it yet. But the most stubborn sweeper I ever met was eventually kicked out of our club (after he got several chances). Don't know, if they also told the police. I suppose, legally this could be enough to revoke his weapons license (according to §5 German weapons law).
How do you treat a sweeper? I told the stubborn sweeper, not to sweep. Douchebag replied, gun is empty. But the slide of the pistol was not locked back, it was closed, I could not see if the pistol was loaded or empty. I was in a good mood that day, unfortunately did not give him an elbow.
Last edited by P30; 07-11-2022 at 12:28 PM.
I would rank such a person as a phenomenal shooter while being cognizant of the fact there are many better. I recall TLG opining once that a 7 second FAST would demonstrate a strong understanding of the fundamentals.
In the end - I guess it all comes down to semantics. I consider myself a “good shooter” in the wide picture but among the PF Community (or others like it) a merely “competent shooter with a lot to learn.”
Last edited by Suvorov; 07-11-2022 at 12:21 PM.
To be clear: I peaked as a "B" class by about .0735% in 2001.
I've been downhill ever since.
Now I just plug along.
My strengths are a lifelong dim view of human nature, 28 years of ghetto copping, and a relaxed aura of radiated hate.
Man, I swear I'm not trying to get lost in the weeds here an make what was meant as a simple question hard, but this is another point. Flat range skills versus real world skills. You can take some .Com Nerd with Jerry Miculek skills but in a real world environment would he ever be able to make up the 5 seconds he lost identifying the threat that you identified in 1?
I guess that is what you added on at the end of your definition.
Good is relative and as we used to say in the Army (where according to doctrine I was an "Expert" Lol) - "METT-T dependent."
Last edited by Suvorov; 07-11-2022 at 01:01 PM. Reason: spelling. I swear I think apple is just screwing with me!
I would say that's not necessarily being a "good shooter" as much as it is a good practitioner of defensive firearm use.Man, I swear I'm not trying to get lost in the weeds here an make what was meant as a simple question hard, but this is another point. Flat range skills versus real world skills. You can take some .Com Nerd with Jerry Miculek skills but in a real world environment would he ever be able to make up the 5 seconds he lost indemnifying the threat that you identified in 1?
I guess that is what you added on at the end of your definition.
Good is relative and as we used to say in the Army (where according to doctrine I was an "Expert" Lol
Everything that happens left of bang doesn't have a lot to do with the actual mechanics of using a gun.
There's also a lot about flat range and target shooting that doesn't apply to fighting.
It is most certainly worth knowing though.
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Absolutely.
To me, the 3 non-negotiables are awareness, the willingness to act on awareness(even if it hurts someone's feelings) and the wherewithal to equalize...
It only gets better from there with practice, study and training.
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