Training Newbie Mistakes

[Matt In Oklahoma]

I teach a lot of people every year to shoot. Sometimes it's organized and sometimes informal and usually runs a few hundred per year. There is always the dry work before shooting where they are taught handling, controls and safety. Despite the dry work every single time we step to the firing line I see the same issues which so far I have managed to properly correct before any injuries occurred.
One of the things I see in semi autos more from women than men is placing both thumbs behind the slide during the grip.
I also see the thumb wrapped around the wrist which the slide can then contact upon cycling.
I see a lot of itchy trigger fingers that will actually fight you to get into the trigger when you hand them the weapon. I grip the weapon in a manner to avoid this but i have actually had people try and fight/push me to get that finger on the trigger.
The rifle I see the head positioning go as far away from the sights as possible.
With children and women I see the stock slide under the shoulder into the armpit even though it is properly fitted.
With men I see a refusal to use both hands in handgun gripping

I am hoping to share and hoping to get some feedback on what you see as a trainer as well. This is not a judgement on the shooters but rather an informational trainer discussion to see if the same trends are everywhere.

[1Admin]

Had a gal do that VERY thing in the pic last Friday at a free afternoon pistol shoot I offered. I was more concerned over her incredible lack of safety that to be honest I didn't care much if her thumb got clipped. I felt bad cause I wasn't able to help the couple of others while the gal was there, but I had to stay "close enough" to her to make sure if she turned the gun TOO MUCH towards the line with the "booger hooker on the bang switch" that I could politely disarm her.

New shooters are often more concerned about hit placement than honestly they really need to be. While this gal was operating highly unsafely, she was more concerned about looking at every round and where it hit. Unfortunately she had good body hits so I'm sure in her mind she was "doing pretty good." What she didn't notice was the glaring safety issues that made everyone else back away from her and stay back till she was done shooting. I politely reminded and covered the finger safety deal several times with red guns before AND during, but I think the attention simply wasn't there. The others did really well, but had to wait till Ms. Safety Queen 2013 was finished shooting before they could put in the work.

Follow through would be the other/main thing. New folks lack trigger control, wrap WAAAAY too much of the finger around the "bang switch" to where it loses the "feel" that you get when you just use the pad of the tip. Then often they jump off the trigger as soon as they pull.

This one simple thing, if they worked on, would drastically improve their shooting. It's hard to do dry and I've met tons of folks that claimed to do all this dry work, but when the gun actually went bang, they often times jumped off the trigger too quick.

Wrote a video about it, wanna hear it here it go-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyPqx5nBp6E

PS- I was a good 40 lbs. heavier then :(

[Matt In Oklahoma]

New shooters are often more concerned about hit placement than honestly they really need to be.

A lot of times the weapon will come down after the shot and then the turn where they want to talk to you about the shot which means the weapon turns with them. Something to always watch for

I've been fortunate that only a few were ever real dangerous and were just bubbleheads that didn't need to have a weapon, or drive or breed for that matter. There will always be some stuff but most that I work with, even the kids 10 and up, understand the lethality and want to respect it and just need to be shown the correct way

[Grand58742]

Not only the trigger placement on the finger, but I see yanking it back as a consistent problem with new shooters. For some reason they feel the trigger is about a hundred pounds and they have to yank it home.

[Matt In Oklahoma]

Not only the trigger placement on the finger, but I see yanking it back as a consistent problem with new shooters. For some reason they feel the trigger is about a hundred pounds and they have to yank it home.

Thats cause they are shooting your gun :p and not a real one LOL

[RobertJ]

In "Basic Pistol" we usually have one student get some railroad tracks due to this. The worst we had was a split open thumb on an older gentelman in an advanced concealed cary class he had no business being in. Thats another story.The student was being watched by David (the owner/main instructor) due to blatent and hibitual safety violations. David had just told him for the umpteenth time about it and sweeping fellow classmates. David said "Your going to break your thumb" and if you point that pistol anywhere but downrange for the remainder of class you are going to be asked to leave without refund. David saw it happening, hollared cease fire and he pulled trigger as david was reaching for the slide to disarm him.
The rest of the class snapped right to after that demonstration by their classmate. Everyones gun handeling fell in line.

[RobertJ]

I have always started first time shooters and new shooters out on .22s to develop their basic skillset. Sight alignment, target picture, triggerpull,etc.. The .22s dont have the recoil, muzzle blast, concussion and noise that are the developers of bad habbits and flinching. Its wonderfull teaching a newbie. Its a lot of work trying to help a male who shoots BADLY and try and turn them. you usually get whining and I dont need to shoot .22s. Then I tell them to dry fire in all their spare time on primary weapons... you can tell they didnt at the next range day.

[Grand58742]

Thats cause they are shooting your gun :p and not a real one LOL

Hey, not everyone can pick up a Glock 19 they've never touched before and outshoot the owner when challenged. Not my fault someone didn't remember the 1911 mags only had 8 rounds.

[Matt In Oklahoma]

Hey, not everyone can pick up a Glock 19 they've never touched before and outshoot the owner when challenged. Not my fault someone didn't remember the 1911 mags only had 8 rounds.

LOL yep I told youngster "he got you by throwing that challenge out on this stage with the round count vs speed".

[Grand58742]

LOL yep I told youngster "he got you by throwing that challenge out on this stage with the round count vs speed".

Au contraire, he challenged me. I was content to finish out as I was lol.

"I'll pick up that 1911 and outshoot you with your own gun," says he. Of course I provoked said challenge by saying the "real man's gun" comment, but figured it would only spur him to do better on the final stage. I was wrong of course and the obligatory crap talking beforehand was hilarious.

[Lowdown3]

I have always started first time shooters and new shooters out on .22s to develop their basic skillset. Sight alignment, target picture, triggerpull,etc.. The .22s dont have the recoil, muzzle blast, concussion and noise that are the developers of bad habbits and flinching. Its wonderfull teaching a newbie. Its a lot of work trying to help a male who shoots BADLY and try and turn them. you usually get whining and I dont need to shoot .22s. Then I tell them to dry fire in all their spare time on primary weapons... you can tell they didnt at the next range day.

I think most people should start out on .22's

An interesting thing we did with the boy. When he was little he didn't have any true toy guns. I made him several very cool looking look alikes out of PVC pipe, including an RPG (OK that one was just for fun). Anywhoo, I did not include a trigger in any of the pipe guns. Some were sniper rifle looking, some looked like SMG's, etc. but not a one had a trigger to "wrap your booger hooker on the bang switch."

He was learning basic gun handling and safety with a BB gun next, then a .22. We ALWAYS stressed good trigger control. The AK .22 recently gave way to a full size Arsenal and the handling and safety aspects have transferred over nicely. And since the manipulations on the AK .22 are almost identical to the real thing, he's not taking a step back to learn new manipulations, he's just tightening them up on a larger caliber.

Back in the day at 19 years old the wife went to a few pistol classes with me and shot a Mark II. At $8.88 a box for 550 rounds I was more than happy about that and she got all her fundamentals down without stressing about the larger recoil and noise.

[Hiram]

I try to start newbies out on not only a .22 but on a revolver or a bolt rifle. It makes them stop and think about what they are doing between shots, not just pull the trigger again.

[RobertJ]

Hiram,
another thing to do to keep them from pulling the trigger as fast as they can to blast through a magazine/or cylinder is to only let them load 3-5 rounds at a time.
First day shooters (after classroom instruction) are brought to range after lunch brake. Go over safety one or two more times then are told to load mags to this capacity... to a one the air is deflated out of them, and disappointment on their faces. This helps develop skill set on newbs... as well as keeping class times on track, not as much time reloading. It also keeps fatigue down as well... you always get the one guy that no matter what wants to empty the mag as fast and inaccurately as possible... a favorite thing of mine to do to "that guy" is walk him up and down the firing line showing him his classmates targets and the rate of fire/accuracy they are using/getting. some times it works others are just very hard headed...

[610Alpha]

there was only 1 tiny box of 50 for .22 at wally world the other day....farm store had some boxes of 100 but man the prices are high not what they used to be.

Tul-ammo for x39 and 5.56 are back to "normal" prices.