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Top Shooting Mistakes
The No. 1 mistake most people who have a handgun make is also the easiest to correct.
1. Not Shooting / Practicing Often Enough
The actual physical act of going to a range, loading the handgun and shooting it is the biggest problem. Most people who CCW simply do not shoot enough.
Once a year, or less, at the range and a box of shells is not enough. Spend time and shells at the range and some, perhaps all, of the problems these experts identify will go away. The reasons to shoot are far too numerous to mention here, but one reason does merit publishing.
Shooting regularly teaches you how your firearm reacts and trains you how to work with it instead of against it.
2. Anticipating recoil
“This more than any other thing (except practice, see #1), creates problems for the shooter. Instructors often do a bad job, with novice shooters by not fully explaining what is going on when you squeeze a trigger,” said Saxon, a firearms instructor with multiple certifications and more than 600 classes as an instructor in his holster. “They then begin trying to anticipate or control this occurrence which leads to the bullet not striking the intended target. Shooters have to learn to allow the gun to go off, and not to try and make the gun go off. The distinction is real and important.”
3. Jerks
Saxon, a certified three-gun instructor since 2000, links this problem to recoil. Too many shooters either think they need to bear down the trigger to make it shoot or they anticipate recoil and start the jerk-and-flinch reaction before the hammer ever drops. The jerk motion causes the gun to dip down. Pulling the trigger and the resulting controlled “chemical explosion in your hand” should not come as a surprise, he said.
True, in some double-action revolvers pulling the hammer back by way of the trigger is a Herculean task. My CCW is a “hammerless” Charter Arms .38. I’ve put it into the hands of some small-framed people who simply could not pull the trigger. I suggested they consider a smaller caliber autoloader. Saxon recommends the Glock 19. “An easy portable package with 15 rounds of felon repellant in a standard magazine. Light, easy to carry, easy to practice with; practice 9mm ammo is cheap. Good combinations,’ he said.