So, You’ve Seen the World’s Best Pistol Shooters on YouTube and Want to Be Like Them?
Me Too. How Do We Begin Our Journey?
Tips for Beginning Competitive Shooting by Shepard Humphries (2014)
Enter a competition. Don’t feel ready because of your marksmanship skills? Enter a competition anyway. I’m not suggesting that if you’re weak in gun handling skills, you should endanger yourself or others, but if you’re simply concerned that you won’t shoot well or get a good score—you’re probably correct. But no worries! Shoot anyway and have a blast!
A friend asked me about the right gun to start in competitive pistol shooting. Hear my response in the podcast below:
When I compete in any match, be it IDPA, USPSA, or simply a falling plates match, I attend with the attitude of having fun and sticking to fundamentals. I’ve never won a match or even been in second place. I’m okay with this because I enter with a positive attitude. I never mention to others that I’m a shooting instructor; instead, I humbly identify the best “old-timers” who know the game inside and out and request that they critique me. Most of them provide excellent and positive advice, and I don’t have to shell out the hourly fee I charge my students!
One strategy is to NEVER MISS. In USPSA, the shooter wants to hit the “A” zone, which is the small center area of the chest and head on the cardboard target. The goal is to take as much time as necessary to get ALL “A” zone hits. Even if your time is significantly slower than others, if you hit all “A” zones, you can walk away happy.
Speed is important in these matches, but be patient—it will come with time. After a few matches, you’ll improve and find that you’re no longer in last place, which feels great (or so I’ve heard).
So, you’ve competed in a match and are having fun laughing at yourself and about all you have the opportunity to learn, right? This brings us to the second big tip: PRACTICE. As we know, proper practice makes perfect. Shoddy practice makes shoddy results, so make sure your practice follows the proper fundamentals.
You can do much of this practice at home without live ammunition. Set up a “stage” in your house with targets placed around the room. Ensure your pistol is unloaded and no ammo is in the area. Run through the stage 10 times, which should take less than 10 minutes. Do this daily for a month, and you’ll see significant improvement.
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Practicing on the range with live ammo is also important. Most small-town competitive shooters who win matches are shooting 500 to 5,000 rounds a month in practice. This can be expensive, so many reload their own ammunition. With my progressive reloader, I can reload about 500 rounds per hour at a cost of about $6.60 per box of 50 in .45ACP. This allows me to shoot about 750 rounds for $100 a month, far more than factory ammo would allow.
Brian Enos’ website offers excellent advice for those considering reloading equipment. He’s fair and honest and won’t advise you to buy junk you don’t need.
There are many more tips and drills for improving your competitive shooting skills. To shoot with Absolute Excellence, one must hone their skills! You’ll learn many of them while competing.
For now, remember not to miss and to practice. Simple? Yes. It works!
Shepard Humphries
