Project Appleseed

"I don't care who you are, you'll improve your skills more by practicing than by shopping."

A musician friend of mine said that recently, talking about a musician's tendency to buy new gear instead of sitting down and practicing. It's an easy trap to fall into.

How many of us do the same thing, but with firearms? How often do we lust after a new doo-dad we don't have, but don't practice with the gear we do? I know I don't.

Practice is... Hard. Inconvenient. Boring. Time-consuming. Costly. It gets in the way of my life. I have too many things to do, and I'd rather not... practice.

It's easy to shop for new stuff, for more stuff, for better stuff. It's fun. It's exciting. But will it *really* make me better at what I'm trying to do? I mean, how well did that work for the last doo-dad I bought? You know, the one I only used once or twice before looking for something else? Honestly, I've got enough gear to cover the basics of what I want to do. We don't need more stuff; we need more practice.

So go out there & practice! Help each other out. Form a group. Practice together. Don't worry if you're not that good at it; the other people aren't, either. Put it on the calendar. Make it a habit; something you do as a regular part of your life.

What have you got to lose?
What do you stand to gain?

Practice. It does a body good.

Huzzah!

It is not only a tendency not to practice.  When I do practice, I tend to want to practice the things I do relatively well.  The things I do poorly, like shooting off-hand, are painful and I tend to want to avoid them.

 I call it buying talent. A friend of mine shoots competitively, and does extremely well. If you saw the equipment he uses, you'd shake your head and laugh. And people do. From the used barrels, ebay  scope mounts, refurbished scopes, to the sanded 2x4 bolted the handguard for a handhold. He'll use dogtown bullets and surplus gun powder. He'll buy the cheapest primers he can find.  The gun is essentially junk. Yet he'll score 94+% every weekend with it. He has his fundamentals down, and dry fires daily. Other competitors cannot understand why they cannot outshoot him with their custom rifle with the $500 barrel. Practice, practice, practice.

Okay, got off my duff and shot an AQT off the porch with the air rifle at 25 yards.

Mark, What are you using for an air rifle?
I am currently looking at a Crossman Marauder so I can practice at home instead at the range.
I can get approx. 25 yd. Also will make a good garden rabbit rifle.
Mike

It's a marauder, FT model .177, it gets about 62 rounds from 3000 psi until it falls off the regulator about 1750 psi.
Also have a .25 caliber marauder, it gets just over 20 shots per fill.

I agree, to en extent.

At some level subpar gear hinders a shooter. If its a really great shooter it hinders them less. New shooters, or shooters will less practiced fundamentals, that gear issue becomes more pronounced.

A new shooter with a $100 leather sling and a $300 hardback shooting jacket still wont be clearing a standing target. You give that same gear to a shooter who knows what he is about and shooting a clean offhand target is well within their reach.

Dont knock new, better gear just to be salty. It takes skill also.

Excellent point Nashville Stage. As instructors we see it all the time. Assuming the rifle is functioning within parameters and properly zeroed, the vast majority of what causes poor marksmanship is the shooter - not the rifle. Many years ago I had two students who came with tarted up ARs. I mean they had about every widget one could get. They were shooting shotgun patterns at 25M. When an instructor would offer suggestions, they would bark profanities. Two of these instructors came up to me, one at a time, to tell me that that shooters had cussed them - "get the F out of my face."

I simply suggested following the shooter's directions. The IIT was flabbergasted - but, but they need instruction. Yes they do, but they don't want it and you need to move on to someone who does. Anyone who paid $80 for marksmanship instruction and then refuses same, cannot be taught. They left early, declaring that their next new zippy secret squirrel widget was inbound and when they got it - they would be crack shots. Proof ro your point sir. It's not the nut on the rifle - it's the nut behind the butt.

I recently ran a KD and my favorite rifle went down the weekend before, leaving me without anything to shoot. Improvise, adapt, overcome. I grabged the upper I use for action rifle. I paid $180 for it complete - cheapest AR I own and not all al well suited to KD. I shot a 37/40 without really trying. I had failed to make score at this same venue the last time I was there - favorite rifle kept malfing and I kept trying to get it to go. All I really needed was some dry fire practice and a rifle that worked properly.

Solid gear matters, but once you have that, the rest is perfect practice.