Maximal achievable accuracy from prone w/GI sling

[Roland]

I pretty much agree with jrturbo and Nickle. Nothing wrong with learning how to shoot better. Plus, won't that make us better instructors.

Ram, that is a pretty awesome avatar. I might be stealing that arrangement in the future!

[SPQR]

Not necessarily. 

If you are a sub MOA shooter and you cannot connect with students, deliver sound PoI, and help folks understand why they need to become active in civics then you won't be much of an Appleseed instructor.  You will just be a sub MOA shooter.

Teaching is only 20% content knowledge.  By far the greater part of teaching is the ability to build relationships with the students.  If you can shoot a 230 it won't mean anything to a soccer mom on Saturday morning. 

Competitive shooting does need to be propagated, and we need more gun ranges, but being a better competitive shooter only has an oblique effect in your ability as a teacher.  Gary Anderson, a guy many would consider the nation's best competitive shooter, understood this and that is why he called Bill Pullum the best marksmanship instructor in the world.  Pullum, who was known as an average competitive shooter ( I heard one guy say that he used to call himself "Alsoran" in the early days), believed that the psychological aspect of shooting was the greater part and even considered it a higher ratio than I do (90%).  In fact, his book "Position Rifle Shooting", which he claims is for the competition shooter, is easily three quarters about psychology.  That said, our content knowledge about positions, equipment, and ammunition holds only a marginal value to us as coaches and teachers compared with our ability to relate to the psychology of the student.

As an organization we can all be better shooters.  It never hurts to improve oneself.  As and organization of instructors, though, it always surprises me a little bit that I never read a post about someone asking one of their old teachers that had some ability what their secret was.  We don't have enough conversations about time management.  We don't have enough conversations about classroom management.  We don't have enough conversations about the effect strict safety has on the attention span, mood, and confidence of a student.  We don't have enough conversations about what it was that an old teacher did that inspired you.  If we want to be better teachers we should ask great teachers how they got good.  It would probably help to ask some folks who don't teach marksmanship and then compare it to ourselves.

We aren't a Marksmanship organization.  We are a Citizenship organization with a durn good marksmanship component.     

[The Almighty Ram]

Great points, all. I personally believe it's possible to do both; pursue marksmanship as well as spread the word, and while being competent, but poor at communication is not a good thing, being good at both can really "wow" a student and have them talking about appleseed with all of their friends.

[The Almighty Ram]

I pretty much agree with jrturbo and Nickle. Nothing wrong with learning how to shoot better. Plus, won't that make us better instructors.

Ram, that is a pretty awesome avatar. I might be stealing that arrangement in the future!

Thanks! This was actually part of a video I took with my phone at the range to see if I was flinching with my S&W 629 44 magnum. I paused the video & thought that it'd make a pretty cool picture!

Your avatar's quite awesome too, being the cover to one of my favorite books of all time. The Deliverator would be proud! My signature is a quotation from Snow Crash, you might recognize.

[NHale]

If you are consistently making the Red Coat bucket shot, you're doing about 3 MOA by 4 MOA. Bear in mind that accuracy is a slightly different critter than precision. Precision is group size, accuracy is hitting what you are aiming at.

Consistently hitting the proverbial 7 inch square at 250 yards would be about 2.8 MOA. IMHO, that would be an excellent, and reasonably attainable goal for anyone willing to apply what Appleseed teaches.

NH

[goose]

I can't speak to the exact MOA, but maybe "minute of steel"...we had a most excellent KD in Elbert County, GA a couple of weeks ago. Of several shooters in the group of some 20+, the first, Kestak, put 5 of 5 on steel at 600 yds.  When you walk downrange and look back at your vehicle, just the idea of hitting the vehicle appears daunting.  "Prone" steel silhouette, no less.  You know you've found the men and women who know very well what they are about who can do this, and be humble, and still persevere to be better.