"The Rifleman's Dance"

[Newsletter]

"The Rifleman's Dance" By: Fred

If you've been to an Appleseed, you've prob heard of this - the Rifleman's Dance.

It's something every rifleman must do.

Key is the interaction of the rifleman-target relationship with the rifleman's goal of hitting the target.

The goal is to hit the target. More precisely, to increase the probability that the shot is going to hit the target.

We have a number of sayings in Appleseed. Every one of you has heard "the rifleman persists" one.

Others are "a rifleman fires every shot as if it were a sighter shot" and "a rifleman fires every shot rapid fire".

The first gets at the notion that you fire every shot like it's gonna provide valuable info for the next shot (which it will) - so you fire the shot as precisely as you can - BUT - and this is a big "BUT" - you also, after firing the shot, and calling it, look downrange to see what you can see. If you can see the impact of the bullet - whether hole in the paper, 'splash' in the form of dirt, dust, or mud being kicked up, or target reacting - then you integrate that info into the next shot, if one is needed.

To illustrate in a concrete and familiar setting: On the tough Stage 4 of the AQT, on those itty-bitty "400-yard" targets, a rifleman will do the Rifleman Dance. He HAS to, because the targets are small in relation to his 4 MOA group, and he can't afford to have the group off-center, even a little.

Which means...

    1)[A Rifleman] fires that first shot carefully - like it's a sighter shot, which it is.
    2)He calls the shot - because if he doesn't, he has to recycle and fire a 'good' shot. You do not adjust anything on a bad shot. You adjust on a good shot.
    3)So you call the shot "good", then look downrange on the target. If you don't see any changes, any "flyspecks" that weren't' there before, good. Your shot went into the silhouette, which is why you can't "spot" it. (A word here about vision: you will, if you keep at it - if you persist - soon develop acuteness of vision you never thought you'd have. The mind and body are wonderful in meeting demands you place on them. You never had the need to spot a .30 or .223 hole at 25m, so as a result, you can't do it now. But, if you start trying, you will find that, over time, you will start to see 'the flyspeck' of a shot out 'in the white'. And if you persist past that, you can start to see, not a flyspeck, but the hole itself. So if you try the Rifleman Dance, but can't spot the hole, KEEP AT IT - you'll develop the ability.)
    4)If you spot a flyspeck/hole, say at 6 o'clock, and you called the shot 'good', you better do something. Like change your sight picture (since you're firing your shots rapid fire, you don't take time to make a sight adjustment - simply, in this case, put the front sight higher into the black. If you started aiming at 6 o'clock, move up to Center of the Target (COT) for the next shot).

Develop this pattern, and stick to it: Fire a good shot, call it good, look downrange to spot the shot, then adjust as needed to make the next shot a better one. Simple as '1 - 2 - 3 - 4'...

It's called the Rifleman Dance. If you do the dance, you hit the target.

So, you do the dance.

Because you want to hit the target.
That's the only reason you fire the shot...