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Accurately shooting a gun: It’s just two things

Whether you are shooting a pistol, a rifle, or a shotgun it really is this simple

In a world of complexity it really is as simple as this:

  1. Point the muzzle and what needs to be shot.
  2. Move the trigger straight back, without moving the muzzle off the target.

Whether you are shooting a pistol, a rifle, or a shotgun it really is this simple. If we do both of these tasks acceptably we will always hit what we want to. When we miss, it is because we are doing one or both sub-optimally.

There may be nuances to both elements driven by context; standing flat-footed 3 yards in front of a large paper target is different from moving across a parking lot trying to hit a person that is shooting back, but the two principles apply universally.

Whether you are coaching others or self-diagnosing and building your own skills, accuracy and efficiency will always come back to just two things.

Leon Reha’s police career began more than two decades ago in London. He served as a patrol officer, a trainer and as a member of the elite Metropolitan Police Specialist Firearms Command. Now residing in the U.S., he oversees the firearms training division of a police academy. He is an advanced Force Science analyst, a SIG SAUER academy instructor, and a regular training conference attendee and presenter.