Congratulations, you’ve bought your first firearm! Hopefully, you have taken the steps to learn how to properly use it by signing up for an instructional shooting class at your local range. These classes go over a variety of important topics, including the core fundamentals like how to handle and transport your gun, the best ways to store it, and how to keep children from getting their hands on your pistol.
It’s all in the vein of making sure you know how to use your gun and can be a responsible gun owner. There are some mistakes that shooting newbies make in class.
Here are five errors new gun owners make and how to avoid them, so you don’t look like a total amateur.
The Wrong Stance
Most new gun shooters have a stance that is rigid and upright. This doesn’t help to compensate for the recoil that is inevitably going to come when you shoot the gun. That’s why it’s better to lean forward slightly, moving your head and center of gravity at an angle from your waist. The right stance will help you move faster and respond with better accuracy when pistol shooting.
Trigger Slapping
Slapping the trigger means that you pull the trigger so fast that you misalign the gun’s sights. The result is an inaccurate shot. Most beginners do this from seeing how people shoot in the movies. You need to have a steady trigger pull without putting a lot of pressure on the trigger, so you don’t mess up the line of your shot. The goal is to have a steady and measured shot trigger pull, so that your accuracy is on target.
Incorrectly Lining Up the Shot
The sight is just the aiming device of the gun. Learning how to gauge sight alinement is vital for an accurate shot. Many new gun users tend to just look straight ahead at the target without using the sights correctly and that will lead to incorrectly lining up the shot.
Bad Hand Placement
There are two big mistakes that people make with bad hand placement. They don’t raise their support hand high enough on the frame of the gun when gripping and the firing hand isn’t in the right place either where it needs to be, which is high and firm on the tang of the gun. You need a solid grip in the right place with both hands for the best shot possible. Learning the right habits from the very beginning will help you be a better shooter in the long run.
Not Performing a Safety Check
This is practically the first thing they teach in any new instructional class, and yet, instructors see people come into their subsequent classes and don’t perform the proper safety check when they pick up a gun. How dangerous is that? Very. Plus, you should never trust anyone’s say-so that a gun is or isn’t loaded. Do the safety check for yourself. Always.
