All of these positions can be practiced with a clear weapon. Just correctly placing one self in these positions repetitively, holding weapon, maintaining sight picture on target and squeezing a dead trigger will establish the muscle memory and build his confidence. Teach him well, smoke the posers!
People buy expensive equipment to show off, but also to buy confidence. That’s fine unless they don’t practice, or don’t practice effectively, and then they lose confidence and interest. You’re seeing it in shooting, but that’s nothing compared to the guys that golf.
Make time to practice, spend money on ammo.
If he becomes concerned that his equipment is limiting his performance, shoot the gun from a rest and see how it performs.
Expensive equipment gets to be necessary when you are shooting with the best shooters with the best equipment. Its tough to beat a top shooter shooting top equipment. That being said, if you are not going to put in lots of purposeful practice, no amount of fancy equipment is going to help. Having your juniors getting clobbered shooting substandard equipment is not good for morale either.
The old master.....Harry Pope:
https://www.issa-schuetzen.org/off-h...-shooting.html
Cognitive Dissident
Already been said, but practice is the key.
May want to look at CMP, they sell refurbished target Daisy air rifles for not much more than a hundred dollars, peep sights included. And they used to sell top quality practice pellets for cheap money.
Probably talking 5000 practice shots for way less than $200.
Practice makes perfect.
https://thecmp.org/wp-content/uploads/DaisyUsed_w.jpg
Wonder how he/we can become cmp members?Originally Posted by 15meter
The BSA Shooting Merit Badge hand book is written for new shooters. A good book for rifle shooters is the Muzzleloading Cap Lock Rifle by Ned Roberts, it includes sections by Pope.
To start the teaching or learning process you need a rifle and ammo combination that actually shoots well enough to teach with, so the student never becomes discouraged because they think an equipment inaccuracy or failures is all on them and not the gun or the ammo.
Improvement is a great incentive to improve. So always end a lesson with some improvement, if you can.
Sounds like the rifles you mentioned do not have target sights, a partridge front and a receiver sight rear, that is both windage and elevation adjustable and repeatable. Kentucky windage is OK for cans, not so much for a bullseye target shooting. You really need to adjust sights in target shooting, and never adjust the hold. Adjusting the hold is a WAG, dopeing the light and wind, then adjusting your sights accordingly is a major learned process, and a match winner, especially in small bore competition. Small bore is very difficult to master as you have little control of the ammunition, most production guns are not even remotely made for target shooting, and too boot, the groups are measured with a micrometer not a ruler, when shot by an ammo and gun combination not capable, can be very frustrating.
Last edited by Rapier; 05-28-2024 at 10:33 AM.
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Don't think you need membership to order Airguns/pellets.
I believe being in 4-H is enough to allow you to order rifles.
To order rifles and or ammunition, you need "proven Marksmanship ability" and a club affiliation of some kind. If you are exmilitary, your DD-214 covers for the Marksmanship portion. Club affiliation can be a local gun club that is affiliated with the CMP. Or the Garand collectors association. I think VFW or American Legion may also qualify.
Proven Marksmanship ability is the printed results of a rifle match or print off the form from the website and have a range officer sign off that you can handle a rifle safely.
It's all detailed on the CMP website.
Good luck.
And it is too much fun to beat the high buck guns with a basic rifle.
We used to shoot an airgun league at one of my clubs, I won it several years in a row with a 60 year old Benjamin 317 air rifle. I was shooting against Fienwerkbau(sp?) and Anshutz(sp?) rifles.
Difference was I shot 25-50 rounds each day in my shed, they usually only shot on league shoot day.(And the eyes were better then)
They got better and I had to step up to an RWS 54 to keep beating them.
It was still a rifle that cost 25% what theirs cost.
It was too much fun.
Practice, practice, practice!
And consider tuning up the triggers, I still have my Glenfield Model 25, and 20,000+ rounds has not improved the trigger one bit.
The Marlin probably has a better trigger to start with.
Consistent, light trigger pull is one of the keys to accurate rifle shooting.
Do a search for "Glenfield Model 25 trigger upgrade"
You'll find a number of options from $100+ replacement triggers to massage your own instructions.
Good luck.
Last edited by 15meter; 05-28-2024 at 02:00 PM.
https://shop.thecmp.org/product/Shoo...0Equipment/409
Price has gone up, used to be considerably cheaper.
Thanks bidenomics.
I believe his 4 H competition will satisfy the one and then belong to an affiliated club. Go to the cmps website and they will have it listed.
If hes shooting a scope hell have the adjustments he needs just make sure he has a dime in his pocket.
A big help if shooting on the ground is a mat to sit kneel and lay on. a carpet remnant will work better is one of the rubber floor mats you buy by the foot, best is an actual shooting mat.
Also keep us posted how he does inquiring minds ( just plain Nosey) want to know.
North Carolina Rifle and Pistol Association may be able to help you locate a club in your area that hosts matches and training. They may be able to help you locate a school air rifle team. My old club sponsored a dozen kids on their high school team with rifles, pellets, instruction and gunsmithing. They also distribute donated ammo.
I shoot in a pistol club with a very diverse group of guys. Several are excellent shooters. $300 guns regularly beat $5000 guns. While more money can improve a professional shooter, I'm betting at the 4H level a bit of practice and learned skill, your sons Marlin will compete with and beat a fancy rifle.
Thanks guys. Yesterday we had official club training and he shot the wrong target. We need some work.
Nowhere to go but up!
Shooting the wrong target has even happened in the Olympics. Just have to learn from it.
Crossfire happens, we had one guy at our varmint matches that crossfired regularly. For a while we were putting one of the old style kerosene burning road flares under his target.
He started to pay more attention. He actually shot pretty good scores when he kept all his shots on his target.
Or he could be wrong eye dominant, first time I took my daughter shooting, I hung two targets side by side. Told her to shoot the left target, almost a bullseye on the right target.
Chewed her out for not knowing her left from her right.
Had her shoot again, same thing, watched her for the third shot, shooting right handed but leaning way over using her left eye.
She's extremely left eye dominant, which causes her endless problems when shooting. She's right handed but the eye dominance thing screws her up.
Can she try a "pirates' patch" on the left eye? I personally believe you can train yourself out of that extreme dominance with practice.
Cognitive Dissident
I've had my eye dominance swap a few times. These help a bunch:
http://eyeblindllc.biz/
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