When starting out in rifle shooting why standing first (inst

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pdeal

When starting out in rifle shooting why standing first (inst

Post by pdeal »

When I started shooting they always started jrs in prone progressed through the positions and ended at standing. It is my understanding that now after getting used to the rifle on a rest shooters are moved directly to standing. I can't find the rational for this anywhere. Can someone explain this to me?
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Pete W

Re: When starting out in rifle shooting why standing first (

Post by Pete W »

: ...<snip>...shooters are moved directly to standing...<snip>... explain ...?
The standing position is the most inherently natural position in which to hold a rifle. Walk through a gun shop and watch people examining the rifles. they pick them up and put them to their shoulders, they do no lie down with them, even where the floors are sufficiently clean to allow such behavior. Rifles were designed to be shot from the shoulder, standing. By starting in this position there is less that needs to be learned about the positon, and more attention can be paid to the sight picture and trigger control.
Further, which position usually leaves the greatest number of points remaining to be harvested by those willing to do the extensive training required? Standing. Being the least stable, with the least ground contact, the scores tend to be lower. Therefore, by emphasizing training in this postion, hopefully, the scores from this position will be higher.
Yes, it is the lest stable and the most difficult, and returns the lowest scores for the beginner, but for those same reasons, it should be the target at which you aim the greatest effort.
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JP O'Connor

Re: When starting out in rifle shooting why standing first (

Post by JP O'Connor »

All very good reasons. Others:
Since the athlete is used to the (usually significant) movement of the rifle in standing, when they start kneeling and prone, they think they have died and gone to heaven since the rifle is "so steady". Conversely, athletes started in prone often have to overcome the sudden onslaught of "all that movement" in standing... having been used to prone's steadiness. This is often a significant issue.
Standing, while requiring the most work to master, is actually the easiest to teach and learn. A beginner has more than enough to deal with! The sling positions are more complex and technical.
Even rank beginners who can barely keep the shots on the paper of a 12 bull air rifle target, very soon (several training sessions) have most shots in the black with a sporter class (light, beginner) rifle.
"Feel Center!"
-JP

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Pat McCoy

Re: When starting out in rifle shooting why standing first (

Post by Pat McCoy »

J.P. mentioned the "died and gone to heaven" feeling. This is especially important with todays youngsters, as they expect immediate success.
When going to easier and easier positions in which to score well the kids get that feeling of sucess. If you link that to goal setting for them, they can begin to immediately achieve their goals, leading them to the positive feeling that they can achieve future (harder goals).
While we still ose youngsters to other interests, the percentage of those who reach the NRA Jr Distinguished level when they continue in shooting is much higher than it was when we used the old system. We changed about 10 years ago.
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Joacim

Re: When starting out in rifle shooting why standing first (

Post by Joacim »

Another point is that a lot of shooters start shooting prone and kneeling and when they finally get to standing they have the feeling that it is the "hardest" position as they weren't "allowed" to shoot it until now.
By starting them out in standing they won't have any opinions about the position when they start out. And once you can shoot tens in standing it will be easy to figure the other positions.
Shooting is a mind game and it start early :)
Joacim
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RW

Re: When starting out in rifle shooting why standing first (

Post by RW »

Excellent discussion. I learn something everytime I log onto this web site. Thanks guys.

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