Firearms Training

In the previous chapters, I discussed gun-handling techniques. Now it’s time to talk about marksmanship. In the simplest terms, marksmanship means hitting your target. In a defensive shooting with a handgun, you generally have conversational distances; low light; multiple adversaries; and a dynamic, chaotic setting. In that situation, only three elements of marksmanship really matter. We call these elements the “Three Secrets.” They are sight alignment, sight picture, and trigger control–in that order.

Sight alignment is the alignment of your eye, the rear sight, and the front sight. The front sight must sit in the rear sight notch such that its top is flush with the top of the rear sight, and there are equal amounts of daylight left and right of the front sight. There is only one proper sight alignment.

Now, let’s talk about sight picture. Now that you’ve established perfect sight alignment, what do you do with it? Place the top of the front sight exactly where you want that bullet to hit — in this case, the center of the thoracic cavity. Next, you need to focus on the front sight. Not the target, but the front sight. Everything else is going to be blurry. The rear sight will be blurry and the target will be blurry, especially in low light. That’s fine. Additionally, you will close one eye. Closing one eye allows you to get a perfect sight picture without any double or ghost images. But, which eye do you close? Well, generally it will be the eye on your support side. Your dominant eye is usually your firing side eye. If your dominant eye is on your support side, there is nothing wrong with you, it’s simply that your brain likes the images from that eye better. There are a couple of ways to compensate for being cross dominant. Our recommendation is to simply close the support side eye and use the images from your firing side eye. You will have to do this anyway if you shoot a rifle or shotgun since there is no way to get your dominant eye behind the sights.

The third secret is trigger control. Trigger control begins with proper finger placement on the trigger. You want the pad of your trigger finger to actually contact the face of the trigger. However, if you are shooting a heavy, double-action trigger, you may need a little more mechanical advantage. Start with the pad; move to the joint only if needed.

Next, you want to remove the slack from the trigger. Slack is that small amount of movement in the trigger that really doesn’t have any function. It’s just the loose pieces moving; it’s the garbage. Get rid of the slack. As soon as you’re up on target, your finger goes on the trigger and you take out the slack.

Next, we want to achieve what we call a surprise break. A surprise is something you didn’t expect. By break, we mean the trigger actually functioning. If you were dry practicing, you’d get a click, in the case of a firing drill, the weapon would fire. Begin building pressure on the trigger slowly, smoothly, evenly, to the rear until the weapon fires. You’re not stupid, you know it is going to fire sooner or later but you don’t know exactly when. A surprise break means you will get a perfect hit. Why is a surprise break so important? If you’re anticipating the shot, then you will start to fight the recoil too soon and drive the shot low. You want the shot to be a surprise.

After the weapon fires, you will reset the trigger. We accomplish this by holding the trigger to the rear through recoil, then allowing the trigger to go forward only until it clicks, or resets. Keep your finger in contact with the trigger. If you let your finger fly forward and off the trigger between shots, you lose contact with the trigger, and double your workload. You must then reestablish the proper finger placement and remove the slack before you can begin pressing. So maintain contact with the trigger between shots and let it go forward only to the reset. Okay, that sums up trigger control.

Now let’s talk about putting all three of these together. This is what we call the sequence of shooting. You’ll be standing at the Ready, the trigger finger is straight, looking at your adversary. He’s the one that’s going to give you the start signal. He’s the one who will initiate the aggressive action. On the range, you will receive an artificial start signal of some kind, such as a “fire” command or whistle. As soon as you get the signal, you’ll point in at the target. As you bring the weapon up, your finger goes on the trigger, and the slack is taken out. Close your support side eye, align the sights and focus on the front sight. Press gently for a surprise break, reset, press again, and reset a second time. This will result in a controlled pair. Open the support side eye, trigger finger goes straight, and you come down to the Ready.

If you adhere to the Three Secrets, marksmanship is surprisingly easy! In the next chapter of the Handgun Training Series, we will explore what to do after the shots are fired.