Daily Defense 1-27: Improving Your Marksmanship Skills

Practicing the basics of marksmanship by shooting your daily carry / EDC gun at the range is important. But what constitutes "practice"? Jeff recommends establishing a training goal and setting standards for tracking your progress. Standards should be observable, measurable, and repeatable, so can you tell if your skills are getting better. In order to establish standards, start with a baseline drill, your starting performance level - what you can consistently, repeatably do when you pick up the gun right now. From there, you can set your goal of how you want to improve, with benchmarks for measuring your progress toward that goal. A baseline drill may be as simple as shooting one round at a 4" target from 7 yards. A brand-new, never-shot-a-gun-before shooter may need to start closer to the target or have a larger target. A more experienced shooter may need something more challenging, such as shooting from 10 yards or at a 2" target. As your marksmanship improves, you can scale up your goals to more ambitious levels. But always start at your baseline and progress in increments. Don't jump ahead to complex goals before you've mastered your earlier goals.