Moving While Shooting

[jnshapiro]

This is a skill that I haven't needed to develop....until now

I know that it's in the walk, and I've been trying for that smooth gate, but I'm still having trouble keeping everything stable enough to shoot accurately.

Can anyone explain how this works for someone that doesn't know and is just feeling his way through?

Thanks!

Joel

[Jake Di Vita]

I haven been experimenting with something with iron sighted guns lately. Lately, in comstock COFs, I have been shooting on the move with a total target focus.

Surprisingly it has been working quite well. I'm not yet sure why this is working better for me other than I'm not waiting to get a perfect refined sight picture....which is fairly hard when the FS is bouncing all around.

Back to your question though,

The MOST important aspect to shooting on the both is to get as low to the ground as possible while (and here is the tricky part) only bending at your knees. The lower you get, the more stable you are as long as you aren't hunching.

Once you do that, the rest is up to you to practice and refine it.

[Guest Larry Cazes]

Think Groucho Marx......He used to walk by bending the knees only as jake has already suggested.

[rhino]

My shooting on the move has improved dramatically over the last year. I didn't practice it more than twice outside of matches, but I decided to concentrate on looking at my front sight and not worrying about anything else.

The advice about "shoot from the waist up and move from the waist down" sounds absurdly simple, but it's exactly right. When you concentrate on your front sight, the lower body will take care of itself by instinct.

You may find yourself doing the "groucho walk" without intending to do it, or you may develop a steady, rolling gait like BigDave has (he's one of the best shoot-on-the-move shooters I've seen).

[TriggerT]

Bend at the knees and make sure to roll your feet. MB talks about practicing this with a half full clear water bottle in your hands, hald up as if it were a gun. The idea is to walk and to keep the water inthe bottle as steady as possible. Also, you need to be able to switch between thinking baout walking and thinking about shooting all the time. Hopefully, if you are having to shoot on the move, there aren't things in your path that you need to worry about.

If you have ever studied any of the martial arts, they talk about walking from the hips, tha ius keeping your hips level while you walk, instead of going up and down. That is what you are trying to do.

[dv8]

...

The MOST important aspect to shooting on the both is to get as low to the ground as possible while (and here is the tricky part) only bending at your knees. The lower you get, the more stable you are as long as you aren't hunching.

Once you do that, the rest is up to you to practice and refine it.

Jake,

I just tried that, right after reading your post, - it works! While moving right toward or away from a target I've seen my FS being as steady as never before. But it is not as steady when I tried moving in parallel to a target. Any advise on this type of movement?

Thanks in advance.

[Mistral404]

I spent a lot of practice time on walking left to right and right to left.

First, I learned just to walk, i.e., when moving left to right, the left foot crosses in front of the right leg. Take smaller steps, lower your center of gravity (bend you knees not at the waist). Do this several times without shooting. Just to get the "dance steps" down. The crossing leg goes in front. Shoulders fairly square to the targets.

I practiced many many rounds with a .22 at first. The idea was not too worry about anything but keeping the sight on the target. And it is a lot cheaper to shoot. I find shooting at steel an advantage because you get immediate feedback.

Additionally, I had to learn to shoot with both feet on the ground. I try really hard not to shoot while a foot is in the air. I needed a very stable plateform.

So for me it is:

Step, Shoot, Step, Shoot, Step, Shoot.

Both feet on the ground when I fire a shoot. You will be surprised at how fast you can shoot this way.

[uscbigdawg]

The Matt Burkett water bottle torture ('cause you look a little silly doing it) technique will cure you of your woes and getting you shooting on the move quickly!

Rich

[Dalmas]

The Matt Burkett water bottle torture ('cause you look a little silly doing it) technique will cure you of your woes and getting you shooting on the move quickly!

Rich

I like to think I'm pretty good at shooting on the move. I can only agree that the Matt B. method of walking around the house or yard with a water bottle works good, to my neighbours amusement...

Another thing is to buy one of those cheap laser pointers and tape it to your gun and then walk around inside or ourside and try to keep that dot in the A-zone, hard but It has given me alot. This might screw a bit with your sight/target focus but will teach you the timing of shoting on the move. I like it.

Edited September 22, 2004 by Dalmas

[dv8]

I think I understand what Mistral says about shoulders square to the target and small steps with crossing leg going in front.

What I don't understand is what advantage the water bottle will give me over an actual gun if I am inside my house and I have a few IPSC targets to point at. I watch my sight picture and I can tell when it is steady and when it isn't... I can't think of anything except for maybe practicing outdoor will give me more space to run, but I better use a bottle rather than a gun when outdoors... Is that it or am I missing something else?

[uscbigdawg]

[Assuming that you know the MB Water bottle technique]

The water line is your sight plane. If it's moving, your sights on your pistol are moving. Flip that around. If the water line is steady, the sights are steady.

You obviously don't want to solely practice with just the bottle. However, it is extremely effective visual aid, that provides instantaneous feedback for understanding not only what the sights (and you) are doing, and allows for instantaneous feedback, on when you make corrections to your technique. You then take that to the range so your live fire practice/training is exponentially more effective.

Rich

[TriggerT]

dv8,

The water bottle gives you much more sensitive feedback. If you can do it with the water bottle, doing it with a gun is no problem. Like Rich said, best to practice with both. Also, like you said, the bottle allows you to practice this in areas where having the gun in your hand might make your neighbors a little......worried.

[dv8]

Rich,

Thanks for the explanation. I have seen MB video where he presents this practice technique, but thought that holding my gun in my hands would still make more sense. I guess I need to give it a try before saying anything else.

[jnshapiro]

Thanks folks. I'm pretty sure I understand. I'll give the water bottle a try and do some practice over the winter. Hope to be ready to go for real in the spring!

Joel

[mcoliver]

The problem with iron sights and movements is that irons pretty much are "too stable." Add the fact that it's pretty darn hard to index the sight alignment relative to the target while moving.

It wasn't until I duct taped a cmore in my gun (the laser pointer will also work very well) that I realized how much erratic the gun can be when moving. Heck, even your breathing can affect how much the dot dances.

With an instant visual feedback like this (or the water bottle trick), you can make adjustments in your movement to minimize the gun wiggle. Most folks do the groucho (?) walk and I did that, too, before. After the dot experience, I found out I can walk normally, relatively upright, and still keep the dot in control. That's what I do now, even when shooting iron sights.