Thanks for giving so much valuable information. You have given more information in your brief posts than I've found in the last couple of months looking at other sources. You don't waste time on useless topics and get right to the subject of helping us beginning silhouette shooters.

THANK YOU

Steve E, it is possible to shoot smallbore without a spotter, we do it locally all of the time mainly because our matches low attendance. I also know a few shooters that do not want to have a spotter period.

Where a good spotter/coach comes in handy is at large matches where you only fire ten shots every hour or so because it is not the same to fire a 40 round match in less than an hour like we do at our local club than going to the Nationals or other well attended matches and fire ten rounds every 60 minutes or more.

To win those matches it is necessary to shoot mid to high 30

One more quick question on this thread, if I may. Does anyone have any experience with the affects of shooting performance with a "normal" workout routine versus a structured martial art that would teach balance, focus and coordination in addition to muscle tone, flexibility and strength gain? That decision is where I'm standing confused right now, so I'd appreciate any info that might be out there.

Jason, in my opinion any thing that would teach or enhance all the things that you mentioned would only help your shooting.

I have heard a story of a HS football coach sending some of his less talented or JV players to ballet classes during the off-season to have them learn balance, coordination, flexibility and other things that can be learned there and when those players went back to play football the following year they were without a doubt much better than before.

When I was younger my sport background was running and I remember shooting my best when I was working out and in good physical shape. If you are able and have the time by all means continue with your martial arts training.

For the older shooters like me (I am 56) my recommendation would be walking, hiking, jogging, Tai Chi, bike riding, etc. combined with some kind of weight lifting (like picking up a rifle and aiming it a couple of hundred times) and stretching exercises.

lone ringer wrote:I have to admit that there are people amongst us whose nature can drive anybody nuts, my advice to you is to use those people as training for you to deal with concentration and focus issues because if you are doing everything the way you are supposed to the only thing that should matter is the target you are shooting and nothing else.

Great point. That's one of the reasons I won't move benches on a public range just because someone's blasting away with an AK next to me. I shot the best group yet from my Savage Annie with a water cooled .30 cal Browning barking away on auto 3 benches down this month!

Thanks for all the sage advice LR, it really helps us newbies know what to focus on out of a myriad of variables.
I think making each shot a 1 shot match will do nothing but improve my scores......

Lone Ringer, you have a PM