Marksmanship

One of the easily overlooked areas of good marksmanship is controlling your breathing. I really believe it’s one of those things that everyone knows they should get control of it, but good breath control becomes one of the first marksmanship fundamentals to go out the window as pressure mounts.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in the midst of a stage and didn’t even think about my breathing until after it was over. Of course, then I try to go backwards and wonder if I did it correctly anyway, or if I did it wrong and it cost me a little bit of performance.

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Russell Miller is a triple-distinguished competition shooter as well as a former special operations officer. He’s spent an enormous amount of time coaching snipers and precision shooters, and today he’s our guest on the show.

In this episode, we cover a lot of ground between the world of competition shooting and tactical precision marksmanship. Russ shared some very pointed criticism of US Army marksmanship training.

Some of the main topics I think you’ll enjoy focus on getting started in rifle competition, and establishing a balance between behaviors appropriate for competition versus defensive situations. Additionally, we spend a lot of time talking about the importance of consistent practice to build a foundation of skills that make good marksmanship instinctive.

Welcome back to another Marksman Challenge. For this one, we’re balancing speed and precision, while also giving a shout out to the guys at the Revolutionary War Veteran’s Association (RWVA) for their excellent work in the Appleseed program.

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I recently interviewed John Simpson, a veritable encyclopedia of sniper knowledge. He has a long history with Special Forces and Police sniping, has written several books on the topic, and regularly teaches courses. In this interview, we cover John’s history as well as a variety of topics surrounding sniping.

The standing position is the most difficult to master for marksmanship. With the June challenge underway and such a tough accuracy standard, I wanted to ask around for some standing position tips to help you, and me to be honest, out with earning that badge. Let’s dig into it.

This is the very first of the monthly Marksman Challenges. This is not a competition, but a way to test your own abilities and improve. The first challenge is all about the fundamentals of marksmanship.

In this article, we’re digging into terminal ballistics: the science of what happens when the bullet impacts a target. In particular, we’re going over the history of the research and what we know today about how bullets wound and kill a target.

This is a review of John C. Simpsons newest book, Foundations of Sniper Marksmanship. This is an update to an older book of his titled Snipercraft, targeted squarely at rifle shooters early in their journey. If you have never had formal marksmanship training, then this is a great read to develop a baseline before you go.

On April 27th, 2019, I competed in the NRA’s reborn America’s Rifle Challenge at the Peacemaker National Training Center. In all, it was a very fun match and a great introduction to competitive action shooting. But I’m not without a few complaints along the way.

This post is a little different for me. I consider it a bit of a “living” post that I’ll keep updated with resources over time. It’s a collection of what I think are the best free videos for marksmanship training available.

I competed in a lot of local outlaw matches for years before finally going to a “real” one. Excellence in Competition matches, or EIC, happen periodically at military bases all over the country. They follow CMP rules, with a few twists.

Buckle up, because I’m about to talk nerdy. This post is all about the two most common marksmanship measurement systems, how to use them, and which one you should use.
Be warned, I will be dropping some math on you. I’ll be gentle, though.