When I was a young man, I would shoot a thousand rounds a month. It wasn't until I learned from one of the top shooters the importance of dry-fire. Then he told me that I could get to the top a lot cheaper if I simply practiced with a .22lr. The combination of those two things bumped me up a notch immediately. The closest I came in state competition was #2, but I was proud of it. Now, 45 years later, I am retired, living on a fixed income, and certainly can't afford to shoot a thousand rounds a month, but have much better dry-fire exercises that I ever had before. This young man in this video has learned in 3 years what took me a lifetime to learn. I hope to see more of his videos.
I just experienced the dry fire effect first hand. Shot my first 8 or so matches this summer with little improvement from match 1 to match 8. Bought Ben Stoeger's dry fire work and started diligently practicing when the outdoor season ended. Shot my first indoor match after 2 months of serious dry fire and I went from hit factor scores in the 3-4 range up to the 5-6 range and placed waaaaay higher than I had all summer. Dry fire ftw, all day every day.
This is awesome insight!! I am in sporting clays, have just started shooting competition for about 1.5 yrs now, and all of this resonates even in the sporting clays world!!! You got a new subscriber!!
B class shooter going into my second year of competing, the more I shoot the more I feel the mental aspect impacts my performance. Thank you for your insights
Thank you for watching! Completely agree - once the shooting fundamentals begin to solidify and you start to approach high B to A class, the mental side of the sport becomes a much larger focus for putting out consistent performances.
Great video, fairly new to the comp world. Started early 2024 with just local matches but I absolutely love it. Have plans on doing way more in 2025 and some traveling to area matches. Thanks for the info, very well received here! Especially the slow is just slow, that hit home.
I was lucky enough to have met a group of friends and we all help each other. Massive gains in little things. As an example falling in and out. 1 second per time. Problem now is we fighting for split seconds. Try shoot as many matches as possible.(doesn’t matter where you come) just take away something and add it to your arsenal. It’s great info you’ve shared but I think you left something out. Getting info and being ready to accept it is huge. Only when I got better did I understand the info that was given to me at beginner. Meant nothing if it doesn’t match the skill set. All in all very informative video.
Your wiser beyond your years. Lots of great info here. Well done. Lots of tidbits from Anderson, Stoeger, Sauerland, JJ, Mason Lane, Kwansik, and many others. Great job, hope lots of people watch and listen :)
loved this video, just getting into shooting matches regularly. Learning to work on transitions and entries/exits in over trying to split the gun hard. The segment on math was great and proves a strong point! Dryfire has been key with limited live training
Thank you for thus video. I'm an older, newer shooter and the beginning of you video really caught my attention in that I don't carry yet. I want to become more proficient, more comfortable, more confident with the weapon Im in charge of, both on my side, and in my head. I'm thinking about competing to help me do that. Thanks again!
Great job explaining your journey and the things that really matter. Looking forward from learning from you and your my role model. Thank you for sharing.
I've shot a couple matches with you, great advice to a novice shooter myself. Really liked the mental aspects you talked about, if you're mentally defeated before you even start the stage then you're definitely going to shoot poorly.
I have a little different outlook on the slow is smooth mantra. Objectively it is exactly as you say, but if you have a tendency to get distracted in a high adrenaline situation or are getting frustrated due to subpar performance it's a really good quote to make you gather your thoughts and regain focus.
I'm just a casual shooter but I'd like to get better. Not to compete or anything like that tho. You should be super proud of yourself and what you've accomplished. It always amazes me what people can do when they commit to something and put the work in. I watch these excellent shooter and think to myself "how is that even possible". Good luck in future.
Your philosophy on unconscious performance is actually what "slow is smooth and smooth is fast" means to me. Practice the right way until it becomes fluid and practice with fluidity so much you don't even think anymore - it's habit. And that is where speed comes from. Eliminating wasted time thinking.
Finding a squad to shoot with makes it easy. You will start hosting range day comps, competing against each other for bragging rights and its lots of fun. sudden malfunctions are fun cus we dog each other until they get it running. Funny as fuck sometimes. One time I threw my empty gun at the target.... my squad counted it lol
GREAT video, truly. One counter point, from what you discussed at 4m-6m. I think you're dead on for competition. However as someone competing to better my conceal effectiveness, your draw and your splits are MORE important than the transitions and movement (imo). You do need all of these skill areas, I'm not discounting that at all. But when the enemy gets to start the clock, the difference between a 1.20 draw and .18 splits and a 1.5 draw with .25 splits may very well be your life. And by extension, the life of someone you love. In the former example, you can get 5-6 shots off in under 2 seconds. For the later, 3. That's huge.
Thank you! I completely agree with the point you made. The skills you mention definitely become more important in the context of most self defense incidents. You'll love the video I just released on Hit Factor scoring if that's where your head is at. Cheers!
Started shooting about a year and a half ago I find figuring out how to manage the stage is my biggest problem I end up missing a target or shooting a target twice to often. Do you have any advice on stage management?
There will be videos dedicated to this in the near future! One tip I can give in a comment is to emphasize your mental reps of the stage. You only get a couple minutes for physical walkthroughs, but you have much more time to mentally visualize your stage plan over and over again. Hope this helps!
So where does a novice, older shooter go to learn what to do and how to do it from a dry fire perspective? I am tired of range shooting at paper and I need to challenge myself.
There is a plethora of solid dry fire content here on RUclips alone. The Dry Fire King channel is great to use your screen as a personal range, and I have several videos out (with more coming) specifically about dry fire.
The mental portion of this video is heavily influenced by what I've learned from him. Check out his podcast, That Shooting Show, and take his mental management class if this stuff interests you, I highly recommend it.
@ yeah! I just shot my first match last month and I have my next one on Saturday. I’ve been listening to his stuff and actually got his dry fire book. I actually first heard him on the Walther podcast and he mentions a lot of the stuff you talked about in the video! Great stuff man
There was a time.... thirty or forty years ago, when I found it enjoyable. Now, not so much. Folks with LIMITED time and money for practice and occasional competition just get pulverized by the people that have turned it into a religion. I do not have the time to shoot fifty two weekends a year, three times during the week, and sit at a reloading bench in between. Too many responsibilities and demands on my limited spare time. For those that can enjoy it, drive on.
If I'm fortunate to live long enough, there will come a time when I will not be able to keep up with the people in their early twenties. If that time comes, I guarantee you that my priorities will shift from owning the podium to simply enjoying the fun and the camaraderie. Thank you for watching.
@@BetterMarksman I wish you safety and success. ... Haven't found it to be friendly in a long time. Clans and cliques. Carry optics, pistol caliber carbines, and unaffordable race guns. No one shooting production. I know, it's 2024, not 1984.
@@julianmercier Thank you Julian. Production is alive and well in the south! I spent 4 months of the year with irons instead of a dot myself haha. Shifting the culture towards positivity starts with normal people like us, and I remain very optimistic about the future.
@@BetterMarksman Well that is good to hear. Cannot find it in Southern California. Everyone too much into the gear race I suppose. Being 62 is probably not helping.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
When I was a young man, I would shoot a thousand rounds a month. It wasn't until I learned from one of the top shooters the importance of dry-fire. Then he told me that I could get to the top a lot cheaper if I simply practiced with a .22lr. The combination of those two things bumped me up a notch immediately. The closest I came in state competition was #2, but I was proud of it. Now, 45 years later, I am retired, living on a fixed income, and certainly can't afford to shoot a thousand rounds a month, but have much better dry-fire exercises that I ever had before. This young man in this video has learned in 3 years what took me a lifetime to learn. I hope to see more of his videos.
Extremely solid video man. Some awesome points brought up.
I just experienced the dry fire effect first hand. Shot my first 8 or so matches this summer with little improvement from match 1 to match 8. Bought Ben Stoeger's dry fire work and started diligently practicing when the outdoor season ended. Shot my first indoor match after 2 months of serious dry fire and I went from hit factor scores in the 3-4 range up to the 5-6 range and placed waaaaay higher than I had all summer. Dry fire ftw, all day every day.
Writing this comment mid dry-fire session. It really is the way haha.
This is awesome insight!! I am in sporting clays, have just started shooting competition for about 1.5 yrs now, and all of this resonates even in the sporting clays world!!! You got a new subscriber!!
Damn whoever stood on their phone looking at facebook marketplace doing nothing behind the camera did an amazing job.
This is one of my 3 goals for 2025. To participate in events. This is very helpful. Thank you.
B class shooter going into my second year of competing, the more I shoot the more I feel the mental aspect impacts my performance. Thank you for your insights
Thank you for watching! Completely agree - once the shooting fundamentals begin to solidify and you start to approach high B to A class, the mental side of the sport becomes a much larger focus for putting out consistent performances.
Great video, fairly new to the comp world. Started early 2024 with just local matches but I absolutely love it. Have plans on doing way more in 2025 and some traveling to area matches. Thanks for the info, very well received here! Especially the slow is just slow, that hit home.
I was lucky enough to have met a group of friends and we all help each other. Massive gains in little things. As an example falling in and out. 1 second per time. Problem now is we fighting for split seconds. Try shoot as many matches as possible.(doesn’t matter where you come) just take away something and add it to your arsenal. It’s great info you’ve shared but I think you left something out. Getting info and being ready to accept it is huge. Only when I got better did I understand the info that was given to me at beginner. Meant nothing if it doesn’t match the skill set. All in all very informative video.
Your wiser beyond your years. Lots of great info here. Well done. Lots of tidbits from Anderson, Stoeger, Sauerland, JJ, Mason Lane, Kwansik, and many others. Great job, hope lots of people watch and listen :)
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it! I try to learn from the best.
Great video! I have noticed some of these same issues as I have started competitions over the last year!
loved this video, just getting into shooting matches regularly. Learning to work on transitions and entries/exits in over trying to split the gun hard. The segment on math was great and proves a strong point! Dryfire has been key with limited live training
Hi 👋 our algorithm is the same 😂
@ hi my friend 👋
Thank you for thus video. I'm an older, newer shooter and the beginning of you video really caught my attention in that I don't carry yet. I want to become more proficient, more comfortable, more confident with the weapon Im in charge of, both on my side, and in my head. I'm thinking about competing to help me do that. Thanks again!
Thanks for the insight, I've started ramping up my dry-fire practice and plan to sign up for a competitions in 2025.
Great job explaining your journey and the things that really matter. Looking forward from learning from you and your my role model. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks! Glad I could inspire you 👊🏼
I've shot a couple matches with you, great advice to a novice shooter myself. Really liked the mental aspects you talked about, if you're mentally defeated before you even start the stage then you're definitely going to shoot poorly.
Thank you for the kind words, Jeffrey. See you on the range soon!
I have a little different outlook on the slow is smooth mantra. Objectively it is exactly as you say, but if you have a tendency to get distracted in a high adrenaline situation or are getting frustrated due to subpar performance it's a really good quote to make you gather your thoughts and regain focus.
Awesome video! I can't wait to shoot my first match this year.
I so enjoyed this video. Thank you for sharing it. There is a lot of knowledge here!
Glad it was helpful!
Your channel is gold!!
Great video! Good info
Great video man!!
This is useful info to absorb and take in now that I plan on Competing in 2025! Awesome video brother.
I'm just a casual shooter but I'd like to get better. Not to compete or anything like that tho. You should be super proud of yourself and what you've accomplished. It always amazes me what people can do when they commit to something and put the work in. I watch these excellent shooter and think to myself "how is that even possible". Good luck in future.
Great information and advice, thanks
Just what I needed! Great video and perfect timing. I have 2025 goals to crack top 20.
Thank you! It's gonna be a great year! 🔥
Your philosophy on unconscious performance is actually what "slow is smooth and smooth is fast" means to me. Practice the right way until it becomes fluid and practice with fluidity so much you don't even think anymore - it's habit. And that is where speed comes from. Eliminating wasted time thinking.
Great advice!
Great video!
Well said. Keep it coming.
Dope video! Third match in and definitely addicted to the sport
Thank you! Welcome to the sport 🔥
Finding a squad to shoot with makes it easy. You will start hosting range day comps, competing against each other for bragging rights and its lots of fun. sudden malfunctions are fun cus we dog each other until they get it running. Funny as fuck sometimes. One time I threw my empty gun at the target.... my squad counted it lol
Great video. Keep them coming 🤙
High quality content right here
GREAT video, truly.
One counter point, from what you discussed at 4m-6m. I think you're dead on for competition. However as someone competing to better my conceal effectiveness, your draw and your splits are MORE important than the transitions and movement (imo).
You do need all of these skill areas, I'm not discounting that at all. But when the enemy gets to start the clock, the difference between a 1.20 draw and .18 splits and a 1.5 draw with .25 splits may very well be your life. And by extension, the life of someone you love.
In the former example, you can get 5-6 shots off in under 2 seconds. For the later, 3. That's huge.
Thank you! I completely agree with the point you made. The skills you mention definitely become more important in the context of most self defense incidents. You'll love the video I just released on Hit Factor scoring if that's where your head is at. Cheers!
@BetterMarksman already in my watch later list. Keep it up - I enjoy these conceptual breakdowns, and you do them very well.
Well done!
Yes dry fire is king!!! I got master with only 7k rds fired in 7 months of my classification! 2024 was a good year! Dry fire daily!! With purpose
Good video! 🎉
moving properly will save you more time than draw and splits ever will
Hell yeah from Arkansas
This is a pretty good video
Started shooting about a year and a half ago I find figuring out how to manage the stage is my biggest problem I end up missing a target or shooting a target twice to often. Do you have any advice on stage management?
There will be videos dedicated to this in the near future! One tip I can give in a comment is to emphasize your mental reps of the stage. You only get a couple minutes for physical walkthroughs, but you have much more time to mentally visualize your stage plan over and over again. Hope this helps!
@@BetterMarksmanthanks I appreciate that
So where does a novice, older shooter go to learn what to do and how to do it from a dry fire perspective? I am tired of range shooting at paper and I need to challenge myself.
There is a plethora of solid dry fire content here on RUclips alone. The Dry Fire King channel is great to use your screen as a personal range, and I have several videos out (with more coming) specifically about dry fire.
I shot rifle in a shooting competition and won the first one I’ve ever entered. Dry firing is literally all I can say did it for me.
Dry fire is so helpful for rifle too, especially on a working man’s budget haha. Congrats on the win!
@ a working man and father simultaneously 😂😂😂 Big love to you and much success to your channel bruther.
I know a guy who is like two levels better than me and only shoots live rounds at matches. Dry fire is king.
Did you learn this stuff from Steve Anderson? He talks about and says pretty much everything you said verbatim.
The mental portion of this video is heavily influenced by what I've learned from him. Check out his podcast, That Shooting Show, and take his mental management class if this stuff interests you, I highly recommend it.
@ yeah! I just shot my first match last month and I have my next one on Saturday. I’ve been listening to his stuff and actually got his dry fire book. I actually first heard him on the Walther podcast and he mentions a lot of the stuff you talked about in the video! Great stuff man
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
There was a time.... thirty or forty years ago, when I found it enjoyable. Now, not so much. Folks with LIMITED time and money for practice and occasional competition just get pulverized by the people that have turned it into a religion. I do not have the time to shoot fifty two weekends a year, three times during the week, and sit at a reloading bench in between. Too many responsibilities and demands on my limited spare time. For those that can enjoy it, drive on.
That sucks bro.. probably shouldn’t dump your purse out online
If I'm fortunate to live long enough, there will come a time when I will not be able to keep up with the people in their early twenties. If that time comes, I guarantee you that my priorities will shift from owning the podium to simply enjoying the fun and the camaraderie. Thank you for watching.
@@BetterMarksman I wish you safety and success. ... Haven't found it to be friendly in a long time. Clans and cliques. Carry optics, pistol caliber carbines, and unaffordable race guns. No one shooting production. I know, it's 2024, not 1984.
@@julianmercier Thank you Julian. Production is alive and well in the south! I spent 4 months of the year with irons instead of a dot myself haha. Shifting the culture towards positivity starts with normal people like us, and I remain very optimistic about the future.
@@BetterMarksman Well that is good to hear. Cannot find it in Southern California. Everyone too much into the gear race I suppose. Being 62 is probably not helping.
I doubt I would meet very many cynical underachievers at a competition.