As promised…. tips on the shotgun.  If you shoot in Limited or Tactical Limited, then how fast you manually load the shotgun will determine your match. Even a modest improvement can move you up substantially, even if you suck at the actual shooting part.  This is one of the anomalies of 3-gun/multi-gun matches.

Brian and I will be running a SAIGA 12 guage, sort of an AK-47 shotgun.

Because it holds 12 rounds in a detachable magazine, we will be in Open Division. We just got it, but he has put a compensator on it, which means little to no recoil.  Mag changes will be a bit tough, as he hasn’t yet put on a mag well and rock n lock modification most open shooters add.  This means we will likely be doing open bolt reloads, a bit slower, but a lot easier to rock in to an un-modified SAIGA.

ShootingUSA.com has tips from the US Army Marksmanship Unit’s Sergeant Daniel Horner (current US 3-gun/Multi-Gun and 3-Gun Nation champ), and Sergeant Robbie Johnson (two time winner International Sniper Competition).

See them here:

http://www.shootingusa.com/PRO_TIPS/USAMU4-8/USAMU4-8_PRINTER/usamu4-8_printer.html

Tomorrow… reloading the shotgun quickly….

And to get your 3-gun blood up, how about a couple 3-gun videos? These are from the Ft. Benning 3-Gun Challenge. 250 slots, 1000+ applications, it fills up approximately one second after registration opens.

If you have an Android phone, just load up the Android Market app and search for “cmcalc”. 

And if you don’t have an Android, don’t worry, just ask me to check your classifier hit factor on mine at the next match.

Best of all, like the love of a puppy, it’s FREE!

From Ben Stoeger, a top GM shooter.

All the videos, and an FAQ on what you need to do it, can be found here.

These drills will dramatically improve your gun handling, footwork, position entries/exits, draws, weak and strong hand shooting, sight acquisition.

BTW:If you don’t have a timer. MattBurkett.com has an online one.

To show this in video form, we’ve been looking at top shooters on You Tube. They all move in quick, cat like steps, unless the running stretch is quite long.  What you could cover in 3 steps, they take 5 or 6, and keep their bodies and guns largely in the athletic shooting position. Thus, when they arrive, they simply extend (or press) to the target and bang! 

Timing it out last evening in practice, it is quite a bit faster.  It is quite counter-intuitive until you break the steps down and actually time it.

While looking at videos these “fun” stages came up. They show Dave Sevigny working through obstacles and on a platform.  Note that on the platform his movements are much like on terra firma.  Anyway, these looked fun to me. Let us know if you think we should try something similar. (=:

Wow – slick.  I’d recommend practicing that dry quite a bunch before trying it in a match. Fast, but a DQ is just a slip away.

The entire video is below. These are stages from the 2006 Florida Open.  One thing to note is that Todd moves in quick SMALL steps through stages. This is fast to run and also helps speed up the presentation and first shot after movement.

Watch Rob Leatham shoot this short course:

Note that he didn’t wait for the swingers, nor did he chase them. He shot them at their transition point, and at that point shooting them is pretty much like shooting a still target.

His sequence was this:

Shoot the back plate, then the activating poppers, then back to the first swinger just in time for it to reach its lull point, then to the other swinger at its lull point and finally the final plate.

Most course designers will give you other things to shoot while waiting for a swinger to hit the turn around point (where it is largely still).  How much you bite off is up to your risk reward calculation.

You should know how long it will take a timer from activation to lull point. Then you can sort out what else you will shoot before aiming at the lull point to shoot it when it is moving the least.

He makes it look easy. His tips:

• bend your knees
• small steps
• feet in direction of travel – shoulders square to target
• focus on sights even harder than normal
• if you can’t hit A zone or steel 80% stand still

He doesn’t mention it, but other instructors suggest moving the gun in closer. The longer your stretch the more impacts during movement leverage out to your gun. Bringing it close (but don’t get smacked by the slide) steadies it out quite a bit.

I used these techniques, including moving the gun in closer, in a recent steel match in Las Vegas and was pleased with how many steels I nailed on the first shot while “on the go”.

Here he puts it into use on a 4.54 second El-Presidente: