Well, you've heard that gunshot, and that only means one thing, mate. That means we're here at the gun club. Oh, that's right. This is Buckbills Gun Club, and this is Shooting Journey, mate.
What would you call it? This is your... Yeah, just kind of... Yeah, my shooting journey, really.
We'll go straight into it, mate. You're supposed to listen to this about doing a course last episode. You've done the course now, so... Yeah, talking about it.
We were talking about the... It was called the Maple Sea Project, which is the Canadian version of the American rifleman apple sea course from the military. They don't really teach one over, here in Canada, similar to that. So they brought it over, and they teach one to anyone who wants to learn.
A long day course. It was pretty much like a nine-hour day, non-stop, no lunch break, because it was kind of like a working lunch. So a lot of the time we'd sit down, talk about something that we're going to learn, go and practice it for a bit, come back down, go on to the next thing. But yeah, it was early start, get there for kind of like a quarter to eight, half seven, quarter to eight.
Before you get to the course, mate, when you wake up that morning, are you a little bit nervous, or are you excited? Two days before, had a bit of a cold. You know, when you just kind of get like almost suppose you've got a furry throat, and there's this pretty much the time of the season change. So a lot of different pollen and shit in the air.
They really get too much hay fever, but I was getting something for fuck, I bet I'll be ill for this. So I took some rest, and the day before it was on a Saturday, on the Friday, I felt like, shit mate, you know, when you lean over, you're fucking heads, feels like it's swelling up around your nose and your eyes. You're pounding, you know. Yeah, and then you get back up, boom, boom, boom.
Fuck, so I pretty much kind of slept all day, just to get as much healing in there as I could. Woke up, obviously we had to wake up pretty early to be ready. So probably up about half six, quarter to seven, in bed, having a coffee thinking, fucking hell, am I even going to make it today? But feeling better than I was on the day before, so thinking, fucking hell, I might have to just pull out of this.
But, you know, I've been looking forward to this for like two months. So I better at least fucking turn up. You know, sometimes in the morning when you wake up, when you have a bit of a cold or a flu, the morning's always the worst give, you know, you always feel the worst. And whenever you've woken up, that's when you feel good.
So I was kind of sitting there trying to gauge how bad it was, but yeah, it just didn't feel as bad and I thought, you're going to be pissed off if you don't go make. I didn't want to not do it, so I thought the worst thing that'll happen is I'll go there, and I feel shit all day, and then I'll go and halfway through it if it's that bad. But I went there by the time I got there, mate, and kind of woken up a bit, and got a bit of food in my belly, I felt great. And a lot of it, as you said, getting there, sitting down, listening to something that I want to fucking learn.
So it wasn't bad at all, mate. You're turning up, right? You're going, I want to learn about this shit. I've been talking at this course of fucking ages.
I'm excited about it, I want to do it. So it's not going to make you feel better as well by having that mindset. Yeah, and I paid for it. My girlfriend was doing it as well, and it's like, fuck, like you said, it was for me.
I really, really wanted to do it. Everyone was telling me how much fun they'd had and how beneficial it was. So yeah, turning up there and just kind of, you know, I didn't want to be like, oh, I'm so ill, you know, standing up and getting down. And I just thinking the worst of the situation, but yeah, brushed it off with the morning, got a coffee at me and a quick drive through.
I feel on top of the world, we all just got there and set up, and that was probably a good, I'm going to say, I think that was about 16 to 18 people participating and probably how many instructors, well, I want to, four instructors from the Maple Seed Project. And one of the guys was a training instructor from our club, really nice old boy, and he did one of the last courses, and these guys were saying, if you achieve the highest pass of today, we may invite you to become an instructor, if you wish, because they're just trying to grow this Maple Seed Canada wide and have instructors everywhere. And pretty much, mate, we just started out with the fundamentals and basics, you know, he was talking about just standing up and shooting a rifle. And there, oh boy, they're standing up holding the rifle, he's got a rifle without a barrel in it so they can wave it around and show us all the right positions and everyone feel comfortable.
I just say, like waving, I tell you, I was having a drink on Friday night with, actually, and her granddad had his own shooting range, you know, in Maine, he was a proper, I told you about before, but he lived in a basement, guns everywhere. And he was talking about a time when they were at the shooting range, and her mum was like, wait, had a gun in her hand, like waving around everyone. Like, I'm fucking like ducking and all that sort of shit. It's like, get that fucking gun off of her, whatever, you know.
Yeah. So, like, those things can happen. Those, yeah, so yeah, you're showing that there's no fucking, there's no ammunition in this weapon, so I can show you the gun. It can look at you, you know, yeah.
Exactly, yeah. So, yeah, you know, he's standing there and we're using a rifle with a sling on, and using the sling wrapped around your arm for more support. And is that nice, mate? Is a sling a nice thing to have?
Or do you find it kind of restricting? It's both, mate. You know, if you think you're standing up, you've got your arms out, and you used to hold something after a while, I think it's a little bit heavy. You're not going to be able to keep it exactly still.
You breathe, you move. When you have that rifle, it is given this arm, the option to not move outside of this round. So, you bring it in, you put it under the gun, and where this strap is, it's coming from your... over your head underneath your elbow to the gun.
So, you can sway out, so it almost locks your arm in place. Yeah. And just the difference of your holding your gun towards the target, normally standing up to having a strap round and holding it up. The stability difference is insanely noticeable.
Almost like having your arm locked in place. That's not going to be a skateboard or something. When your foot's in a certain place, the board might allow to kind of sneak out out a little bit, almost like if you're pushing your mongo, your board can end up wandering, right? But when you're on the front, it's pretty much impossible for it to wander around.
And it's like, you're just pinning it. And it's a bit uncomfortable, but so is just standing up holding the rifle for a while. It just gets heavy. Well, I was going to say that surely it's going to take out your little bit, kind of, you know, just holding away, you know, just think about just holding away.
Anything. Just holding anything in front of you. It could be the mug that I'm drinking. You know, you're drinking.
Have you hold that long enough? I reached. You're going to want to put that motherfucker down. You know, it's just, just imagine having something out there, but being able to almost rest it on something.
And that's what you're doing. Does the sling allow you to be in your most natural position? So I can also, we'll get on to that in a little bit. Okay, yep.
But it's just, you know, it's almost like you're filming. You're filming with your camera. You've got an SLR and you're just gripping it and you're holding it. When you've got that thing in a rig with a handle over the camera, it's putting the weight behind.
You can flow around. You know, this is, it's not a gimbal. It's not a rig, but it's on the same principle of being locked in there. And it's that sort of principle.
So it's maybe restricting certain movements, but this movement is just made for standing up and shooting. And it just affects it. And sometimes you might see someone standing up and shooting. If there's a wall near you, you're going to lean on it.
When you stand it up and shooting, you'll see a lot of this posture. Belly out, back. And it's not correct, but it's not uncorrect. Because the end of the day, if you're making a shot and you make it, it don't fucking matter.
But a lot of people lean back, you can rest your arm almost on your belly, and you're just solid. Like if you tuck your elbow into your stomach, it's just your body that's moving then. Your arm, don't move. Yeah, your guarantee and your stability, but your form might not necessarily be correct in that sort of circumstance for your wrestling or belly.
And this has given you a correct sense. It's given you that, it's given you almost a triangle, you know where your, all your body weight's put into more central, and it's coming in. And just the difference that instantly makes, so that, you know, we've had a quick explanation like we just had. We've got a guy demonstrating how to get in and out of this position, how to adjust the sling, right?
And then we're off on the races this out term. So we all had a big, big line on the shooting range. We all had our own targets placed in front of us, 25 metres, and we're all in the line, we've all got our mat, do some practices without the gun loaded. And we go through that, no check us all, make sure we're getting the right positions.
And then when we're all comfortable, when we'll figure it out and they will help us, we're going to fire like that. You know, do a section of fire. What we did though, it's not always the best example, and obviously a lot of fatigue throughout the day. But we started on a target.
So the first kind of thing we shot, standing up, and this one, they got us to choose a position that was comfortable. So it may have been standing sitting on a line. And so this is up 50 yards, so 100 yards, because this is what a certain target would look like, 100 yards, then this is what it would look like, two, three and four. So these targets I've got in front of me, they're just targets that go smaller and smaller as it goes along.
And we were told to put three shots at each, so easier, harder, harder, harder. And this is saying it's similar than a shot out to 500 yards, from 25 metres you can't really see it. And then later on, after we totally finish the end of the day, we do the shots again, and they're a lot better and a lot more on the money. So it's a good kind of, this is where you was out before, this is where you're at now.
Every time, so after we've done all the standing up shooting, we go back, we go to a sitting position and sitting on kneeling like we were talking about on the last one, mate, listening back on the other one, we was, you was having a little laugh about like a baby sitting on sitting down, like, you know, your legs 90 degrees out. That is a technical shooting position, mate. Really? So you got to think, right?
Especially people like me and yourself, our knees, ankles, hips, have had a lot of movement throughout our whole life. A lot of the same deal with a lot of these people here. So you go, you know, I say, and I do one knee, one leg, like one foot flap, knee up, on my knee, one foot tucked behind, I'm sitting on my heel. Put my toes out.
That's a position. Some people's ankles will not allow them to do that position. So they might have to have their ankle sideways and they're sitting on it, right? Or they've got it, they've got it procs like this, and they're sitting on the top, they've got it procs like this, this, or like this, and so you're comfortable.
Some people just can't bend their knees in that spot and then put their arm, their elbow on their knee, vice versa. So then they would either do two knees up or if you're really unflexible and you've got a load of leg issues, you're going to sit in that position and even across a lagged position. We had to try, we had to get out, self, in all of these positions and give a little shoot and find out what works best for your own body. So, hold on a second, you're telling us that you got this shooting, baby, baby sit position, or what?
Oh yeah. And did it feel good? No, it just felt like I was half standing up. It did feel very stable.
Yeah. But some, I don't really think there's anyone who would prefer that stance of the day, but they're people who are and they tell you every single position how to move. So if you were sitting down with your legs out, you don't just get up and move, you would just scoot your legs and you kind of move like that because if you start to match, if you start turning that way and your legs are facing that way, you're not in any sort of natural shooting position. No, no.
So here's one, mate, and we can, you can do it here with me, any other listeners can do this. I'm going to go into a natural shooting position, mate. And the biggest one, they said, we'll start out with a finger gun. You get your fingers, you get your gun, you point it somewhere, point at a target, could be something fairly small, point out there, and then close your eyes and count to 10 and open them and see where your fingers pointing.
Well, okay. Okay. So I've got a map that's probably maybe four or five meters away from me, mate, on this wall. Perfect.
So it's like a scratch away kind of map of the world. So I've got to put yourself on England. I'm going to have to go for South America or something, I think England's a little bit too small. Or maybe I should do it.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right.
Right. Right. Over England. Yeah.
That's right. Over England. Then close your eyes. I've got mine ready.
We'll count to 10. Okay. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Now open your eyes and see how far you've made that.
I'm shooting a fucking Brazil now. That slipped all the way down. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So basically, you have just moved into your natural position. Yeah. So you happen on a rifle with a pistol.
It normally happens when you're fairly square and your body's just going to go into where it relaxes. We had someone demonstrating us with a laser. So they're the laser on this part of the gun, point it at a target and close his eyes and watch where it dripped. Generally, you're drifting the same spot every time because that's where your body in that position is most comfortable.
So does that mean that if you could put yourself in that position, it's more about turning your body to be in that position rather than turn your arm? Yeah. So that's it. Let's say we're on Brazil, wherever we are.
So you've just moved to Brazil. So you would just naturally scoot your hips, your feet. So your whole body has moved in that correct stance. And then now you do the same test.
And eventually you'll get to the point where you are pretty much exactly where you was when you close your eyes because you're in that natural resting position. So I suppose if you took notice of where your feet were away or toes are pointing, and you know what I mean? You kind of took note of where you were form wise. Then you would be able to figure out exactly where your true position is.
I mean, so obviously your arm's going to kind of go into your shoulders. It's going to be on a certain angle that it wants to be at. Yeah, it's going to be where it's comfortable and where your body, you know, we're all humans. None of us are perfect.
None of us are going to slouch a bit or lean a bit. And it's finding the consistency of that and just just changing the angle of your whole body. And eventually you'll be able to keep going until you're closing your eyes and you're just staying in the exact same spot. And this guy moved till he was comfy, kept, you know, going.
So let's say he was moving three inches to the left position his whole body, three inches to the right. And then he is staying in that exact same spot. So then when you're shooting, standing up prone, sitting down, you do, you do that a couple times. And every time you shoot, you know, shoot your gun moves a little bit, re-line up, well, you're going to keep being very close to the same spot every time.
And that difference is huge because your body, when you shoot, you're all tensed up. You try not to move your breathing, trying to regulate everything. And when you shoot, you're going to naturally move to wherever your body's most comfortable as well, because it's just, that's what it is. Well, like you were saying about the last episode.
Exactly. Your movements, everything. Really open my eyes, mate, to just, well, if I'm a lot of the time, I'll shoot, sit down, I'll stand up and I'll shoot and I'll hit a target there. And I'll hit a target there.
And some of the times, it just doesn't work, even though I'm locating everything at the same point, because my body's just not, it's not aligned. It's not naturally supposed to do that. And obviously you can practice around that. But for what we're trying on this course, that's just not the way it works.
And that was a big eye opener. And then you go practice that, you come back again. And then we did troubleshooting pretty much. I'll just give you a list of pictures.
Every time we would shoot, we would go look at our targets. The old boys would walk around and they'd say, oh, so you took three shots there. Then I think you moved the tiny bit and then shot your last three shots. You'd be like, I did.
I didn't even know I did that. Whereas you, I reckon you did those shots and then that one, you probably was tired or something or everything was pretty much right. And then there's a lot of causes. So I can read some of them.
Let's, we've got this one right here. All the dots are pretty accurate, but they're in lines left to right. And a probable cause is finger passed too far into the trigger guard. So in the rifle fires, the trigger moves back rapidly against the right side of your stock where your fingers squeeze in.
Kind of like what I was having the problem with every time I'm shooting, I kind of doing this. Yeah, and that makes sense with the, with the, uh, you hitting in horizontal lines where it's going to be some sort of sway going on. Exactly. And then almost the opposite of that, we've got lines going up and down in a fairly straight line.
And that is you breathing. You got a gun, you breathing in, you're lifting up, you're breathing out, you're pushing down. And a lot of these things, oh fuck, I never thought that. And when I'm being really accurate, I would hold my breath because I wouldn't be moving.
I was going to say is that the, and that is not, that's not the technical, the technical way to do it. And obviously you shouldn't be holding your breath because I was going to say, yeah, I mean, if you were to hold your breath, yeah, you'd be locked in, nothing's, nothing's moving, right? So I kind of go on that science. Well, I went with, you know, kind of the same thing thinking, oh, well, actually, just when I do hold my breath, I don't move that much.
Well, that's probably fine if I'm just making one shot. But making several. Well, every time you hold your breath, your heart beats differently. And you still do, you have a bit of a bit of a movement, but they were saying, you breathe in, you breathe out.
When you breathe in out, you have that little rest period before you breathe in again. Shoot then. So you breathe out. You don't instantly breathe in.
So right now, I'm not breathing in. I'm not breathing out. Bang. And it's just the consistency.
Let's say every time you breathe in, you shoot then. Well, not maybe the greatest time to do it. But if you always then do it at that exact time, your shot's going to be consistent. If it's consistently high, it's consistently high.
But obviously at this point, you're not breathing in. You're not breathing out. So you shouldn't be going up or down. Shoot.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Shoot. And every time you're shooting, you shouldn't be lifting up or down.
And that is a huge difference. And it's like another little, you know, it's like, oh, just before you kicklet, mate, when you bend down, you bend it down so fucking far that you're killing this movement or, well, you know your foot's just a little bit to the right there, well, you haven't got anything to flick off. Move it over to the left. You've got loads of one to flip.
You know, just these little tricks make, make miles of differences. And without having to learn them on your own, someone's giving you the tip. Yeah. And it's like, you know, there's been a poor fucker to figure this all out or really break down.
Everything he's doing to be like, why the hell have I shot like this? And, you know, I wondered, it must have taken hundreds of years for people to really figure out, you know, without the technology behind it. Oh, yeah. So that was another great thing to learn.
Obviously, I'm wrapping it up quick, but generally, it's a lot of drill practicing. So like, when you're squeezing a trigger, mate, you generally always want to be surprised by when it's going off, not in the fact that, oh, you're shocked, but like, you're just slowly squeezing, slowly squeezing, slowly squeezing, you know when it's going to go off, you can feel the wall, the invisible wall of where, okay, well, if I put any further, it's going off. But your condition yourself isn't a finishing point to a movement. So you're not going to, I'll say you're physically leaning into it, but you know, mate, you know, when there is a, with anything, we can talk about skating, we can talk about loads of different things, but when you know there's like a finishing point to something or an ignition or a starting point to something, that does change everything.
But when you've got something in your holding, in your hands, it will move, right? It's a powerful thing. If you did know about it, obviously you're going to be, you're going to be fucking ready to fucking go against it or, you know, it's always going to scare you because it is a powerful piece of equipment in your hands. So if you're, if I'm getting this right, if you're kind of like, saying slowly squeezing, you're on the target, trying to stay calm with your breathing, you know, up and down as opposed you can, if you condition yourself anyway, you can breathe anywhere, you know, but it's like just, and then just slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, and it's just going to happen, right?
Rather than going, Kapao is most people, you know, if I was going to be that straight away, I'd be, bang. But you know, you think about that moment of, of initiating it, whereas you're saying, just if you're slowing it all down and you just, you're just little squeeze, you're not changing anything, right? You're not going, because, because pulling the trigger, you know, that is going to move your arm, you're just going to move your whole shoulder. I know it's just your finger and you can condition yourself, but you're, initially, it's, you're going to, there's going to be movement somewhere.
There's got to be. Yeah. And that's, then added with the movement involved. It's a lot going on.
And, uh, just kind of give some reference here. Like, obviously you can slow pull the trigger, keep slow, keep slow, and it's gone off, which is nice. But some people, they'll slow, slow, and then they slapped it. So you can just kind of slap the trigger, if that makes sense.
So like, you're pinching your pinch into all that. That's not great, because it's an inconsistent like, umf. Because even, yeah, if you were just going to pull straight away, mate, surely that's going to, that's, it's going to have to turn something, right? It's going to have to pull something out, because, I mean, I'm just doing it now.
Like when you're pulling your, it's not a lot of movement, but your forearm, your forearms, you know, the muscles are moving a little bit in there. Yeah. You know, just tense it up. It's not, it's not as a shitload of movement, but it definitely kind of bulges a little bit there.
So it's, it's doing something in your arm, which is holding the gun, right? So that could be a millimeter. But if you're trying to do, like, you know, you're doing those 100 yards shots and stuff like that, millimeters, everything, right? Surely you can't fucking about what millimeters.
Huge. Huge. And, uh, yeah, even if we just kind of make a little trigger finger in front of ourselves, you're looking at that generally, it's quite hard to get the tip of your finger where, you know, if imagine the trigger resting on that finger and you're pulling it down, are you pulling your finger down straight? Like from the, from just under here down, like even focusing on it, how, how easy is that pulling straight?
It's very hard. Yeah. And when you pull in, you're going to pull the gun one side or the other. And then wherever you position that.
Yeah. Because obviously it's still leverage on the, on the trigger before it's pulled, even on there. If you start pulling, there is going to be a kind of a counter pressure point that's. Yeah.
Lessness is in a vice or something. You're going to create some sort of minor movement. So, uh, all these things, you know, you can break it down with anything like we're saying, skateboard, football, anything, just like when accuracy angles and everything else comes into it, there is so much going on that you could, you could spend a week trying to perfect an eighth of one of these things, you know, how hard am I squeezing this trigger? Where on my finger is it going?
What trigger have I got to adjust to that scenario? Same with like, you're kicking a ball in a go, you know, what angle are you hitting it? You're trying to make it spin and you, you know, all these, all these factors make a huge difference. And all of them can be changed to how good you are or what sort of effect you want to get.
So really interesting, mate. It is really interesting. With that sheet that you had up there, mate, what can you just, is there a couple of little patterns that you can kind of just show us on there? Because you have the side, the sway and the tilt up and down.
Was there another kind of common, common spray pattern or? Yeah, I'm going to try and find one that is, um, okay. So here's a good one. So this one here is, these are all, you know, like a square target roughly.
And if you're trying to aim in the middle, they've all gone into the middle, but everything else has went diagonally high and right in a, if that makes sense as a cluster. So you've got probable causes. So they put healing or helping the rifle in anticipation to the discharge. So you know, you got to go obviously, when you're mainly using 22s, you're going to get a nudge.
That's your recoil. You're still anticipating that. You're expecting it to just nudge back the timing. So you're ready and you nudge and you just tense up while you're doing that.
Well, your biceps pushed in to that. Everything's changed that little position you had while you were trying to be nice and accurate. And so as the sea releases, so as you pull this, as you pull the trigger, you've got your bolt, your, your sear comes out of the bolt into the center, into the rim of the cartridge. So as the sea releases, at the end of the squeeze, the palm or the heel of the hand is pushed forward slightly causing the sight.
So if you're holding this guy and I push this forward, just the tiniest bit, it's going to cause the sights to go up into the right. And if you're a lefty up into the left, yeah, effect is the opposite for left hand shooters. And this will change. So they're going to say with a pistol grip.
This is a rifle grip. A pistol grip is a, a pretty much a 90 degree grip. That will come even more with a pistol grip because you've got that more of a difference of a stance where you're not as locked up. Something like this, you've got more in.
Yeah, surely your hands being closer together mate. You know, there's more of a teat point. There's more of an angle for it to, your wrists aren't going to be as strong as your whole arm, so it is going to, but in my head when you said about, you know, that certain one where it kind of flies up to the right, in my head, what I kind of envision is, is somebody who isn't very good with a gun or is intimidated by a gun or scared, and that'd be the first thing you'd see someone do is go, oh fuck, because it's scary, right? It's a, you don't know how much it's going to move.
You don't know how loud it's going to be. And the anticipation is everything. I'm sure most people probably get that one. Surely because you're, it's like, fuck.
You're not going to be ready. Oh, you know, as soon as you fire, you're not going to be ready. You're going to have to take a lot of time out your day to really kind of hone that in and to stop yourself and fucking flinching really, isn't it? You know, it's like, you know, not being in control of that power that's in your hands, which is quite an uncontrollable thing.
And you know it's coming. Yeah. Oh, you want to be prepared. You want to be ready.
You want to be somewhat composed. And all these things have not together. Yeah. And I'm sure that's going to be really common.
It just seems to me like it's one that it would set apart like tomorrow. We went to tomorrow. You know, I've shot some guns and I've done all right. But I did do a lot of shooting in a, in a vice me as well.
So this is different kind of fish. Of course. So I'm sure I can just feel it. I can, I'm just holding this imaginary gun now and I can, I can feel that it's going to do that.
You can just, it's almost automatic. It's like, because you're going to have to really kind of counteract that in jail or, I don't know what it is. But the first inclination I'm getting is that it's bagging. It's going to go up.
Because that's, that is kind of like the natural teetopoint where the power is going to come from. So it's going to, it's always just going to send it up, which, yes, it's weird that they document all this shit. It's like they've got probable causes, you know, what you can do, you know, to fix these or rectify these things. Exactly that.
And obviously me talking about all these probable causes, you know, your shooting pattern looks like this. It's probably that when, when I first saw this, I'm thinking half of this bollocks. You know, obviously in my mind, it's more of a, this is just probably what's happening. And they just got something to kind of give you a bit more of an idea of why you're not performing that good.
But then when they come up there and different guys are walking past now, like, ah, you know, you probably did those first in a net one because you can see the pattern or whatever. And you think, in Jesus Christ, it's that obvious. Yeah. But obviously, you know, fuck you, man.
You're just like to him. No, no, I didn't do that. I sneezed. Yeah.
No, I actually shot those ones first and then that one. No, no, I did. I did. I did.
Leave the gun club. You're not taking this seriously. I'm ill. Crying.
It won't go home. So, um, as you remember as well, when we're talking about this the other week, some of these are two shots, change the magazine, then another eight shots or something like that. So let's go here on this one. We've got two shots in the center of a target and then about eight shots all to the bottom, right of the target.
And they send probable causes on this. And a lot of these mag changes ones, they're under rapid fire. We've only got 55 seconds with a mag change in the acquiring. Obviously, it's not like, blah, blah, blah, done, you know, but compared to the others, it's very quick shooting and with the change and everything else.
It's going to feel rushed, they make surely. 100% and especially the first time you shoot, it's two minutes to do it, to do the same amount of shots with one magazine. And so you feel it getting quicker and quicker in your time, time kind of going down and the targets getting smaller with this time frame. So it's like during the rapid fire stages of the AQT and then it's then losing the NPOA.
So losing your natural position and of aim. So like we're saying, you're in your, you're in your comfort zone. You figured out if you're leaning to the right or left every few seconds, you've got yourself all lined up and ready. You're shooting your two shots.
Back back, back I've got a change from mag out. Get your other one out your pocket, put it in, back up again. Well, unless you've stayed completely still with your feet, your body's moved. You've got to find, you've got to quickly adjust to that natural point of aim.
While ringing off another eight shots on target, look, you want to get as good as possible by adding your breathing and your natural point of aim, using your sling, taking your time. After doing this for hours as well, you're getting tired every single time you're standing up, your fatigue. So, uh, saying one of them just could be the shift of you shooting, moving and lining back up again. And you just lined up that much difference.
So your natural point of aim is changed. And then number two, firing the shots of each mag, assuming a mag change at a slow fire and balanced with the rapid fire clearance of the last magazine. The eight rounds of rapid fire zero and the two rounds of the rapid fire zero. So basically, they're saying to fix that would be never move your elbow under the rifle while changing mags and use that to keep your natural point of aim.
So let's say, one target, I'm in my position, I do my two shots, my front stays where it is. I can kind of keep my eye through the scope, pretty much in its own target. I can drop a mag out, change and put it back in without doing all this. Yeah, so when you are changing, where are you keeping your other mag?
Where does that sit? Just to people have it in a certain pocket, you put anywhere that's comfortable for you. Normally, that's the same way you can reach with your free arm. So maybe your front, maybe your back.
I was having mine in my back, it was just a bit easier to grab it out of. But when you're here, you've got your mag release right here. But so most of the time you're doing this, you've already lost your position. Like trying to figure that angle over 5.25 meters.
Mate, your point, you're Brazilian, isn't it? It's gone. It's gone. You're shooting your body's target now.
And that was happening on the day. Wow. Not from me. Yeah, yeah.
Obviously, mate, obviously. So if you're there and you can just drop your mag out, you haven't moved. You haven't moved. You're on target.
Drop your mag out, come in, grab. So I've moved there, but the difference of mag out, filling around is huge. And I suppose it's not just a target though, it's your form, right? It's like, as soon as you've moved that front, that's everything's changed.
Yeah. Whereas at least with the, you're still keeping yourself in the vicinity of the target. You're still in the same, your eye is still comfortable. You're still kind of sitting there.
But as soon as you drop that one, I mean, that's anyone's fucking, it's just where it's going to go. And so that's saying, never move the elbow under the rifle while changing mags. And then fire each shot at your rapid fire preference, basically. So keeping that aim of target, adjusting, changing mags, and keeping it in a position where you barely have to readjust.
But adjusting as minimal as possible, keeping. So then you should be in the same spot or very, very close. Because obviously, every time you shoot, you can see where you shot pretty much, and you maybe realize that you might have to adjust where your shots are leading. So much to it, mate.
You know, it's kind of like you're skating towards a stair set, or you're skating to pop up something, or, you know, you kick flipping up, up a curve. You're skating at that curve, you're putting your foot in the kickflip position. You realize, you haven't got quite enough speed, you put your foot down, give it a good old push. You're first not really in a kickflip in position anymore.
Talking about kicking up a curve, bringing that in with this. It's like, you forget how difficult that was. Huge. And then, like, throwing it back to how easy, you know, it gets when you condition yourself in the right way.
I'm not saying it's an easy thing to do. But I don't even, I wouldn't even think, it's every, all of it is just turning to muscle memory, because it's happened so many times. So with these old geezers that put the hours in, it's the same thing, isn't it? They've nestled, they've found, they've done all those things that were subconsciously, like they've had to have done to, and they would have actively changed all the little things, and pissed around with their technique, everything.
But then 20 years down the line. They're not thinking about anymore. That shit's just happening. Their fingers go directly on the trigger in that spot.
Their natural point of aim is so natural that they know where it's going. Yeah. They're always gripping the same. You know, it's almost like looking at your foot before you do the trick to make sure it's in the right position.
Certain tricks, you don't even need to look anymore. And if your foot's slightly out of the right spot, you just finesse it in the opposite way, or you know, you just adjust to that. That's exactly what these people are doing with the shooting. You can watch it over yourself or even a kid trying to kick the clipper up a curve.
When his kickflip isn't very good anyway. So there's already, there's already that kind of part of it, whereas like, so he's trying to kick the other curve. But he isn't very good at kickflipping. So you're already like, there's already something there that we can learn about and discuss.
And it's like, well, you need to really, that needs to be better. Or even kind of like, you know, not be able to get bored over. It's funny how when we break it down, I'm thinking about that. It's so simple.
It's a paper you just showed me about the spray there, spray here, spray there. So we know that if the ball doesn't go all the way over me, it's either, there's a few things, problem causes. Obviously, you haven't got a quick enough kickflip and there's ways to change that up. Or an easier way of doing it, you're probably trying to catch too soon.
Yeah. Even with a slower kickflip, you can actually, you can still get up, but you just got to wait. You're not catching something. It kind of all happens at the same time.
That's like, that's more, that's, but it's really funny, like talking about like the science of shooting and everything like that and problem causes that you can, you can actually, if you analytically kind of did that on most things, you would learn more and probably excel quicker in any discipline that you wanted to get into. If you could just, you could just break down how to do shit. I mean, we were talking about before we came, yeah, before we came on here and you were saying about you've been spray painting some of your, your mags and stuff. And we were talking about how shit, you know, I've done some graffiti in my time, mate.
But you watched me try and spray paint something neatly. That shit's painting, that's ripping all the way down, there's terrible. Yeah. But the more you do it and the more delicate you are of it and the more you kind of take control of the situation, the better you get.
Definitely. And consistency is just it with everything, you know, just drilling it in, doing something so many times until, until it's normal, until you don't think about it, until you, oh, what, you know, you feel weird because you haven't done something that you normally do. And some things are just really relatable like that as well. It's a really interesting, mate.
Like I'm not doing it, mate. I can kind of, I get it. I can kind of see what, you know, how they're trying to break things down, how to try to make things work for these newer shooters, you know, trying to make them understand it, make it a more attainable kind of like goal, you know, you're kind of, you're breaking things down and just like, well, you're not, you're not fucking up. This is what happens when you shoot.
So you just need to just address these little things. It's not a fuck up. It's the gun's going to make you do that or your stance is going to make you do that. You need to just put, you need to get yourself in, in that zone.
It's probably even more concentration, mate. I'm sure concentration comes into half of it. If you're not really ready to fucking shoot or not wanting to shoot and other eyes, you know, if you're tired, I'm sure if you, you finished work, mate, long old shift, you've been working, you know, working your ass off hot day, cold day, whatever, you know, when you're just surely shooting after that, it's going to be a different game. Then if you wake up and go shooting.
You're fucking tired of the skate park. You've been there all day. You're really trying this kickflip mani or a semi technical trick. And, you know, maybe you can do it.
Maybe you're learning it and you're getting real fucking close, but you're so tired. You can barely flip anymore and almost getting further away every time. And something that can happen with shooting, you know, your fatigue does fuck. You know, you might have not been skating or shooting for five years or whatever.
So you're not used to holding things in a certain way. You're not used to skating all day. You're not used to kickflipping for four hours straight. And, you know, you're getting worse.
You're making mistakes. You're falling over yourself. And those things happen as well. Like, you know, you just start getting shaky, mate.
It's just a new thing. But yeah, the last time I was talking about the course, it's kind of a qualification. I've done the Maple Sea course. You can fail and you can exceed with a rifle and patch.
So we have to do the shooting course. Yeah, and run down that shoot course again real quick for the listeners. It didn't listen last time, mate. So we've got four stages on this shooting course, on this target.
And we've got some targets here. I'm not kind of like in the shape of the house. And I'm there kind of like a three, four, and a five kind of, that's how they're ranked. The first one is quite big.
It's probably full hand size, probably like a six, five, six inch target. And you get 10 shots on that, standing up. That whole thing, you can get a maximum of 50 points. Stage two, you start standing up, going kneeling down or to sitting.
You shoot with two targets. They're all the same. They're the houses, they're shrinked by a little bit more than half. So it probably goes down to like a two and a half inch sort of target, this size sort of target.
And then we go five shots in each with two mags. Same again, but we've got three targets. We've got two and eight, we're going to do this one standing up, going down to prone, laying down to three shots, three shots, and a four. And then the last one, prone, laying down.
And we've got four targets. These ones are probably inch and a half by inch and a half. Maybe a thumb just gets over like the main part of it mate. It's pretty small.
Yeah, definitely. And these we're doing two, two, two, and a three. And the last one, instead of it being three, four, and five, it's six, eight, and ten. So you can get the maximum points off of the small one.
So out of four possible stages, you get a total of 250 maximum points. So when here it's got under 125 points total is unqualified. And then you've got between 125 points and 169 points. And putting you in the marksman category, 170 to 209.
Put you in the sharpshooter and 210 or above your rifleman. And you'll get a rifleman patch, which as I said last time supposedly it's very rare that anyone even gets one. So before I was going, I was practicing some of these without being taught how to do any of this, just off my own back. And I was getting around, I think the highest I got was 181.
And we're saying it's not too far away from 210. You know, obviously that's the aim of the game in. I didn't manage to get it. And one guy did, who's been shooting for a very long time, we had people there who've been shooting for 60 years.
So, and we got people there with $1000, $22,000, scopes, my gun with the scope cost $250. It was the cheapest one I could have got. And I managed to get a top score on this one, this is my highest one, I got 203. So I was seven points off getting that patch.
And if we look right here, there was a miss. And if we look in a few of these other places, not all misses, but there was some that if they were just a couple inches to the right or to the left, I would have got that 210. So really close. So you kind of know, really, give it a little bit, mate, a little bit more practice, get your execution down, it's going to happen.
Hopefully by the next time I get to do this course, maybe six months to a year, I'll get to do the chance again and hopefully walk away from my rifleman patch. I mean, the rifleman patch sounds like a big deal, so you can't just be turning up and getting one, mate. Yeah, that's it. You know, the instructors are the rifleman's.
And so let's put this to reference. We got a guy there, not going to say his name. Great, great shooter. One of the high up members of the club is a board member of the club.
Been there shooting for probably 20 to 30 years, has all of the gear, all of the idea, you know, plus thousand dollar gun plus thousand dollar scope already done the course and got 206. You know, he's probably in his fifties, starting to retire. Really good at shooting. So I'm very, very happy with how I done.
And one one person passed that day who teaches people how to shoot as one of his jobs. And he got on the first round 235, which, you know, if some of those riflemen, you know, some of those teachers shot that day, they might not get 210. Some of them might get every fucking go. But that guy, I think he did three attempts.
One of them, he got 230, one of them he got 220, one of them I don't know about. But you get three attempts throughout the whole day, obviously replenishing your skills and moving up as you go along. This whole boy was a sharp fucking shot and there was no doubt about it. And you could tell that was just the experience he had.
And even he said he'd learnt so much from doing that course. Yeah, and that's something for you to aspire to, see and something like that. That good that you can get there. You just got to put your hours in and you're not that far away.
Consistency, repetition, it all comes down into it. Helping you know the longer you're holding that gun, the more it's going to be easier. But that patch is coming home soon. Yeah, they probably got it on the side for me somewhere.
Yeah, saving it finally. Yeah, exactly. Broided, buckbills. A great day, mate.
It was really cool. Love to do any sort of course as I can that have been coming up. So eventually I'm going to be working myself towards a holster course because at this range, we need to have an RSO, which is a range safety officer. It's just kind of someone there is just making sure everyone's getting on with what they should be doing.
You know, you're going to at some points get people who don't really know what they're doing. So if you have this there, just make sure that no one's running down and changing targets while someone might be shooting or anything stupid like that. Someone might be putting the gun away with a bullet in it. All these kind of things, we all have a system that, you know, when you're not shooting, you just put your gun on the gun rack and you leave the action open and anyone can kind of see that that gun's all safe.
So to become an RSO, you have to have a holster course. So for a pistol, if you've got a pistol at the range, you can't just have it in a holster without knowing what you're doing because it's a good way to shoot yourself and be very dangerous, you know. So one of the guys was helping me out with getting me prepared for the holster course, which is going to be in February, I believe. So that's probably going to be the next thing I do.
So I'm going to be pretty excited about that, mate. And then after that will be the RSO course. And then when I'm an RSO, I can go there and shoot by myself because I can RSO myself. I can shoot even more at any time, which will be a lot more interesting as well.
Awesome. Nice, mate. Well, it's good to hear that you did well in your course, mate. You know your growing as a shooter anyway, so it's one of those things, I think.
And it's good you got these other ones lined up. So we'll be here ready for the next gun club, mate. Of course. You can fill us all in on how you're doing next time.
Not too long ago I was talking about on the last one, but my 17 HMR was talking about the accuracy of it. And I was hitting these coins, just pretty happy about. And then after doing the course, mate, I was able to hit a tic-tac. So it definitely sharpened up the scales, mate, the proof in the pudding.
Exactly, mate. Well, thanks for listening, everyone. We'll see you soon. Awesome.