Point-Aim Shooting at the Highest Level
In the sport of Western Mounted Shooting, where shooting takes place on a horse while moving takes great skills – not just in riding and maintaining a stable base. But in shooting itself, you have to master the point-aim method, because there’s no time to take aim and get your sight alignment as you would do while stationary. This type of shooting is so dominant it’s maybe one of the most realistic ways to train for that fast instinctive shooting while in a real gunfight.
Here’s the more traditional approach to shooting on the move when not on a horse, instructions given by Sig Sauer Academy/NSSF.
SIG SAUER Academy Director Adam Painchaud shares a target-shooting drill that can help improve accuracy while shooting on the move. Adam talks about his approach to a “shooting on the move” practice regimen and passes along some tips to target shooters looking to do the same.
What about you all, how much practice do you put into point-aim instinctive shooting?
Video Transcript:
[Intro music and gunshots]
Adam Painchaud: Hey guys, one of the things I like to do when I’m setting myself up to practice, specifically ‘shooting on the move’, is, I use a steel plate like the steel plate we’ve got set up down range. Steel’s nice because it’s reactive, you know when you hit it, and I don’t have to pace targets and worry about holes in the paper or anything like that. So a steel target works out good to aid in my shooting on the move type of training regime. And what I’ll do from there is basically just move. I’ll move in and out, forward and back on the target, left and right, and then I’ll do kind of a diagonal type of drill. And, you know, I don’t really stage it out with a certain amount of shots or anything like that, basically what I’ll do is, wherever I’ll start, I’ll start shooting on the move. So if start going back, then I’ll go forward, and wherever I stop I’ll go to the side, left, right, and go diagonal. So not just a, like, plus-sign fashion, but also a diagonal. We get that in-depth with lateral movement as well. So really just keep it simple. And I’ll burn through three or four magazines doing a drll like that, and that’s a decent little shooting-on-the-move drill. So just, steel target, left, right, forward, back, and diagonal, wherever you stop, holster up your gun, and I’ll take everything from the holster. So if I move in, I’ll finish up, put it back in the holster, and then I’ll move out, do the same thing. If I’m going left, wherever I stop, back in the holster, reload, and start from the top and go right.
So just keep it real simple, just get some good movement down. Don’t get too crazy with the footwork, just move. You’ve been walking your whole life, uh, just move. Careful about the duck walks or criss-crossing or moving so slow that it’s not practical, just flow with it. A lot of times, especially when you’re moving diagonal across the range, you may start off moving heel-to-toe, or you might start moving backwards. As long as the turret and the gun stay facing downrange and on the target, that’s really all that counts.
So have fun out there, set up the steel target, and get some shooting on the move done!
[Outro music]
Source: HarrisandSons Instagram, Sig Sauer/NSSF Academy Youtube
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