Learn to Shoot a Gun: 10 Top Tips for Better Shooting

By sienna sinclaire | August 6, 2020

Do you want to learn to shoot a gun? In this guide, we’ll give you 10 top tips to get deadeye accuracy and improve your confidence with a gun.

Excited to get a gun? Great! However, keep in mind that a gun is a huge responsibility that you can’t just brush off.

Once you get a gun, you first need to know the basic gun safety rules! Got that in check? You need to learn to shoot a gun next.

If you’re a first-timer or a long-time gun owner, it’s never too late to get better. Remember, keep safe, keep calm, and read on.

1. You Can Work With That Gun

You have to be sure that your country allows carrying or owning a gun. If not, you have to have a gun license to ensure that you do not illegally buy, own, or carry a gun.

For home defense, a shotgun works best with the options of semi-automatic, or pump style. If you plan to carry a firearm, handguns like pistols and revolvers work best. For hunting or long-distance shots, the best guns are rifles.

2. Don’t Rush to Improve

If you want to shoot or learn the basics, you have to first slow down. Focus on the basics of sight picture, breath control, and trigger control with the slow-fire drill. These all help improve your accuracy and ensure your bullets aren’t going to waste.

Start with a blank target and stay within 5 to 25 yards from your target depending on your gun. Fire one round and shoot the rest of your ammunition without enlarging the first shot. If you succeeded, move back 10 to 50 yards and repeat.

For every success, move back double the yards and repeat until you can reach the limit of your range. It takes a long time to perfect the drill, but it will pound the accuracy into your body.

3. Know the Proper Shooting Stance

For rifles or snipers, a low sit stance like crossed-leg or crossed-ankle stance is the best for stabilizing recoil. The gun has to be resting at the shoulder of your dominant hand.

For small guns, lean a bit forward with a slight bend in your knees. The simplest and most versatile stance is placing your dominant leg backward.

4. Have a Good Grip

An important thing to have before you learn to shoot a gun is a strong grip. Having a good grip lessens the movement of your non-trigger fingers. It helps by preventing a finger from getting stuck in a bent position.

With a weak grip, the recoil can cause you to hit yourself with the gun or it will throw itself into the air. To stabilize your gun, make use of your non-dominant hand and place it on top of your dominant hand on the grip. 

Before heading to the range, make sure you have quality ammunition that suits your gun. If you’re in the market for a reliable and affordable option, check out Aguila Ammo Review.

5. Learn When to Breathe

How you breathe can mess your aim enough to throw off your shot. Meanwhile holding in your breath can steady and improve your aim. Breathe naturally when you shoot any handguns.

If you are using a rifle, then you should hold your breath while you shoot. Take a deep breath, exhale half of it, and hold your breath as you pull the trigger. Once you feel your pulse increasing, restart, and take another breath.

6. Focus On Practicing With Dry-Fire

Dry firing is when you trigger a cocked gun and allow a striker to drop on an empty chamber. There is no loud noise and recoil for dry fire as its purpose is for you to focus on the basics.

The goal of dry fire is so you can develop muscle memory so you can produce a good trigger pull. It also helps to reduce your flinch when you are practicing with real bullets.

You can practice at home or practice best at a shooting range. Here are some shooting range tips you need to keep in mind.

7. Know the Ideal Trigger Control

Your gun does not rely on the force you put into pressing the trigger. If you “push” the trigger, the gun will tend to move a little to the left, right, down, or up. Note that the slower your pull the trigger, the better your shot will be.

Your forefinger should always be the one to pull the trigger no matter what kind of gun. Squeezing with your middle finger is dangerous because there’s a chance your forefinger might push the projecting pin. The pin is at the slide stop and it can cause a jam when the slide recoils.

8. Diversify Your Training Routine

Break your training into three sessions: basic skills, skills learned so far, then new or advanced skills. Once you have the basics in the bag, reinforce them by making it a regular part of your everyday training.

Have at least half of the session dedicated to honing and maintaining your overall shooting skills. Then finish up your session by learning difficult or new skills. It is best to have a shooting partner to help provide a variety of training scenarios.

9. Only Fire When You’re Ready

Try not to waste your shots as ammunition is seeing a sudden rise in price during the pandemic. This is due to the fact more people are buying guns right now. Shooting when not ready also delays the next shot as guns like rifles and shotguns take a while to reload.

Take your time to position yourself and point your gun towards the target. Do not take too long to do so since holding a gun may tire your muscles which causes you to shake and aim all over the place. Fire your gun once you feel that the target is in your sights and put your finger on the trigger only when you are ready to shoot.

10. Know When to Stop

There may be days when things don’t work out, so don’t waste your ammunition or bad habits can develop. Bad habits such as shooting without proper focus or forcing yourself to perfect a shot. Those habits will delay your practice to learn to shoot and it adds to your list of what to fix.

Make a standard where you should continue shooting if you can make a hit 80% of the time. You can also limit what is inside the magazine holder with only 5-8 cartridges so you know when to stop. Always check the weather and don’t force yourself to continue in the cold or a windy day.

Learn to Shoot a Gun Today!

No matter your training or type of gun, it takes some time to perfect and learn to shoot a gun with accuracy. Always be sure to follow-through your shots and never lose grip.

Try all these tips and practice with diligence and one day, you may end up as the best shot in your team! 

Of course, owning a gun doesn’t end with learning how to shoot it. If you want to learn how to store it, maintain it, and more then keep reading our other guides right here!