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The New Shooter's Checklist
I’m often asked: “what’s good advice for a new shooter?” or “how should a new shooter get started?”
Short answer? There is no short answer. Not one that actually gets to the heart of the matter. Besides “get training from a trustworthy and competent professional” any short answer leaves too much on the table.
There’s too much that a new shooter needs to consider to feel at all confident in a concise answer to such a big question. So many pitfalls to avoid, decisions to be made based on other decisions, not to mention that pesky “each individual is entirely different from the next” thing.
That being said, it’s a worthwhile question deserving of an answer. Since no two new shooters are alike, instead of writing out a prescriptive step by step for getting started (an endeavor that would either prove woefully inadequate in it’s scope or take up a volume rivaling the size of War and Peace.) I’ve compiled a list of habits, to-dos, and training aids to consider if you or someone you know is starting their shooting journey. I’ve drawn this list from the 1000’s of new shooters I’ve seen begin their journeys over the years, and noticing the common through lines that seem to connect those that “get it” on a level that far surpasses their peers.
This list is not exhaustive nor is it a granular “step by step” guide that the internet loves so much, but a somewhat chronological look at the biggest difference makers I’ve noticed in high performing students, all of whom started from SQUARE, FREAKING, ONE.
The List:
1. Get Instruction
No, your bias sensor isn’t malfunctioning, we are 100% biased on this one and with good reason. I have the honor and the pleasure of seeing the way that even a very small amount of instruction, particularly in a small class or private environment when taught by a competent professional who actually has a vested interest in seeing their students succeed can take even the most unlikely candidate and turn them into a competent and safe shooter.
There are no do-overs when it comes to firearms, the safety stakes are astronomical, the pitfalls and bad habits than can plague shooters for years lurk everywhere. A solid foundation and a professional guiding hand through those incredibly important first steps can and have so many times over been the difference between an adequate somewhat frustrated shooter who maybe gets to the range once or twice per year, and someone empowered by the confidence and skill they were able to build handling a deadly weapon, who has fun continuing to hone that potentially life saving skill.
Remember, you aren’t just learning to hit more bullseyes, but building skills and confidence that will serve to drive you to continually improve as your journey goes on. It pays dividends to get it right out of the gate.
2. Get clear on WHY you want to learn to shoot.
Without fail, our best students have a good why to their learning and training. Your “why” drives your mindset, which helps guide decisions, which promotes effort. Your “why” shapes how you look at your progress, and how you form your goals. Like a warm hand on a clump of ice, it’ll corm the lens through which you take in all the information having to do with your practice. It moves you from “paying for a lesson” to “training.”
NOTE: Your “why” doesn’t have to be a tragic situation that forces one to take their personal safety into their own hands due to an immediate threat, though far too often it unfortunately is. This simply means, like with anything important that may require sustained effort to master, you need to have a why beyond “because I want to get better.”
Maybe you were brought up to fear guns and you want to conquer that fear and replace it with the confidence well gained through mastery.
Perhaps you take a look at the way the world is going and realize while unlikely that you’ll ever need it, you want to know you can defend your family should the need ever arise.
Maybe your “why” doesn’t have as fine a point on it as those, and you are simply in the pursuit of self-betterment and realize part of that pursuit requires the basic means to self preservation, and a firearm is a critical part of a very large arsenal of tools you can use to do so.
The potential list could go on, no two reasons are EXACTLY alike, but trust me when I tell you that the moment you have an honest conversation with yourself and realize what’s driving you to learn to shoot, your mindset shifts, and the rest of it gets just a bit easier.
3. Familiarize yourself with the (UNLOADED) gun at home before hitting the range.
The first time you handle your gun should not be on a live range. Just like the first time you handle a sharp knife should not be at a packed house cooking at one of those Hibatchi grill places.
A live range is a hostile environment for a completely new shooter to learn in. The two main new stressors your brain needs to get used to are: Handling a deadly weapon safely and getting used to the sound of gunfire. Give yourself a leg up and begin doing the former at home. *Even if you’re coming out for a class and we will be working with you step by step in the private training area away from the public range, don’t be afraid to handle your firearm ahead of time.
Make sure there is no live ammunition present in the same room when handling your new firearm at home.
This goes 5,000 times over for introducing children to firearms. Under (almost) no circumstances should kids be thrown onto a live range and expected to learn the first things about guns. They should be taught safety and basic handling at home prior to their first range outing.
4. Go to the range during the slow times when you start.
You’ll find many shooters try and spend their full shooting careers following this advice. A few benefits to this method include:
The range is quieter and more suited to training. You don’t have to worry as much about knuckleheads trying out their new gun who don’t know which end the bullet comes out. You aren’t as rushed and can take your time at practice at your pace.
You have a chance to meet “the regulars” who tend to frequent the range during those “off hours.” Many of these regulars are all too eager to share some sage shooting wisdom with a respectful new shooter eager to learn. *Note that not all of this advice will be good, and some range regulars fancy themselves arbiters of sacred gun knowledge that in their benevolence they have deigned to impart to you despite you not asking for it. That being said, I’ve met some incredible shooters and friends myself this way including the late John Maxwell (writer of our “reloading” article.)
The staff are more willing to help when the range isn’t too busy. Like with the regulars, not every bit of advice from every person who works at a range will be a diamond, but when you’re new it pays to be a sponge.
Overall if you’re looking to practice and improve skills, don’t look for the popular times, look for the unpopular times on the range.
5. Buy Dummy Rounds (snap caps) and USE THEM.
If you’ve worked with CFI, practiced with me on the range, talked to me at the shop, or even pumped gas in my general vicinity you’re likely well acquainted with my position on Dummy Rounds. I am pro heavy use of dummy rounds. I’ve put out videos and posts on this topic quite a few times, including at the end of our “Getting worse the more you shoot?” article.
Long story short: Dummy rounds are an invaluable tool to help you simulate malfunctions and practice clearing them when you train. Load them in with your live ammunition and work on your immediate action drills (tap,rack,bang) They also do a great job of highlighting any trigger control mistakes that might be creeping up on you. When that gun doesn’t go off it’s a great chance to look at whether or not it stays still when it clicks or whether you have some small issues with anticipation/trigger control. They’re great to use during a class, and a huge help if you’re practicing by yourself to get good feedback on what you might be doing wrong. I feel confident saying that it’s probably the most bang you’ll get for your buck of any training instrument given the fact that you can get a few of them for a few bucks and they last a pretty long time.
*pro tip: when they start getting stuck in your chamber when you rack the slide, take a look at the rim, if it’s chipped off it might be time to grab some more but good on you for wearing your dummy rounds out!
6. Set a plan for your training and STICK TO IT
My best students have some semblance of a plan. I’m not talking about a dedicated shooting calendar with logs & notes for their outings (though some do) but a general plan for how often they will hit the range and when, along with their home practice. An example from a wonderful student who advanced rapidly below:
Those are very small amounts of time, but look at how OFTEN they’re handling their firearm in one way or another. They made a generalized plan, left themselves some wiggle room, didn’t try to get it all done at once, and stuck to it pretty darn well. They saw rapid improvement in both their accuracy and the confidence of their handling the gun regardless of the situation.
I’m all about starting slow and building momentum. Maybe you can squeeze in 30 min 1 time/week or 2 times/month. That’s fine. Start there and stick to it and make sure you add time to get some pracitce done at the house.
7. Make use of rentals.
Most every range you go to will have the option to rent a firearm for range use. A place like Clark Brothers lets you do it for free as long as you buy the ammunition for the gun. Take advantage of this! You can try new guns and truly begin working towards becoming a jack of all trades (a very fast way to build proficiency and confidence is to apply your knowledge to a vast array of tools.) You can also save a bunch of money by renting a small caliber handgun like the glock 44 (a .22 caliber) and getting a lot more trigger time in than would be possible with your 9mm, .38, or .40 caliber where the ammo is a bit pricey. A box of 100 rounds of .22 is about the same price as buying 20 rounds of 9mm ammunition. Maybe you put 100 rounds downrange with the .22 and finish with 20 rounds with your larger caliber gun?
8. Practice at home (a bunch)
There’s no two ways around it and no flashy way to sugar coat it, the students who progress the quickest and retain the most are the ones who practice at the house, period.
*be sure to double check that your firearm is entirely unloaded and all ammunition is removed from the room prior to any at home practice and always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction even during dry fire.
You can improve your at-home practice game and really make it more fun, here’s a couple options:
You can always take a look at our at home workouts here: Home Dry Fire Workouts
On top of that, you can grab a laser like the one pictured below (you can even click on it and go get one.) It doesn’t have to be the one we use, just make sure you get one in the caliber that’s right for your gun. It’ll shoot a laser out of your barrel just where your shot would have gone and give you a chance to judge your accuracy and trigger control. If you’ve got a dartboard or something like that you can make a game of it. Anything you keep you engaged and practicing! Use it as an opportunity to teach family/friends about safe gun handling and fundamentals in a fun way.
9. Go to the range MORE OFTEN and shoot LESS while you're there.
Shoot LESS? Next I’ll be telling you I don’t like bacon or puppies. Fear not. Bacon is delicious, puppies are adorable, and that sentence gets horrifying with a slight slip up on the word order.
I call this “go more but shoot less while you’re there” line of training the “brandon method” after the first person I ever witnessed successfully try it. A friend of mine had to begin training for his LE qualifications. He did not take a formal class, he did ask for some tips & pointers, and then began his own training. He worked at the gun shop and decided every day he worked (4-5 days/week) he would go back to the range after his shift and fire a maximum of 20 rounds downrange. He might go for a bit of speed one day and focus more on precision the next, but it was 10-20 rounds of hyper focused practice multiple times per week, always making sure to pay attention to the fundamentals (particularly his trigger control). He did this for a couple months leading up to his training class with the Sheriffs dept.
He was only outshot by 1 person in his entire training class at the academy when the time came for him to qualify.
Consistency is more important than density when it comes to learning to shoot well, particularly when you’re starting out. If your schedule or budget only allows for so much time at the range or so many rounds for practice, spread it out rather than pack it all together.
10. Take advantage of the internet.
Just because it is in Vogue to make fun of online gun people, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater on this one. There are a lot of great resources out there. Use youtube to look up how to take apart your gun. Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo for new training ideas and drills you can try to run on the range. Find groups of likeminded people in your area you can potentially practice with on social media. Get inspiration from people at a similar stage in their journey.
There is something intangible that happens when students make shooting a part of their “online habits” as well. They show up for class with more fire to learn, they are encouraged to try new gear or explore new modalities for training. I love when a student comes to class saying that they watched a cool new video from someone like GarandThumb or Sage Dynamics because I know: 1. Those guys are putting out good content with solid information and 2. That the student is getting to a place where they’re really taking on an active role in their own training. It’s no secret that getting excited about learning is a huge leg up for a new shooter and there’s plenty to get excited about in the online 2a community.
11. Did I mention practice at home?
Do it.
12. Find someone to shoot with.
I like my “me time” as much and very often a lot more than the next guy, but adding a social element to your shooting is something we see with a vast majority of our quickest progressing students. You can absolutely lone wolf it and get very good, but it’s easier with a tribe or at least a partner.
Shooting with someone or a few someones will add competitive drive to your practice. You will have someone you can bounce ideas off of. You will have someone to boost you up when you aren’t performing like you know you can. You can act as teacher and student, exponentially improving your practice through the need to teach what you know to someone else and learn from them as well.
It’s sometimes hard to quantify, but having someone else to be accountable to, who gets this weird new “gun thing” you’re into is incredibly helpful getting started. Depending on your family and social circles, you may well be the only shooter in the group. New habits and goals can be tenuous when they have to be hidden away in normal day to day life. If your social circles involve a bunch of people who might be liable to lose their ever loving minds if you dare to bring up the “g-word” at a dinner party you’ll run the risk of losing steam in your practice without a good shooting buddy to “gun out” with. Intangible as this one may be, it’s a big one. Get a loved one into shooting, make a friend or two at the range, you name it, but training is easier when you’re not going alone all the time.
Closing Thoughts
If you found something in this list helpful or have thoughts on what has helped you, we really do want to hear form you. Leave a comment below, send us a message, reach out on social media, you name it.
As always, stay smart, stay safe, never stop improving, and I’ll talk to you soon.
I did not exactly do it this way, but I am confident that taking a Basic course from CFI was a good first step after purchasing a pistol.
It is good to know that Clark Bros will loan pistols for shooting practice. I will do that next time out there!