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Never Waste a Miss

By
Marky
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Never waste a miss.

I get a lot of e-mails. 

How to do this? How to do that? And sometimes when I dig down into the basis of the question, I am shocked to discover some crazy mistake, screw-up, or mis-learned habit or thing. 

So if you are someone who always gets a scope zeroed, you can skip this video. And while we are at it, there are better ways to skin a cat so to speak: bore sighting being one of them. 

But this isn’t my rifle. This isn’t my scope. It’s unknown ammo. And the shooter is already heating it up. Given the chance to step in and see what’s going on, this is where I am starting from. 

The three most critical things a new shooter can do on a scoped rifle is:

  1. Before shooting, look at reticle and understand what values or measurements you are operating in. MILS? MOA? Half’s? Quarters? Tenths? But what if it’s a duplex or post reticle? Simple. You are now measuring in targets sizes: half, quarter, etc. Or you are measuring in the simplest default your mind can calculate. In the United States, that is typically inches. Even for MIL shooters. Doesn’t matter, as long as your mind sees it. 
  2. When shooting a scoped rifle, don’t gopher your head. Stay in the glass. Even after the round is fired. Observe the target THROUGH the glass. What changed? Where was the reticle at the moment the shot broke? 
  3. Mentally record your misses. They are more important than your hits! Don’t just see the target. See the impact. If you keep steps 2 & 3 running in your mind, adjusting fire or the scope is usually simple. 

Pro-tip: You’ll notice I made a mistake in the video. At one point I turned the elevation knob the wrong way. As soon as the shot broke, I was suspicious. Not because I’m so smart. It’s because the “shooting high” got worse. And it happened to get just as worse as the adjustment just dialed. 

It didn’t matter what I thought should have happened. All that mattered was the bullet. That Ladies and Gentlemen is what law enforcement calls a, “clue”! 

Cheat sheet: Know your scales, watch your shot break points, watch for you impacts, dial the necessary adjustments, but remember those adjustments incase you have to dial it back! And do all of this IN THE GLASS. 

Missing isn’t the problem. It’s wasting those misses that gets you lost. 

 

 

Sincerely, 

Marky

www.John1911.com

“Shooting Guns & Having Fun”

Marky
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