On the face of it, the title seems obvious. Sort of like saying water is wet. But it is something that must be discussed in the realm of combat shooting as there seems to be a great deal of the “complacent quest for adequacy” creeping into the study. “Its good enough for gunfighting”, one man may say as he views his pizza sized group on the cardboard, not taking into consideration that what he is viewing was not the result of an hour of busting off the x in reactive drills…but rather his best in non-pressured proactive group shooting.
The combat crowd might scoff at our standards of all shots touching as an indicator of accuracy (both of man and gun and ammo). But the more accurate the shooter is, and the more accurate his weapon is, the greater a margin for error he has if things are less than optimal when he has to shoot. Think of a custom pistol that is capable of all shots touching at ten yards, compared to a pistol of lesser development that is only capable of a six inch group at ten yards. If the dynamics of conflict increase group size by a factor of four, the shooter with the less accurate weapon will miss many of his shots. (His accuracy potential having grown from a 6″ group to a 24″ inch group). The shooter has a margin of error that is considerably better with the more accurate pistol. Much the same can be said for rifles.
It all begins and ends with accurate shooting, and accurate shooting is made up of a number of components.
First of all is the shooter. He must have a reasonable level of skill at the fundamentals of shooting. There is no secret to these and they are shared with every single basic level class that we teach. The problem is that the fundamentals of marksmanship is not as fun as rappelling upside down from a building and shooting while Five Finger Death Punch plays in the background. But the truth is that if you want to hit that target at the base of the rappelling tower, you need to know those fundamentals. And so few instructors even understand them, much less understand how to teach them.
Next is the weapon. And please understand…you do not need to be a world champion to benefit from a world champion firearm. The truth is that the world champion firearm will help you develop greater skill that a low quality weapon with poor sights and trigger that you must wrestle with as you work to develop skills. Contrary to popular opinions…its easier to begin with a quality weapon if you can afford one.
by Gabe Suarez
