Why You Should Participate in 3 Gun
The primary reason you should participate in 3 Gun competitions is because they give you an avenue through which you can turn your shooting ability in to practical ability.
You may be a crack shot when you have time to take aim, somewhere to rest your weapon, when you are in a prone position, or even standing upright. But what about when you are being rushed? Having to shoot on the move? Having to reload rapidly with jittery hands and your adrenaline pumping through you making your feel like you are going to explode and making it nearly impossible to hold your rifle steady?
Are your muscle mechanics so firmly ingrained in your habit patterns that you automatically disengage your safety, acquire your sight picture, and fire at your target all in an instant with zero conscious thought?
When a magazine is empty in your AR-15 do you automatically press the magazine eject button with your index finger while simultaneously grabbing another magazine with your other hand and feeding it into your rifle without missing a single beat or ever even needing to look down?
If a jam occurs in you pistol, do you automatically pull the slide back to clear the jam and continue firing without a moments hesitation or do you stop and look at your pistol to see what's wrong with it?
These are merely a few examples of the habits that can (and should) get firmly and properly ingrained into your nervous system as a result of fast paced competition shooting in the world of 3 gun.
All sports have phases of mastery. First, you learn what the sport's particular movements and actions are. Then you begin practicing them and utilizing them at a fairly slow speed because they still require conscious thought in order to carry them out. Then finally, they carry themselves out automatically when they are supposed to...without any conscious thought or effort on your part.
Can you imagine an NFL linebacker having to stand there and consciously analyze what the offense is doing as the play unfolds before he can take any useful action? His effectiveness as a linebacker would be absolutely laughable. That;s what peewee football is for. That's when you learn the basics. Then your spend the next 10-12 years drilling at half speed, full speed., and playing all out in competition in actual football games. Over the course of time, the automatic responses become more and more efficient until eventually the player (assuming he has the psychical characteristics necessary such as strength, size, and speed) reaches a world class level and is able to perform phenomenally without any conscious thought during the heat of the moment.
3 Gun is no different.
This is the direction we should all want to go with our shooting skills. If we shoot for any practical purpose other than simply the simple joy of shooting, then our practice must seek to train our abilities according to our desired ends. If our goal is to get better at shooting for hunting then we must practice shooting our bolt action rifle in all sort of standing, seated, leaning, and prone positions possible and we should periodically get ourselves winded or excited before practicing these shots because in the moment that we are about to take a kill shot on a hunt, we know we are likely to have to shoot from a non-ideal position and we know that we are likely to be winded from hiking and excited by the big buck, elk, or whatever animal it is that we have been stalking for so long in anticipation of this moment. So it goes with defense shooting as well.
If you are shooting for the purpose of being able to defend yourself and you family in a true emergency scenario then you must practice shooting under the high stress conditions placed upon you in a race/obstacle course format such as a 3 Gun Competition. By doing so, you simulate as closely as possible the environment that you will face when such a moment arises and there is never time nor mental capacity available for you to slowly and consciously load, aim, shoot, move, reload, clear jams, etc., etc. It will be too late for practice at that time. At that moment it is game time...and those who have practiced the most thoroughly and the most realistically will have the best chances of survival.
Get into 3 Gun. Not only is it incredibly useful, it is also just plain fun.
Find a local 3 Gun Competition in your are today.
You may be a crack shot when you have time to take aim, somewhere to rest your weapon, when you are in a prone position, or even standing upright. But what about when you are being rushed? Having to shoot on the move? Having to reload rapidly with jittery hands and your adrenaline pumping through you making your feel like you are going to explode and making it nearly impossible to hold your rifle steady?
Are your muscle mechanics so firmly ingrained in your habit patterns that you automatically disengage your safety, acquire your sight picture, and fire at your target all in an instant with zero conscious thought?
When a magazine is empty in your AR-15 do you automatically press the magazine eject button with your index finger while simultaneously grabbing another magazine with your other hand and feeding it into your rifle without missing a single beat or ever even needing to look down?
If a jam occurs in you pistol, do you automatically pull the slide back to clear the jam and continue firing without a moments hesitation or do you stop and look at your pistol to see what's wrong with it?
These are merely a few examples of the habits that can (and should) get firmly and properly ingrained into your nervous system as a result of fast paced competition shooting in the world of 3 gun.
All sports have phases of mastery. First, you learn what the sport's particular movements and actions are. Then you begin practicing them and utilizing them at a fairly slow speed because they still require conscious thought in order to carry them out. Then finally, they carry themselves out automatically when they are supposed to...without any conscious thought or effort on your part.
Can you imagine an NFL linebacker having to stand there and consciously analyze what the offense is doing as the play unfolds before he can take any useful action? His effectiveness as a linebacker would be absolutely laughable. That;s what peewee football is for. That's when you learn the basics. Then your spend the next 10-12 years drilling at half speed, full speed., and playing all out in competition in actual football games. Over the course of time, the automatic responses become more and more efficient until eventually the player (assuming he has the psychical characteristics necessary such as strength, size, and speed) reaches a world class level and is able to perform phenomenally without any conscious thought during the heat of the moment.
3 Gun is no different.
This is the direction we should all want to go with our shooting skills. If we shoot for any practical purpose other than simply the simple joy of shooting, then our practice must seek to train our abilities according to our desired ends. If our goal is to get better at shooting for hunting then we must practice shooting our bolt action rifle in all sort of standing, seated, leaning, and prone positions possible and we should periodically get ourselves winded or excited before practicing these shots because in the moment that we are about to take a kill shot on a hunt, we know we are likely to have to shoot from a non-ideal position and we know that we are likely to be winded from hiking and excited by the big buck, elk, or whatever animal it is that we have been stalking for so long in anticipation of this moment. So it goes with defense shooting as well.
If you are shooting for the purpose of being able to defend yourself and you family in a true emergency scenario then you must practice shooting under the high stress conditions placed upon you in a race/obstacle course format such as a 3 Gun Competition. By doing so, you simulate as closely as possible the environment that you will face when such a moment arises and there is never time nor mental capacity available for you to slowly and consciously load, aim, shoot, move, reload, clear jams, etc., etc. It will be too late for practice at that time. At that moment it is game time...and those who have practiced the most thoroughly and the most realistically will have the best chances of survival.
Get into 3 Gun. Not only is it incredibly useful, it is also just plain fun.
Find a local 3 Gun Competition in your are today.
