As you know, I'm new to shooting and love shooting my rifle. I haven't yet found shooting a handgun to be as enjoyable. I like the butt of the rifle nestled inside my shoulder. I like the beautiful, old wood. I like it that I'm holding onto the gun up close and in three places. I like it that it was my father's and his grandfather's. I love the the whole process of shooting a single-shot, bolt rifle, esp. an old one. I love the quiet of shooting my rifle, those little .22 shorts, the romance of old, beautiful rifles and the centering, mindful poise it calls forth.


If I had an old, beautiful single-shot, .22 pistol, I might feel the same way. Or????

Sniper1958 made this comment in the thread I started about shooting alone or as a social activity.

I don't feel the meditational pull with the pistol as I do my rifle. Maybe it means more as I age (the Rights and responsibilities that are a big part of a Right). I don't know, but shooting has been in my DNA since age 8 and I am 50 now.



Is this true, in general, of shooting a pistol?

Yea, but it is hard to meditate with a MAGNUM.

I don't know about meditation but shooting a handgun well is a much harder discipline than shooting a rifle, well for me anyway. Concentration using a set of Patridge sights seems to be a harder thing to master than using rifle sights or scopes. That ability to let the target blur and concentrate on that set of sights on a handgun alone is the real challenge in handgun shooting.

I don't know if that makes any sense, but that's the way it is for me. Like any skill set there is a point where you go beyond the mechanics in handgun shooting and at that point it's the meditation or concentration that takes you places where simple skills can't.

Try a Ruger Single-Six to find out. One can be bought used quite reasonable, ammo is very cheap, $12 or so for 500 rounds at places such as Wal-Mart.
If you watch and buy used at a good price and then discover you don't care for shooting a handgun you can sell and recover most if not all you original investment.

Can be the the same for handguns and rifles. Sorta depends on what I'm doing at the time. Pure target work is where it is the same. Goal is to make one "perfect" shot. Then start over. Each shot requires that you "focus" on that shot alone. NOT on the one before or thought of the next one.

Good groups are made one shot at a time.

Cheezywan

Well, when I'm shooting in a competition, I know its pretty noisy behind me. As soon as the RO says "shooter ready....standby" it all shuts off and then the beep goes off and a few seconds later I'm standing at the end of the stage, 30 shots fired and I don't even notice the noise or recoil. The sights settle exactly where I want them to, and everything is so seamless.

I'm pretty new to this action pistol shooting, so I'm still experimenting with things that work and finding several that don't work, like reloading on the run is much better than running the pistol dry.

On the meditation aspect, its all about the shooter. The tool used doesn't matter. I know grader operators that focus so well on a project that they can remove two inches from the surface for over a mile and never be off by more than 1/2" the whole time.

Some of the guys and girls that I shoot with can run through a stage totally flawlessly and do nothing but criticize themselves at the end. If I'm running the score sheet I always say 'good shooting' or 'good hits' most of them give me pointers on how to do something a little differently to improve for the next stage.

Try a Ruger Single-Six to find out. One can be bought used quite reasonable, ammo is very cheap, $12 or so for 500 rounds at places such as Wal-Mart.
If you watch and buy used at a good price and then discover you don't care for shooting a handgun you can sell and recover most if not all you original investment.

I am with you. A single action six (mine is a Ruger 50th Anniv. Blackhawk in .357 mag) is a target/hunting piece in my opinion. Wonderful iron sights, wonderful trigger, points beautifully, delightfully smooth action on the cylinder, and quite accurate. Something classic in the loading and ejecting of shells into one of these pieces of art. The sights and sounds of using one are very much like those of your favorite western movie.

Now shooting steel plates is a whole different experience with these, very methodical and smooth. A real pleasure. :)

I am drawn to all firearms, handgun or rifle, and find their function and history endlessly fascinating and beautiful. For me, though, the handgun - either revolver or semi-auto - is first and foremost a self defense weapon. I keep one on the nightstand every night. I think of it as an old friend, to be sure, but one designed for a specific, brutal purpose (and I mean that in the very best way). A rifle, on the other hand, I think of as a hunting or "marksmanship" tool - a thing that will feed me, and used in a beautiful, outdoor setting. As defined by use, the stillness and study of hunting vs. the furious violence of self defense, makes the rifle for me more meditative by nature. --Mykal

I can see your point. I have a CZ 9mm for defense, but my wife would probably use that. You see I live in a higher crime area and have a combat shotgun as my primary defensive weapon. So rifles and revolvers are for the more peaceful pursuits of time in the woods and on the range.

Here's something fun to do. Scan a dime on a copier. Take the copy to the range and put all the shots at 25 yards with a .22LR into the bullseye of that scanned dime. Very challenging and you will be amazed how quiet and still you have to be to do it. If you can do it without cutting the edge of the dime image, you are a gifted marksman (gender not specific).

to me it can be meditative, or bring on a real high,, or kinda put a downer on the whole day..
if im right on that day ,,i leave the range feeling like a king.. but something i had to learn was to not allow it to ruin my day, if the hand tremors were just too bad to shoot with the accuracy,
i know my guns are capable of..
this whole gun thing started when i needed something to replace other activities that
i could no longer handle[sports and work] ;)..
also it was part of an plan to be ready as i could, if this country really does go really wrong ..
[ for me anyway]in other words survival and protecting an providing for my loved ones if at all possible in an unfriendly world..
but yes it sure strokes the mind if im shooting .. more so if im hitting my marks.

Somewhere I've gotten the opinion that there is an excitement to calmness (? more meditative) continuum from the exciting competitions (such as cowboy action and practical pistol) through the DCM type competitions to the extremely deliberate competitions such as International Free-Style Pistol.

I once heard about an interview of a Free-Pistol shooter who when asked if he ever got excited about his shooting answered "Yes, but then I go lie down until it passes".

There was an interesting program on satellite TV a few days ago called "Sighting In" on which U.S. Olympic Shooting Teams were interviewed. The personality differences among the competitors in the various shooting disciplines (ranging from International Skeet and Trap to Free-Pistol) were very apparent.

Somewhere I've gotten the opinion that there is an excitement to calmness (? more meditative) continuum from the exciting competitions (such as cowboy action and practical pistol) through the DCM type competitions to the extremely deliberate competitions such as International Free-Style Pistol.

I once heard about an interview of a Free-Pistol shooter who when asked if he ever got excited about his shooting answered "Yes, but then I go lie down until it passes".

There was an interesting program on satellite TV a few days ago called "Sighting In" on which U.S. Olympic Shooting Teams were interviewed. The personality differences among the competitors in the various shooting disciplines (ranging from International Skeet and Trap to Free-Pistol) were very apparent.

I don't know if this happens in competition shooting, but I was a professional musician for a while. Sometimes they would put a really hard, fast piece of music in front of you and the only thing to do was relax and 'kick it into 2nd gear' so to speak. You would be amazed how fast you could play with roughly the same effort, and sound good doing it. I imagine the same thing happens to competition shooters who have practiced and practiced and they just relax and depend on the training to take over.

I like to go to the range and shoot alone to de-stress. Its nice to have the chance to shut out everything and just have you, the gun, and the target, with all else drowned out. During cease fires, I like the commraderie of having a line of shooters who are all there to do the same thing, and then chat a little about the sport, or whatever. I helped a guy out the other day who was having trouble with his HK, and I was glad I could help. I went just wanting to be alone, but by the end of the range session I was chatting away with a few like minded shooters. I always meet decent people at the range. I like that I can be as alone or as social as I want to be, and I find people at the range seem to innately respect that. However, I do agree that skeet (which I love) is very social. I'm not a hunter, so I don't know about that.

In my experience, all shooting requires a meditative mind. You can't shoot effectively if you're talking to yourself or working on trying hard to do shooting. If you have to think about doing anything, you're stealing brain power away from the doing. If you develop the skill of releasing your mind, and "dying to self", you'll not only be a better shot, but a more effective person.

More-or-less on the same subject, I find cleaning my weapons after a shooting session to be very relaxing. Not meditative, especially, but calming and pleasant. I think a few good deep breaths of Hoppes #9 helps. It takes me back 40-odd years to cleaning shotguns after shooting trap and/or skeet with my Dad.

I believe that cleaning your firearms after the range (or whenever for that matter)is a very important part of the whole "bonding" thing. There is something transcendent about intimacy with tools such as firearms or knives. Think about the conection of the samurai to his sword, the native american to the bow, etc. Taking down, cleaning, lubricating, handling a firearm is an inetegral part of learning that firearm. The bond is different for different firearms depending on their purpose. The bond I have with my pistols is zen like, to me. Self defense requires instinctive reaction for self preservation and defense of loved ones. the decesions must be correct in the moment. Pondering is not part of it. Contemplating is not part of it. Being and doing ( and being and doing correctly). I'm not thinking at all when I practice with my CCW pistol (my Walther) or my IDPA pistol and HD choice (my Beretta). I feel the same way about skeet. The bird flies, you evenly react and point. You're not really aiming as you are pointing (or so my instructor says). When I was a rifle shooter (money divated choices had to be made, and to afford the shotgun of my dreams, I had to say farewell to a few old friends) it was about concentration, contemplation to acheive success, at least for me. Wow. I better stop now before I begin chanting of something.:p

T-Bone, I agree that shooting and making music are similar. I find that many ways to apply the principles of classical singing and performing to shooting. It's fascinating how much like singing or drawing it is. The mindfulness, singularity of purpose, taking in the whole while being aware of the parts, etc. I love the exactness and artistry. Even at my simple level of shooting, I have found a way of being with it that I find beautiful, graceful and very fulfilling.

Irv S,

Actually that was Harlon Carter. At the time he was national champion in conventional bulleye pistol. A reporter covering the National Matches at Camp Perry was interviewing him and commented that nobody at this major event seemed to be excited. Carter responded that any time a pistol shooter feels an episode of excitement coming on, he goes and lies down until it passes. Sorry I don't have the exact quote, but you might be able to research it?


LBR,

If you want to try pistol shooting from a serious angle, you can buy match grade entry level guns, like the Daisy 717 for under $140, and can shop mail order since they are not firearms. These guns will outshoot a beginner for a long time. The slow barrel time of an air gun teaches good follow-through. The single-loading forces you to recheck your position and grip for each shot. The almost total lack of noise or recoil keep you from developing a flinch before moving to handguns that are firearms.

The standard routine I learned for shooting air pistol and carried over to slow fire in standard pistol begins with the gun resting on the bench and my shooting hand in place. I shut my eyes and with one normal depth abdominal breath, check that my legs are relaxed from the knees down, and that my weight is biased slightly toward the balls of my feet to mitigate rocking and swaying. With the next breath I check for relaxation from my hips down and that my lower back has no tension. On the third breath I relax from my shoulders down and check the feel of my grip on the gun and that my left hand is parked in my pocket or its thumb is hooked in a belt loop. On the fourth breath I check my head is balanced on my neck to with no detectable tension. The fifth breath is very deep and the exhale is deep for oxygenation. It is followed by a sixth, normal depth breath to allow heart rate speeded up by the deep breath slow back down. During that sixth breath I visualize ripples settling out on a pond. The last breath is also normal depth. With its intake I raise the pistol and turn my head toward it at the same time. Half the breath is then let out while I open my eyes to watch the sites settle on the target. If the gun is left or right of the target (not on natural point of aim), I adjust my feet to put it back on target, then put the gun down and start the process all over again. If it is on target, as the position settles to an acceptable range of motion (3 or 4 seconds), I begin applying trigger pressure and keep watching the front sight until after the shot is away. I always consciously recapture the sight picture before setting the gun down. That is called follow through, and it like not looking up too soon after hitting a golf ball, it serves to prevent extra movement during firing that will send the projectile off the point of aim. Also, if my area of movement increases before the shot gets off, I put the gun down and started the process over. Putting the gun down and not forcing the shot was one of the hardest things for me to learn to do. There seems to be some sort of ego conflict in there.

That is all pretty typical of precision shooting technique. Rifle has its own analog, though you generally start with the gun in both hands dangling down. There are variants, like extending the arms with the gun to help set the right degree of back bend before bringing it back in to twist the waist toward the target. You can read whole books on the topic. The Russian and Scandanavian coaches have been prolific on the subject.

As you might guess, in an air gun match after a 60 shots + sighters over 1 3/4 hours at a match* you are pretty mellow, mentally. I do consider that kind of shooting a form of directed meditation. The air pistol makes it easy and not expensive to find out if you like precision pistol shooting or not? The gun and ammunition are both cheap by comparison to firearms standards and the ten meter range (32 feet, 9 3/4 inches) and the ability of an old phone book to serve as a backstop and the near absence of noise make it easy to set up to practice at home whenever you can get a few minutes.

* Men's course of fire for International Air Pistol fire; Women's course of fire is 40 shots in 1 1/4 hours.

Nick, thanks for your post. I've been thinking about an air pistol for a while. A friend let me shoot a beautiful air rifle yesterday, a Feinwerkbau. The scopes and the trigger were just amazing. I have an inexpensive air rifle I practise with, and I can see the usefulness of an air pistol. I shot .22 shorts yesterday in a large Smith and Wesson revolver. I enjoyed those and could think about what I was doing with my alignment, balance, breathing, and all those things I enjoy, without the distraction of more gunpowder than I want right now. One of the men who works at the range likes to tease me about how I like to shoot powder-free bullets and .22 shorts. Yesterday, he asked when I was going to move to the bigger calibers and more gun powder. I just chuckled and said, "When I'm really good at these." He grinned and said that was a good answer.

I quite enjoy the process of sighting, breathing, aligning, etc. I studied the Alexander Technique for thirty years, which is educating one to be conscious of how one uses himself in anything he is doing. It's fascinating, and a kind of active meditation in and of itself. The means whereby to undertake all activities mindfully.

It's lovely applying it to learning how to shoot.

I have a Feinwerkbau in both rifle and pistol, and they are excellent. I also have a Russian Baikal air pistol, which is pneumatic, exceedingly accurate but not up to the fit and finish of the Feinwerkbau. Much less pricey, accordingly. There are a couple of CO2 guns around, too. A Crossman and a Hammerli. Also a broken old brass Benjamin pump air rifle that I keep meaning to repair.

There's a lot to be learned from the air guns.

Hello everyone, I am new to our forum; my best to you all.

In response to LBR: "I don't feel the meditational pull with the pistol as I do my rifle"

Just shoot more with any handgun you like. A Ruger Mark II is hard to beat for the price for a .22. If you want a collectible you may consider and old Colt Woodsman or Hi-Standard. They are truly a pleasure to shoot.

If you want, move to a larger caliber, the rules are the same.

Welcome to the forum. If you've been lurking you'll know the rules, but check the stickies in this general forum if anything is unclear?

To get in the meditational mood with the handgun, use a single-shot or load your Ruger singly. Your form improves and your ammunition cost goes way down. For sheer shot-to-shot concentration, try a .22 free pistol. I have a Hammerli that reveals my every fault with distressing precision.