Not to mention that at 500 yards and beyond, you’re shooting beyond the weapon’s official maximum effective range of 400 yards (IIRC). I was pretty deadly with a rifle, but at that range, it was tough to consistently get it near the bull. We had one guy on the team, however, who must have had telescopic vision and probably should have been a sniper instead of a carpenter.
I would have fit in very well there. I had been target shooting with the .22 rifle dad bought me when I was 10 so I was convinced the range would be no problem.
BIG problem. We did our range testing with the FNC1 which is not a little girl gun. At the time I was about 100lbs. When shooting prone my instructor had to stand on my back to keep me from being pushed backwards several inches with each shot. I had bruises on my face and shoulder and I finally passed thanks to a charming young man with a sharp pencil in the bunker. Never fired another weapon while in the airforce.
I took you for your word to be honest. I’ve seen some crazy impressive shooting myself. I just needed clarification because I’ll occasionally hear off-handed to mean firing with your weak hand. I know when I fire from the left side my accuracy goes to hell. My movements are way to jerky, and I loose most of the other fundamentals besides send a bunch of lead down range.
You folks are better than Oswald. Best he did was Sharpshooter.
Sometimes being lucky is better than being good. A lot of people still say that shot he made in Dealey Plaza was pure luck.
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http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/the_critics/griffith/oswald_poor_shot.html
Jersey (and others), how did you guys handle wind? Did you have range flags/dope the mirage, and then made windage adjustments accordingly? Did you apply Kentucky windage? Obviously, I’ve never been in the service. Most of my rifle shooting has been either benchrest or 4-position gallery, or we simply didn’t do a lot of it when the wind was really going.
We make windage adjustments on the rear sight aperture. There’s a bunch of range flags, 4 or so on the firing line, and 4 on the berm that you judge the wind off of.
That’s all on the KD range. For combat fires we use good ole’ Kentucky Windage.
Former Army Tanker here, and at Knox in 1986 we had to qualify with the .45, but we only had to familiarize with the M-16, even though it was on the same course the Cav Scouts qualified on.
For the .45, IIRC it was 36 out of 40 shots “on target” to qualify Expert; I only got high 20s out of 40 and was qualified as a Sharpshooter. I later qualified Expert for the rest of my service at various units.
The M-16 familiarization fired at 100, 200, 300, and 400 yards in various standing, kneeling, and prone positions. I also rated Sharpshooter (those 400 yard targets were kinda fuzzy in my sights), but since it was only a familiarization, it didn’t count for anything, and it was the last time I fired an M-16 in the Army.
Since nobody mentioned it, “shooting expert in basic” in the Army actually refers to shooting >35/40 hits in BRM (basic rifle marksmanship) qualification. This involves shooting from fairly easy positions (prone and foxhole) at fairly sensitive mechanical popup targets. It’s not sniper training, it’s not ARM (advanced rifle marksmanship).
I personally shot 37 with no more prior experience than backyard plinking with a BB gun. I just have decent fine motor skill, and I paid attention to the training. A little girl could probably do it.
This has been mentioned several times in this thread.
This hasn’t been mentioned because it isn’t true. Not anymore.
Been mentioned.
Yes, guns are designed so anyone can get reasonably good at them. Obviously Olympic shooting style competition marksmanship is a different game, and actually not terribly important for a front line infantryman (movement is a huge part of warfare and can be absent from most typical Olympic style shooting competitions.)
The biggest reason European armies started rolling with muskets wasn’t that they were more accurate (it was some time before a person using a firearm could be more accurate than a trained archer firing a long bow), or that they were especially more deadly (musket balls were capable of delivering greater force at a target, but long bows of the day were essentially more than deadly enough even against armor), or that they had a better rate of fire (it wasn’t until probably the 18th or 19th century when you had gun wielding soldiers with a higher rate of fire than traditional archers), it was that you could train a musket wielding soldier in a few months whereas a skilled archer started training as a boy and wasn’t fully accomplished until adulthood.
And of course it was also a lot easier to produce ammunition for a musket than it was to produce arrows. Fletching was time consuming, labor intensive and required a decent amount of skill.
I went to that museum in Dealey Plaza, and the shot was really quite a short one. The first shot was at 184 feet, or about 61 yards, with a scope. Third shot was from 294 feet, or 98 yards. All three shots from less than half the minimum distance he shot on the range with iron sights. Not quite fish in a barrel, but not a tough shot.
While qualifying expert in any weapons training isn’t something to be ashamed about, it’s certainly no great feat in Army basic training. Qualifying as an expert only means that on a given day, you managed to hit 35 out of 40 targets of various ranges. It’s not super easy but doable and many trainees accomplish it. If you shoot less than expert, say Sharpshooter, you do have an option to try again during your military service period.
(bolding mine)
IMHO it would qualify as a ‘tough’ shot, for the simple fact that LHO was shooting at a moving target. 
I thought I knew everything there was about shooting because I could out shoot all my friends before joining the Army. With that attitude i almost didn’t qualify and got what I call the toilet seat badge. I actually did shoot marksman but only by 1 or 2 points and was so discussed-ed with myself that I would just refer to myself as a marksman. 
Having never fired a hand gun I easily scored expert.
One thing to remember with these claimed qualifications, the DD-214 papers will list qualifications.
This cannot be stressed enough.
Think about all the actual cool shit that people in the military get to do. Then think about what kind of person doesn’t have anything more interesting to talk about than basic training.
The option? What are you talking about? All Soldiers must qualify twice a year throughout their “military service period”. That isn’t an option. Also, as has been pointed out numerous times, Expert in the Army is 36, not 35.
Very, very true. I remember our Senior Drill Instructor telling us that if boot was the toughest thing we’d do in the Corps, then we must not of have much of Marine Corps career.
Wow, a zombie thread I killed. The target was moving almost directly away from the window, very slight left to right aspect, and down a hill, slight up to down motion, if any, all less than 100 yards, at an estimated speed of 11 mph. I still say not that hard, but I was a killer from that 500 yards prone position slow fire on the USMC KD Course, so my perception may be different from some folks’.
Flamethrowers are legal in most of the US. The state Of California, whose relevant laws are the only ones recycled on the net, adjudicate their use as a misdemeanor.
Is America great or what!