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| THE IMPORTANCE OF FOLLOW THROUGH By Wayne McLerran |
Posted 5/15/15
I can certainly understand the benefits of a consistent hard hold when
firing a firearm but I’m going to play the devil’s advocate here to some
extent concerning the concept of “follow through”. It’s been my
experience that many, possibly most, shooters do not really
understand the notion of follow through when it comes to firearms. I
certainly did not at one time, assuming it was a technique of how one
reacted with the firearm after the trigger was pulled. To some (very
small) extent this is true but remember, it‘s a documented well-known
fact that the bullet has exited the barrel of a BPCR approximately 2 ms
(that’s 2 milliseconds or 2/1000 of a second) after the primer ignites
the powder. That’s pretty darn quick, and once that bullet exits the
barrel you can’t do anything to affect the its path downrange.
I’ve had spotters and other shooters watching me mention that I’m not
applying consistent follow through, although I clearly “called he
shot”. When asked to clarify, the person usually said I started to move
or was moving the rifle too quickly off the sticks after firing. Certainly
consistency is very important concerning how the firearm is held and
in the firing sequence, but it’s impossible for a human being to
mentally make a decision to start and move anything within 2
milliseconds after pulling the trigger. So my old understanding and
their understanding of follow through was not correct. Below is a link
to a good article on the subject that may leave some of you with a
different viewpoint of follow through than you had prior to reading the
article. I find I need to read it every so often to reeducate myself.
http://artoftherifleblog.com/follow-through/2011/10/follow-through.
html
The author pretty much sums it up with the comment, “Essentially,
follow through is what holds all the other elements of marksmanship
together long enough for the bullet to make it out of the barrel.”
Wishing you great shooting,
Wayne
I can certainly understand the benefits of a consistent hard hold when
firing a firearm but I’m going to play the devil’s advocate here to some
extent concerning the concept of “follow through”. It’s been my
experience that many, possibly most, shooters do not really
understand the notion of follow through when it comes to firearms. I
certainly did not at one time, assuming it was a technique of how one
reacted with the firearm after the trigger was pulled. To some (very
small) extent this is true but remember, it‘s a documented well-known
fact that the bullet has exited the barrel of a BPCR approximately 2 ms
(that’s 2 milliseconds or 2/1000 of a second) after the primer ignites
the powder. That’s pretty darn quick, and once that bullet exits the
barrel you can’t do anything to affect the its path downrange.
I’ve had spotters and other shooters watching me mention that I’m not
applying consistent follow through, although I clearly “called he
shot”. When asked to clarify, the person usually said I started to move
or was moving the rifle too quickly off the sticks after firing. Certainly
consistency is very important concerning how the firearm is held and
in the firing sequence, but it’s impossible for a human being to
mentally make a decision to start and move anything within 2
milliseconds after pulling the trigger. So my old understanding and
their understanding of follow through was not correct. Below is a link
to a good article on the subject that may leave some of you with a
different viewpoint of follow through than you had prior to reading the
article. I find I need to read it every so often to reeducate myself.
http://artoftherifleblog.com/follow-through/2011/10/follow-through.
html
The author pretty much sums it up with the comment, “Essentially,
follow through is what holds all the other elements of marksmanship
together long enough for the bullet to make it out of the barrel.”
Wishing you great shooting,
Wayne