Handgun Basics
You just took your new handgun home. Now what?
After you purchase a new handgun and bring it home, you’re likely champing at the bit to get out to the range, put it through its paces, and see what it can do. But, if you’re like most of us, your actual time at the range will pale in comparison to the amount of time your handgun sits—hopefully safely stored—idle in your home.
But your new handgun doesn’t have to be lonely and untouched until you can get it out to the range. There are plenty of exercises you can do at home to become a safer, more proficient gun owner and user. And it all starts with the first step of…
Practicing Firearm Safety
There are four primary rules of firearm safety:
- Treat Every Firearm as if It’s Loaded
- Always Point the Muzzle in a Safe Direction
- Keep Your Finger Off the Trigger Until Your Sights Are on Target
- Be Sure of Your Target and What’s Beyond
These are rules you should exercise every single time you handle a firearm. So, as you are handling and practicing with your firearm at home, make sure you’re conscious of each rule and adhere to them religiously.
Practicing them at home with an unloaded firearm will ensure they are second nature when you’re at the range or in the field or even protecting your family at home with a loaded gun. It only takes one careless moment to result in an accident that can change—or end—a life forever, so always, always, always make safety a priority by practicing it and being 100% aware and in the moment whenever you’re around firearms.
Work on Your Firing Stance
Stance plays a huge role in marksmanships, especially with a handgun, where every movement is amplified and even slight flaws in your fundamentals can result in shots off target. We could easily devote an entire article to dialing in just the right stance, and there isn’t one perfect stance for everyone, so practice these five basic stances, try them at the range, and adopt the one or two that suit you best.
Remember that posture plays a key role as well, so don’t just concentrate on your foot placement and legs. If you’re leaning back and your weight isn’t balanced, you’re paving the way for a missed shot and probably a follow-up shot that’s even more off target because you’re adding to a handgun’s muzzle flip.
Practice Proper Sight Alignment & Sight Picture
If your handgun has a laser sight or a red-dot optic mounted to it, it’s really just a matter of making sure the dot is covering what you’re planning on shooting. But, if you’re using old-fashioned, tried-and-true iron sights, aligning them properly is key in becoming a good marksman.
Proper sight alignment is achieved when the front sight post is perfectly centered between the rear sight and the top of the front sight post is aligned with the top of the rear sight. In aligning your sights, focus primarily on the front sight, leaving the rear sights a bit blurry. They don’t have to be in focus to tell if the front sight is centered and the top edges are even.
Once your sights are aligned properly, then it’s time to focus on your sight picture, which is what your eyes see once the sights are aligned. If a red bullseye of a target is what you’re shooting at, then your sight picture would be your sights zeroed in on that red circle. Your eyes can only focus on one thing at a time, so once you’ve established your sight picture (and you’re sure of what’s beyond your target and it’s safe to fire), lock in on the front sight. Once they’re aligned, you will use one of two holds: either aim so your aligned front sight covers your target, called a “center hold,” or so it just touches the bottom of your target, which is called a “six o’clock hold.”
Which hold works best for you will be determined at the range. But once you’ve determined the correct hold for you and that gun, practice sight alignment and picture using that hold.
Practice a Fundamental Grip
If you’re not gripping a handgun correctly, your accuracy will almost certainly suffer. There are lots of opinions out there on the best way to hold a handgun, but the big mistake most beginning shooters make is that they grip it too tightly or too loosely. Once you’ve settled on a comfortable, fundamentally sound grip on your handgun, practice applying just the right amount of pressure. You want to be holding on tight enough to handle the recoil and get back on target quickly, but not so tightly that you’re straining, getting fatigued quickly, or your hands start to shake.
Practice Trigger Discipline & Control
Pulling (squeezing, actually) the trigger is the final step in firing a handgun, so it can make or break your shot even if everything else—grip, stance, sight alignment—is perfect. But before you even pull the trigger, becoming disciplined in keeping your finger out of the trigger guard and off the trigger until you’re ready to fire is critical to your safety and the safety of those around you. Even when you’re doing things like practicing your sight alignment, make sure you don’t put your finger on the trigger until your sights are aligned, on target, and you’re ready to dry-fire.
Once you’ve got trigger discipline mastered, you’re going to want to practice your trigger pull. Dry-firing could overextend the firing pin of your handgun, so you may want to invest in some dummy rounds for trigger practice. Check your handgun’s manual to see if dry-firing your firearm is recommended by the manufacturer.
Using the middle of your index finger pad, slowly squeeze the trigger to remove the initial slack and then evenly squeeze more until the trigger breaks and the firing pin or hammer are released. Follow through without letting go of the trigger, and then reset it by easing it forward until you feel and hear a click.
Jerking a trigger or pulling with too much force to once side is a surefire recipe for pulling the muzzle in an undesired direction and placing shots where you don’t want them. Practice being smooth, deliberate, and consistent with your trigger pull and reset.
Practice Your Draw
If you plan on wearing a holster and using your handgun for tactical purposes or competition, getting the gun out of the holster smoothly and efficiently is something that needs to be practiced. There are different techniques depending on the holster and whether it is concealed or out in the open and on a belt. No matter which holster and technique you use, you want to practice deploying the handgun smoothly and safely so that its muzzle is pointing at a potential threat as quickly as possible.
Practice Reloading
A handgun is only effective when it’s loaded, so it’s imperative that you practice reloading quickly and safely. If you’re handgun uses magazines, you’ll want to practice dropping a spent mag and inserting a fresh magazine (with dummy rounds, not live rounds) quickly and safely. You’ll also want to practice tactical reloads, the act of removing a partially spent magazine with a full(er) magazine.
If you have a revolver, reloading is a more time-consuming process, but it still needs to be practiced—again, with dummy rounds at home. Using a speed loader can speed up the process, but it is still a skill that needs to be practiced and perfected.
Test Your Newfound Skills at the Range
Once you’ve got the basics down, it’s time to take your skills to the range and see what’s working and what needs improving. Only by seeing where your rounds hit can you accurately assess how effective your stance, grip, sight alignment, and trigger control actually are. The proof will be on the paper.
In the meantime, for the 99 percent of the time you’re not at the range (for most of us, anyway), keep practicing at home. Practice may not make perfect when it comes to marksmanship, but it will lead to proficiency and make safety second nature to you. And proficient, safe handgun owners make us all better off.
