Precision Rifle Marksmanship: The Fundamentals - A Marine Sniper's Guide to Long Range Shooting. Frank Galli

      Field matches are the author’s favorite style of precision rifle competition. Certain matches have specific styles and tools. Fundamentals work no matter how you are asked to solve the problem.

      Sure, you can try to buy a hit by investing in a lot of gear. But it’s more about the execution over the specific rifle being employed. Training trumps all.

      Be a mentor to a new shooter. Sports grow because of the next generation waiting in the wings. Take a junior member of your community out and spend a day revisiting the fundamentals with him or her.

      If you go home and think, “Man, I need a different caliber, scope, or stock,” versus “This is what I need to practice,” you have missed the point.

      We want to practice what gave us trouble, not what made us look good.

      So instead of talking to someone about what reticle they have in their scope, ask the next seasoned shooter you meet what their training regimen is. Ask them how they use their time between the matches to practice, so when they arrive, they feel better prepared. Gear can have an effect, but it’s not nearly as big as you might think. Don’t get wrapped around the axle when it comes to scopes, stocks and reticles. Ask other shooters what the best use of your time is. This will carry you much farther, much sooner. As many have heard before, it’s not the arrow, but the Indian behind it. There is a lot of truth to that.

      Sports scientists say it can take as many as 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at a given, complex repetitive task, however they have found this number can be adjusted due to talent. There are plenty of examples of newer shooters to the sport doing very well, very quickly. That is pure talent and copying what rifle and scope they have is not going to infuse you with more of it. In those cases where talent is not the defining factor, you need deliberate practice. Don’t overlook this by chasing the latest and greatest piece of equipment. Save a few bucks, buy more ammo and then hit The Home Depot and build a barricade for yourself. Dry practice is a great training tool. Putting that barricade in your garage and practicing setting up your position quickly and effectively will go a long, long way toward higher placements than any given reticle will.

      Finally, if you have other, like-minded shooters in your area, work together in order to push each other in a positive direction. Micro competitions, among friends, or even better, local matches meant to mimic national-match stages can be a super tool for the precision rifle shooter. Push each other to be stronger shooters. Don’t overlook your local matches, and if you find the stages don’t fit your needs, meet with the match directors and try steering them, (politely) in a different direction. It will not only make your area stronger from a shooter’s perspective, but it can help grown the sport, which is the ultimate goal.

      The gear comes later. And most of the pieces of equipment that make the bigger differences early on are small things, and not the big expensive stuff.

      Perfect Practice Makes Perfect. Not just practice alone. If all you do is shooting from the prone, you’ll never excel. Get out of your comfort zone and practice the stuff you are bad at.

      2

      Early

       Influences

      In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the author’s father owned two gas stations in Stratford, Connecticut. The author started working pumping gas when he was 13 years old.

      My journey with a precision rifle started in the wilds of southern Connecticut. I include “southern” to give it some legitimacy because nobody thinks about Connecticut when it comes to shooting a rifle. I was born in Bridgeport, a concrete jungle known more for its crime rate and corruption than a city like Chicago. We not only arrested our mayor for criminal behavior, but he was elected again after he returned from seven years in federal prison.

      From Bridgeport, we moved to a literal cow town called Shelton about 30 minutes away. This hamlet in the shadows of New York City was where I would hone my shooting skills. At the time, there were fields and dairy farms all over Shelton. Most of my friends worked the barns milking cows before and after school. This gave us open access to the farms and pockets of woods in order to set up our military style encampments. We trained endlessly, marching around the neighborhood like an invading army.

      The author, right, grew up playing military games with his cousins in rural Connecticut. Here he is shown living the dream with a fellow Marine just south of the DMZ in South Korea at Camp Casey. The Army had a short three-week sniper school there which they attended.

      In Korea, the Army had a Soviet-weapon familiarization program. The author shot a host of Soviet-era rifles.

      Air rifles were my first entry into firearms. I started with a Crossman 760 pump rifle and quickly progressed to its big brother the Crossman 766. We all started with iron sights and were quick learners when it came to mastering shots at extended distanced on small animals around the farms. My best friend’s parents were part of a large set of interconnecting fields owned by their family. Their grandmother lived in the middle with the children’s houses on each side. It was easily 10 city blocks long, at least it looked that way. It had rolling hills, open fields and ponds scattered throughout. We rode dirt bikes and spent all hours of the day and night playing outside.

      My dad was always a big fan of war movies, shooting and he never shied away from getting out and learning. Our early shooting was typical; all the classic lines were present. Take a couple of deep breathes, let one halfway out and then hold it while pressing the trigger so you are surprised by the break. Out in the woods it worked like a charm, those 25-foot shots with an air rifle were always on point. We just needed a clean line of sight and a bit of imagination.

      The author was at the head of the platoon during the final formation. His size messed up the height curve, so putting him up front kept the formation looking good.

      From forts, to toy soldiers, we were classic 1970s kids, riding our Big Wheels at Mach 1 down the hills. Playing chase, our version of hide and go seek, just across a wider landscape. It was the perfect environment to stretch our legs and extend our imagination.

      Influence-wise there as so many places to draw inspiration. Old war movies from World War II were at the top of the list. We could not watch enough of John Wayne storming the Sands of Iwo Jima or Audie Murphy going To Hell and Back. They were inspirations for us all. We ate them up faster than a handful of Pez candies.

      I remember feeling a sense of pride the first time I mounted a Challenger 4x scope on my 766. It was a huge improvement over my irons. And gave me the ability to place my shots even closer to perfection. I was hooked. Give me a scoped rifle and I would rule the landscape.

      One of the first things people mention with me is my size. For the rest of the world I am pretty short: 5-feet, 2-inches tall on a good day, currently weighing about 125 pounds. In my family, I was average. We were all short. What we lacked in size we made up in volume and character. My mom’s family is a big Italian Catholic organization, with my grandmother having 14 children. Needless to say, I was surrounded by my cousins. We were a roaming pack of wild dogs back in those days. Military style discipline was pretty much the only answer to maintain law and order. We conducted drills across three cities, from Bridgeport to Stratford, up to Shelton, as we commanded a fierce army of Italian Leprechauns.

      Still, I was one of only a few to join the military. Most