How to Use your Eyes with a BB Gun

If you practice using your eyes correctly with a BB gun, you can become an excellent shot very quickly. When most people think of aiming a gun, they think about closing one eye and sighting down the barrel with the other. With this technique, you keep both eyes open. It's called instinctive shooting, and it has been used by the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force to teach recruits the fundamentals of weaponry training. Private shooting instructors use it to teach shotgun skills to hunters and target shooters.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Safety glasses
• BB gun with front and rear sights removed
• BB's
• Cardboard box
• Sheet of paper
• Tin Cans
• Tennis ball
• Aspirin tablet

1. Practice mounting the gun properly from the beginning. Keep your stance upright and your head in a naturally erect position. Bring the gun up so the butt of the stock nestles firmly against your shoulder and the comb (the upper part of the stock) rests against your cheek just under the cheek bone. Don't drop your head to rest it against the gun stock as this takes your eyes away from the natural line of sight.

2. Find a safe place in your yard or a vacant lot to shoot a BB gun. Set a cardboard box about six feet away from you and attach a sheet of paper to one side. Put on the safety glasses and shoot a hole into the paper. Keep both eyes open when you shoot.

3. Use the first hole you made in the paper as your target. Try to hit the hole with each subsequent shot. BB's travel fairly slowly, so it's possible to watch one in the air as it flies toward the target. Seeing the BB will help you adjust your aim to hit the hole. Look down and past the barrel with both eyes open toward the target. You'll be surprised that in a few short minutes you'll be able to hit or come close to the original hole consistently.

4. Move on to the tin cans. Line up 6 cans on the ground about 10 feet away. Using the same technique and with both eyes open, shoot at each tin can, swinging the barrel of the gun and your eyes together down the line. Start from left to right, then shoot back up the line from right to left. Again, you'll be surprised at how quickly hitting the cans will be become natural, and swinging the gun to hit each target will get you used to moving the barrel and the eyes together.

5. Attach the tennis ball to a string and tie it to an overhanging tree branch or beam where it will swing back and forth freely. Using the same stance and instinctive, open eyed aiming technique, practice shooting the tennis ball.. Keep the barrel moving ahead of the winging ball. You'll be able to see the BB in flight to help you adjust your shots until you can hit the ball whichever way it swings.

6. Increase the difficulty and your confidence in your shooting ability by removing the tennis ball from the string. Throw it up into the air with one hand and then aim and fire the BB gun at it as it drops. This drill makes you get into your firing stance quickly and shows you how instinctive your shooting has become. You'll be able to mount your gun, sight the target with both eyes, track it with the barrel of the gun and fire accurately faster than you can read this sentence.

7. Impress yourself and your friends by substituting an aspirin tablet for the tennis ball. Believe it not, after just a few weeks of correct practice, progressing from the stationary box to the cans to the moving tennis ball, shooting an aspirin tablet out of the air is a real possibility. Thousands of shooters who have taken the training proved it can be done. See the resource section for information and materials.

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