American Instinctive Rifle Shooting
BB Gun Basic Training For ‘Deadeye’ Sharpshooting
By Pete Kautz
American instinctive Rifle Shooting is the latest offering from Pete Kautz of Alliance Martial Arts. The video is subtitled ‘How to Shoot Targets on The Ground and In The Air Without Ever Once Having To Use Your Sights’. As you might guess, the video deals with point shooting for long guns. The material is based on the U. S. Army Manual 23-71-1 Principles of Quick Kill. Quick Kill was a point shooting program developed by Lucky McDaniel and adopted by the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. There was also a civilian version of the program put out by Daisy called Quick Skill. What made the program unique was the use of a bb gun for the initial training.
Point shooting is still controversial in some circles. The fact is that, within the parameters it was intended for, point shooting works and works well. What are those parameters you may ask? Simply this, close, fast encounters where you need coarse accuracy (i.e. torso hits) and you do not have time to use your sights. Think of heavy forest, urban encounters or jungle fighting. In my own humble opinion, knowing both sighted and point shooting methods will serve you well and give you a complete marksmanship package.
Kautz divides the material into an introduction and, naturally a closing, in the middle are four sections which gives you the meat of the program. He begins with a history of the program and point shooting in general. He also explains the purpose of this program, being able to make solid hits at short ranges when you do not have time to use your sights. Pete then shows you the equipment you will need. The gear list is short. A bb gun, bb’s, safety glasses and old beer or soft drink cans and you are ready to roll. The original Quick Kill program utilized metal discs. Pete goes with field expedients that still give you instant feedback when you make your hits. He also gives you an idea for a hanger so you don’t have to keep picking up the cans when working on ground targets that is KISS simple.
Once you have your gear together Pete shows how to find your master eye and covers the fundamentals, both physical and mental, thoroughly. Pay particular attention here, like anything else in life, if you don’t have the fundamentals down all you will develop is frustration instead of skill.
The final two segments demonstrate and explain how to hit ground and aerial targets. One thing that Pete does which I particularly liked was build a hanger that held several targets in the air as a transition between the stationary ground targets and the moving aerial shots.
The real question, particularly for those of you reading this that train for bad days and not just sporting events, is does this work. The short answer is yes. I will not tell you that point shooting will replace sighted fire completely, however, it has a place in the warriors tool kit. Don’t take my word for it, however, both Col. Cooper and John Farnam have stated that point shooting does work. Mr. Farnam has gone as far as to say that you should be able to hit an eight inch plate out to ten meters on stance alone.
The next question is this. How fast can you learn this? I took my youngest out in the backyard with her pellet gun and some old coke cans. We had an hour or two on a Saturday afternoon. She already is proficient with sighted fire and hitting the can using the sights was easy for her. Within fifteen minutes she could hit the can everytime she pressed the trigger with point shooting.
Kautz teaches the material well and this video would be a worthy addition to your collection. It is currently retailing for $49.00 and for a limited time you can also get the original U. S. Army manual on disc in PDF format. When you order it be sure to tell Pete or Lily that you heard about it at Defensive Concepts.
