Getting Started
Twelve Mistakes Almost Every New Shooter Makes
None of these are signs of a bad shooter. All of them are predictable, and all of them are fixable in a single session.
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The short version:
- Buying before training is the single most expensive mistake.
- Shooting too many rounds per session actively builds bad habits.
- Nearly every beginner grips with the wrong hand doing the work.
- Almost nobody practises malfunction clearing or reloads.
In this article
- 1. Buying the gun before taking a lesson
- 2. Buying the smallest gun available
- 3. Firing too many rounds
- 4. Letting the firing hand do all the work
- 5. Cupping the support hand under the magazine
- 6. Focusing on the target instead of the front sight
- 7. Anticipating recoil
- 8. Slapping the trigger and slamming it forward
- 9. Never practising reloads or malfunction clearing
- 10. Ignoring the magazines
- 11. Neglecting hearing protection quality
- 12. Training only at the training facility, never at home
1. Buying the gun before taking a lesson
This is the expensive one. A shooter who buys first commonly ends up with a gun that does not fit their hand, is harder to shoot than necessary, or is not suited to their actual purpose — and then either sells it at a loss or, worse, keeps it and never becomes confident with it.
Renting and training first costs a fraction of a wrong purchase, and produces a decision you will still be happy with in five years.
2. Buying the smallest gun available
Small guns are easy to carry and hard to shoot. Short sight radius, light weight, sharp recoil, limited grip surface and low capacity all compound.
For a first firearm, a full-size or compact is easier in every way that matters for learning. If concealment is the goal, get good with something shootable first, then downsize deliberately.
3. Firing too many rounds
The instinct is that more shooting equals more improvement. In the early phase, the opposite is true. Fatigue degrades grip, blast exposure builds flinch, and every round fired in a degraded state reinforces the fault.
Fifty attentive rounds beat two hundred careless ones. When your groups start opening up, the session is over — that is data, not a challenge.
4. Letting the firing hand do all the work
Almost every untrained shooter squeezes hard with the firing hand and rests the support hand alongside it. It should be close to the reverse: the support hand supplies most of the clamping pressure while the firing hand holds at roughly the pressure of a firm handshake.
Excess firing-hand tension makes the trigger finger sympathetically tense, which pulls shots off target.
5. Cupping the support hand under the magazine
The "teacup" grip — support hand held flat under the butt of the gun like a saucer — comes from television and does essentially nothing. It provides no lateral control and no recoil management.
The support hand belongs wrapped around the firing hand, filling the exposed side of the grip.
6. Focusing on the target instead of the front sight
Every instinct says to look at the thing you are trying to hit. With iron sights, this is backwards. The front sight should be crisp; the target should be blurry.
Angular errors at the sights grow with distance; a slightly imprecise hold on a blurry target does not. Front sight focus is nearly always the better trade.
7. Anticipating recoil
The universal fault. The body braces against recoil before the shot breaks, driving the muzzle down and inward — low and left for a right-handed shooter.
It is completely invisible to the shooter. A ball-and-dummy drill exposes it in about five minutes and there is no substitute for seeing it happen.
8. Slapping the trigger and slamming it forward
New shooters typically do two of the five stages of a trigger press: they press and the gun fires. They skip follow-through and reset entirely, releasing the finger fully forward and starting from scratch each time.
Learning to hold the trigger to the rear through recoil and then release only to the reset point is often worth an immediate, visible improvement in second-shot accuracy.
9. Never practising reloads or malfunction clearing
Almost everyone practises shooting. Almost nobody practises what to do when the gun stops. The result is a shooter who, faced with a stoppage, stares at the gun, shakes it and looks around for help.
Tap-rack-reassess and the double-feed procedure take ten minutes to learn and can be drilled at home with dummy rounds.
10. Ignoring the magazines
Magazines are consumable items with springs and feed lips that wear. They cause the large majority of malfunctions that get blamed on the firearm.
Number your magazines with a paint pen. When one produces repeated stoppages, retire it. Keep defensive magazines separate from facility-beaters.
11. Neglecting hearing protection quality
Cheap or poorly fitted hearing protection is a bigger deal than it sounds. Blast exposure is a primary driver of flinch development, and indoor facilities concentrate it.
Doubling up — foam plugs under electronic muffs — makes an immediate, noticeable difference to comfort, concentration and flinch, and electronic muffs let you hear instruction between strings.
12. Training only at the training facility, never at home
Live-fire time is expensive and infrequent. Dry fire is free, daily and, for trigger control and grip specifically, at least as effective.
Ten minutes a day under a strict safety protocol will outpace a monthly training trip by a wide margin. The shooters who improve fastest are almost always the ones who practise between sessions.
The common thread across all twelve: none of them are about talent, and all of them are correctable. Most students fix six or seven of these in a single private lesson, and the change in their targets by the end of that session is usually obvious to them without being told.
A sensible first ninety days
New shooters do best with a plan rather than a vague intention to “get out to the facility sometime.” Here is a template that works for most people.
Weeks one and two: take a private lesson before buying anything. Establish safe handling, a correct grip, trigger control and your first live rounds. Leave with a written practice plan and a shortlist of firearms worth trying.
Weeks three and four: rent two or three candidate firearms at an indoor facility and shoot each of them. Judge them on fit and shootability rather than reputation. Buy the one that fits your hand, not the one with the best reviews.
Weeks five through eight: ten minutes of dry fire daily with your own firearm, plus one live-fire session focused on close-range accuracy. Add a quality holster, a proper belt and a storage solution appropriate to your household.
Weeks nine through twelve: a second lesson to diagnose what has actually stuck, then extend distance, add controlled pairs, reloads and malfunction clearing. By the end of three months a diligent beginner is a genuinely competent shooter, which surprises almost everyone who assumed it would take years.
Train with a certified instructor in South Florida
Reading about shooting is useful. Being watched while you shoot is transformative — because the faults that limit you are, almost by definition, the ones you cannot see yourself. Delray Firearms Training provides private, NRA-certified instruction with Dan Ribacoff throughout Palm Beach County and Broward County, including Delray Beach, Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Coral Springs and Weston.
Lessons are one-on-one by default, arranged by appointment seven days a week, and shaped around your experience level rather than a fixed script. Whether you have never fired a shot or you have carried for twenty years and want a specific problem solved, the starting point is a short conversation.
Call 516-315-2809 Request a Time
About the instructor
Dan Ribacoff is an NRA-certified firearms instructor, licensed private investigator and career security professional who has spent decades in investigations, executive protection and private security. He teaches handgun, rifle, carbine, shotgun, concealed carry, home defense and maintenance courses across South Florida. Read more about Dan →
Related reading
- How Many Firearms Lessons Do You Actually Need?
- The Four Rules of Gun Safety, Explained Properly
- Safe Firearm Storage at Home: Balancing Access and Security
Disclaimer: this article is general educational information, not legal advice and not a substitute for hands-on instruction. Firearms law in Florida changes; verify current statutes or consult a Florida attorney for your specific situation.