Jerry Miculek and the "Practical Rifle"

From Jim Shepherd's Shooting Wire, we learn that Jerry Miculek is offering a DVD set on shooting Practical Rifle:

Last night, I got word that Jerry Miculek and his Bang, Inc. had collaborated with Brownell's to create a DVD set that teaches the Miculek approach to today's practical rifle- the AR-15. Called "The Jerry Miculek Practical Rifle" this 3-DVD set provides more than two hours of Miculek on the modern rifle.

From the basics of rifle setup to grip, stance and trigger control, Miculek offers insights that will help you master your AR-style rifle whether you're a hunter, competitor or in law enforcement.

Jerry's mastery of the AR in practical application comes through when you see some of the drills on shooting multiple and moving targets, shooting from behind cover, reloading and even malfunction drills. And the lessons aren't long ones. They are in bite-sized, easy digested lengths, and illustrated with animations, slow motion and innovative camera angles that allow you to not only see the "how" but the "why" in his teaching.

The DVDs won't be available until the end of January, but you can see a demo for yourself at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBwDCbybnCA.

If you've been amazed by Miculek's shooting skills on a variety of television programs (like me), you'll want to hear the high-speed shooter's slow-talking explanations of how he does what he does.

Not all of us will get the opportunity to train with Jerry, but now all of us can see - and hear- some of his advice and instruction at speeds we can handle.

Here's the video:

While you're viewing the video, take note of what Jerry is doing with his Support Hand.

The thumb is laid over the top of the foregrip, and his pointing finger is pointing at ... what else ... the target. There's some discussion in recent days about how this helps indexing the muzzle from one target to the next.

Also notice that, when he isn't paying attention to the camera but rather is indexing from one target to the next, he tends to cant the rifle about 40 degrees counter-clockwise ... at least, for a right-handed shooter. This is (old-school) not recommended for long-range accurate shooting, but if it helps Jerry ... well, there may be an advantage when engaging many near-targets. We're talking about fat targets within 20 - 50 yards, so apparently parallax isn't as important as centering the target with your sight picture and getting that double-tap off quick.

I found a thread on the Brian Enos site which discussed shooting with your rifle canted. Apparently, there's a way to adjust for 'cant', which suggests (according to "jaredr") that the ...

rule of thumb was aiming "high on the magazine side", i.e. when rolling rifle left (ejection port up), then aim high right (i.e. the side the magazine is sticking out on". Most shooters found that when rolling the rifle 90 degrees, their POI would shift approx 6" - 8" down and to the side. A 2:00 or 10:00 hold worked for me.

I've shot a lot of Pistol stages with the gun canted, especially when engaging "weak-hand only", and at the distances (under 20 yards) involved it doesn't seem to much matter how much the gun is canted, but the ability to find and hold a sight picture long enough to squeeze the trigger.

Still, it looks odd to watch a Grand Master engaging targets quickly and accurately with such an extreme cant.

But that's just me.

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