The Second Fundamental of Marksmanship For the Airsoft Sniper (Part 2 of 4)

Once you have a proper grasp of how to Aim your airsoft sniper rifle properly, you can move on to the second fundamental of marksmanship for the airsoft sniper which is utilizing proper Breath Control.

When a player finds that they are not shooting as accurately with their new airsoft sniper rifle as they thought they would, they will often blame the gun itself.

Truth be told, the majority of the difficulty new snipers have is because of a lack of proper breath control. Either they are holding their breath while taking a shot or they are breathing WHILE they are shooting. Either one will wreak havoc on how accurate your fire is.

Airsoft is a recreational sport which means that it's comprised of many "weekend warriors" who often don't get a lot of exercise during the week. Being air dropped into a simulated combat environment from a life of ease, then running around dodging fire from the opposing team, and then being expected to quickly get into an often uncomfortable shooting position can bring on some VERY heavy breathing as well as a seriously elevated heart rate.

Once in the field you can't go back and put in extra time at the gym, but you CAN observe proper breath control. By controlling the rhythm of your breathing, you can actually control your heart rate and pulse which enables you to have more of a steady posture translating into more accurate shots.

The proper procedure is to sight in your airsoft sniper rifle on your intended target and then to inhale a normal breath. Don't do any deep breathing here because if your lungs are loaded with too much air it will cause your barrel to dip and throw off your alignment which will result in your shot going low.

After the inhale and with your crosshairs still placed firmly on your target, exhale HALF of that breath and make your final aiming adjustments before taking the shot.

By expelling HALF of your load of oxygen your body lines up properly and you are left with enough air in your lungs to enable you to hold your position while taking your shot.

The additional benefit is that your heart is often racing from moving across the field. Holding half a breath while taking your shot will leave your lungs charged with enough air to supply your bloodstream with the oxygen that it needs.

If you wait too long to take the shot because your target is constantly moving you'll find that your heart will begin to beat harder which will cause your scope's crosshairs to again vibrate with each heart beat.

Just take a new breath, expel half the breath again, and proceed to take aim and place your shot.

Simply following this one technique will solve a lot of the problems that often come up and you'll be pleasantly surprised that your airsoft sniper rifle is shooting on target every time.

Brian Kurtz was an active duty member of the United States Marine Corps from 2000-2004. Rated as an expert marksman and achieving high-shooter status on more than one occasion he now runs Airsoft Sniper Rifle Shop.com where he helps people across the globe select the best airsoft rifle [http://www.airsoftsniperrifleshop.com/articles.html] for their competition needs.

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The First Fundamental of Marksmanship For the Airsoft Sniper (Part 1 of 4)

A lot of airsoft snipers face a significant barrier to their ability to fulfill their position as a precision marksman because they bring with them a whole host of bad habits that have been established while engaging in skirmishes as the member of a squad wielding assault-style AEGs.

Unlike those who join the military, there is no barrier to entry and no basic marksmanship training required before getting involved in airsoft. Getting started is pretty much as easy as buying a gun and showing up at an event. Load gun, point, shoot, done.

Unfortunately, this translates into an entire group of players that lack a basic understanding of the fundamentals of marksmanship and how to employ them. Now this may not seem like such a big issue in a squad-type setting with close up engagements being the norm where simply sending enough shots toward your target fast enough may be the major determining factor, but this is not the case once a player buys an airsoft sniper rifle and starts to take up long-range firing positions.

If a player finds himself on terrain that requires constant movement between concealment points, then the exertion of getting from place to place along with getting into a sometimes unfamiliar position can often make aiming a very difficult proposition when the crosshairs are bobbling all over like sugar-high kid in a moon-walk.

Other than working hard to maintain a high level of fitness, the only thing that can help overcome these obstacles so that a player can properly fill the role of an airsoft sniper is mastering the Fundamentals of Airsoft Marksmanship. These four principles will enable any sniper who is struggling to accurately place shots with his or her new airsoft sniper rifle to be able to quickly improve accuracy and become the most feared operator on your team.

In this four-part series, we'll outline what these four principles of marksmanship for the airsoft sniper are, and how you can employ them yourself. Here's the first one:

Aiming - the first thing that needs to be taken seriously when using an airsoft sniper rifle is to understand basic aiming techniques. Point, shoot, fire is the oversimplified version that many shooters take when in fact aiming is composed of two major elements. Sight alignment and sight picture.

Sight alignment is making sure that your rear sight is properly aligned with your front sight to ensure that your rifle is pointing in the direction that you THINK it is. Sight picture boils down to properly placing your sights on your target.

When shooting with a rifle that doesn't have a scope, paying close attention to both sight alignment and sight picture are essentially important.

Sighting in with a scoped sniper rifle however, is a different experience from aiming with a non-scoped gun. Sight alignment is not as much of an issue as the scope itself compensates for the proper & straight alignment of the rifle. It is important to know exactly how your scope works, and follow the instructions to properly zero it in well before showing up at the safe zone of any competition.

If your airsoft sniper rifle did not come with a scope, then it's HIGHLY advisable that you do your best to get one ASAP. With few exceptions all of these guns do not come equipped to properly aim without a scope. Trying to operate as a airsoft sniper without a scope is a lot like building the fastest NASCAR ever but then failing to budget for some good racing fuel...the thing is just not going to work right.

Your scope will come with instructions on how to properly zero it in so that your shots actually end up where you aim. If no instructions are provided, you can find various guides simply by searching the internet.

Once your airsoft sniper rifle and scope are zeroed and ready to go, aiming is as simple as setting your sights on your target and squeezing the trigger. Both sight alignment and sight picture should naturally fall into place.

Brian Kurtz was an active duty member of the United States Marine Corps from 2000-2004. Rated as an expert marksman and achieving high-shooter status on more than one occasion he now runs the Airsoft Sniper Rifle Shop and shares his knowledge with airsoft snipers across the globe.

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