Honing in on Teaching the Center of Mass

摘要

Recently during a "train the trainer" class, I challenged a group of firearms instructors to pinpoint the center of mass on a qualification target using a laser sighting system. The target was a single color silhouette with a faintly colored scoring ring, which is invisible to the shooter at 15 yds. This style of target is common among police academies and departments. Each instructor's point of aim was recorded with a pencil. At the conclusion of the exercise, we found that none of instructors placed the laser in the same center of mass. So what's the point? Instructors agreed that when measuring marksmanship performance, it is nearly impossible to test a skill requiring a level of precision by using generalities as guidelines. What should we expect from our shooters when we fail to provide them a clearly defined goal? Certainly, narrowing the field of vision is important but imagine looking through a scope without cross hairs or internal sighting system.