Can a person train themselves to shoot without professional instruction by watching youtube videos by people like kyle defoor, mike pnannone etc. This would be to learn things like proper stance, other positions like prone, how to control recoil, how to transition from target to target, how to shoot prone properly (breathing,body position,trigger control etc., and how to shoot while moving. For the tactical apects such as how to clear or room or what to do when your getting fired at etc. I would take a course. But can you learn the underlined things on your own by watching videos from widely know and respected instructors on youtube and then go to the range and practice them?

Very much yes. I would bet 75% of the people on this forum "can shoot" and have had zero formal training.

 


Shooting with friends or family gets you into the sport. You buy a gun and go to the range. You shoot often and get better with practice. Watch a video here and there to learn new things




You don't need expensive, tacticool classes to shoot guns


 

As far as basic shooting skills, I'd say yes.  I've been shooting since I was 8 or 9, but never had any formal training.  Essentially I trained myself in shooting handguns, and have helped teach new shooters as well who are now very proficient.  That said, I do think there is a TON of value in paying for courses if you can.  Not having much practice shooting on the run or clearing malfunctions, I do wonder how I'd handle those scenarios under stress.

I trains myself to do just about everything, including shooting.

Yup.

If you're training yourself, how do you know if you're doing right or wrong?  Being able to shoot, and being able to shoot efficiently are two different things. To do the latter, you need feedback from a competent instructor.  There is no substitution for that.

People who have good self-awareness can teach themselves most things, especially so in the information age.

You know if you're doing it right when your accuracy and splits are improving.

You don't need a competent instructor to do either of those things, but they can make the process easier.

Ever hear about Davy Crockett or Audie Murphy?

You can train yourself to shoot.
But it helps immensely to have an expert help you.
It cuts the learning curve and diminishes locking in bad habits.
I found the Appleseed program very helpful, but they are strictly fundamental marksmanship stuff.
Run and gun learners go else where.

Yep.  Both in the Army too... I wonder if they learned from just watching everyone else? [sarcasm]

A paper target and an electronic timer.

 

These can cause serious injury to one's self esteem.

Videos, YouTube, and a shooting buddy. If this is the best one can do, I'm all for it.

As you progress you will notice that your target or group is not like the one the instructor on the video just shot. Can you ask what am I doing wrong? No

Anyone can make a YouTube video, they can post whatever they want about their skills. You going to take everything they say as true? No

You watch your buddy shoot and think wish I could shoot like that. Problem is they have been shooting a long time with maybe some bad habits. Through trial and error have found a way to compensate for them. Do you really want to learn their way. No

OP not all trainers charge huge sums of money and make you do 3 days of whatever. If you will just do a little homework, I'm betting you can find a trainer local to you with very reasonable rates that will work with you for a few hours. Building on last months or last weeks lesson each time. Old sayin "If you think knowledge is expensive, try stupid". Point is it will cost more to eliminate bad habits than it will to never have them in the first place.

     I was under the impression that Audie Murphy could shoot before he joined the army.  Amazing.  I guess my ability to shoot rifles is just blind luck then.

            I will admit my army friend had to teach me to shoot pistols though.  

There is an old saying: “You don’t know, what you don’t know.”

Shooting is a physical skill that requires eye/hand coordination and muscle memory which is usually ingrained through repetition, just like playing a violin.  

So lets talk about violins.  Could you learn to play a violin by watching a video?  Yes, probably (depends on the person, how badly they want to learn and how good they want to get).  But I believe everybody would agree that a person would learn to play a violin with less effort and in a shorter period of  time, if they had a teacher.  I also believe everybody would agree that both the quality of the teacher and student would have an impact on progress.  And I believe everybody would agree the likelihood of a person becoming a world class concert level violinist without ever receiving any formal instruction is low.

I shot/hunted for 30 years before I had any formal firearms training.  I had shot tens of thousands of rounds over the years, had taken numerous elk, deer and antelope at ranges exceeding 400 yards.  When I was in my twenties, I could hit a pop can (about 4 out of 5 times) off hand at 100 yards using a .22 rifle.  I thought I was a stud.

In my late forties I decided to take a professionally instructed firearms class.  I was shocked by how little I knew.  I was so impressed by the broad world of knowledge and techniques out there (that I had had no idea even existed), that over the past seventeen years I have taken over fifty professionally instructed firearms courses.  And I will be participating in another (John Farnam’s, DTI advanced pistol class) later this month.

So how is shooting different?  Yes, anybody can learn to make a gun go bang.  Just like anybody can make noise with a violin.  But when you screw up with a gun, you can kill somebody.

The real question is, how good do you want to be and how much time, effort and money are you willing to expend?

BINGO!!!

In the vein of: "You don't know, what you don't know"; let me do a little preaching.

My background: I am an NRA certified; Rifle, Pistol, Personal Protection In the Home & Personal Protection Outside the Home instructor.  I have been an adjunct instructor for John Farman (DTI) since 2005 and have assisted him in instructing 13 rifle & pistol classes to date.  I have never been paid (or otherwise compensated) for any of the training I have given; I have done it as a way of improving my own personal skill set.  I have also taken multiple classes from half a dozen other nationally recognized defensive firearms instructors over the years.

Little know fact; of every 100 people who get shot: 75 were shot accidentally, 24 shot themselves on purpose and 1 was shot by somebody else on purpose.

I recommend that everybody take a Basic NRA rifle or pistol class.  Why (well I'm glad you ask)?  The Basic NRA classes concentrate on one thing and that is reducing the occurrence of accidental firearm discharges.  There is not much you can do to reduce the number of people who choose to use a gun to commit suicide, but you can (and the NRA does) reduce the number of gun owners who are a danger to themselves and others for the simple reason that nobody ever taught them the proper way.  Over the past number of decades there has been a large reduction in the number of annual firearms deaths and I think the NRA's education programs (geared toward reducing accidental discharges) played a big part in that statistic.  Reducing the number of firearms accidents, reduces the number of firearm related deaths, which reduces the anti-gun lobby's ability to inflame/turn public opinion against guns.

Another little know fact: the most dangerous thing the average pistol owner does with their pistol is put it in their holster.  The second most dangerous thing they do is draw their pistol from a holster.  The NRA is so scared of accidental gunshot injuries that they refused to allow students (in non-LEO classes) to use a holster in class for decades.  Holsters were not allowed in an NRA classroom until the advent of "Personal Protection Outside the Home" (the most advanced class the NRA teaches to non-LEO) in the late 2000's.

Why (well once again I'm glad you ask)?  If a student gets shot in class the thing they were most likely doing at the time was re-holstering their pistol.  And the most likely reason their pistol discharged was that their finger was still on the trigger while they were shoving the gun into the holster.  The holster pushed on their finger, their finger pushed on the trigger and the pistol functioned as it was designed to.  Bang, they just shot themselves in the butt and/or leg.  Odds are they will deny having their finger on the trigger (and they probably honestly don't believe their finger was on the trigger)  because they have no conscious knowledge where their finger was.  Trigger finger placement had not been practiced enough to become muscle memory (or it had and they had trained themselves to do the wrong thing, to keep their finger on the trigger).  Remember, practice does not make perfect, practice only makes permanent.

If a student gets shot in class and they were not re-holstering, odds are they were drawing their pistol and were shot in their weak (left) hand or wrist.  Again nobody had trained them (and instantly corrected them each time they did it incorrectly) on what to do with the hand that is not drawing the pistol.  Their weak (left) hand is usually floating around out in space waiting for the pistol to be pushed forward so the two hands can come together in a two handed firing stance.  The shooter has probably done this thousands of times before, but this time just a little too much pressure was put on the trigger a little too early.  Two things got screwed up at the same time, weak (left) hand was where it had no business being during the draw and the trigger finger was too early to the trigger.

My job as an adjunct instructor for Farnam is to watch an individual student as they work through a drill and if they make a safety error, stop them instantly and explain exactly what they just did wrong.  They then restart the drill from the beginning.  Students are not allowed to complete a drill unless they do it without committing any safety errors (every time, on every drill).  You would be amazed the number of times the students truly believe they did it correctly and the instructor is just messing with them.  One year during final testing (at the end of three days of training), I stopped a student for the third straight time for having his weak hand out in front of his pistol during the draw.  In his mind there was no way that could have possibly happened and he knew I was full of crap.  His hand was not just little bit out of place, it was out in front of the gun like he wanted to shoot it on purpose.  He did not say much to me, but I watched as he walked back to his friend to bitch about how full of crap I was.  I was lucky his friend had been watching him during the test and was able to show him exactly how far out in front of the gun his hand had been.  There still appeared to be a bit of denial in his mind even after his friend confirmed what I had told him.

Every nationally recognized instructor I have trained with has had students shot in class.  In every case (except one), the students shot themselves (almost always while drawing or re-holstering).  The one exception was an LEO instructor teaching a class made up of officers from his department.  The instructor was standing behind the line of officers who were on the firing line.  One officer, while attempting (unsuccessfully) to re-holster her pistol, managed to shoot the instructor who just happened to be standing behind her.

So for whoever said the average person is aware (or should be aware) of what their body is doing and can easily self instruct using a video; I have to say my personal experience (helping teach hundreds of students in the defensive use of firearms) has taught me otherwise.  My experience watching others (under light stress, doing unfamiliar tasks) has taught me that while an individual is concentrating on what one part of their body is doing, they will be totally unaware of what the rest of their body is doing.

YMMV and your life experiences may have been different than mine.

This. I did DIY training on my own for 20 years. Then I did DIY training with video tutorials for 5 years. Then I took my first  couple of 30-hour classes with a top tier instructor and learned more/improved more by day 2 than I had in all those prior years. When you watch a video and copy what you see you might think you're doing it right when you aren't really. You need a second set of eyes and someone who not only knows how to do something, but why it is done that way.  You need an experienced troubleshooter giving you feedback. You usually don't get that from a video. I still watch training vids and practice, but it's no substitute for class time with the right instructor. I stress right instructor. There are some great ones and a lot of not so great ones.

This.

I've watched many people who have never fired a gun outshoot people with experience at the end of a 2 day basic class. There's nothing better than having an instructor watch everything you do and correct what's wrong while you learn. Few people are observant to do that for themselves while they're shooting.

Gunfighter U is what you seek.

Online video diagnostics from John Mcphee.

Gunfighter U  Online shooting coach

Perhaps but you cannot critique yourself if you are doing something wrong.

You don't know what you don't know and a video gives you 0% feedback.

Can a person train themselves but watching videos? Is this serious? I guess everyone can be a SEAL by watching GI Jane. Cmon people..

I learned to play guitar on my own

I learned to shoot on my own

You know you are doing it right when you get faster, and when you get smaller groups.


While I'm certainly no jerry miculek, or some sub-moa at 1000 yards shooter, i can hold my own, and i get better everyday

You can if you film yourself and then watch it and critique yourself.  It's not a replacement for professional instruction but it is a VERY valuable tool.

I can't speak for others but I neeeeed instruction. My instructors constantly catch me doing weird, inefficient stuff that I have no clue I'm doing wrong. It's classes for me. All classes.

Call of duty helps.

I know, flame on but it really did help me with target acquisition and distance shooting.

First time I shot a 300 win at 500 yards I bulls eyed it the second shot. Dude was impressed
after I finished the magazine.  I told him the breathing technique was taught by COD.

Thanks for the sad insight...
When I say sad its because 99% is basic handgun handling and its very sad to know that the number of people not practicing the basics is as high as that.
I had been carrying for almost 20 years; I had done thousands of thousands of dry fire, draw and reholstering and that is what has ingrained by repetition that I NEVER put my finger on the trigger on the draw and my finger is always straight as I point my gun until I recognize a threat (and what is behind it).
I don't have many certified courses but I had many good, proper and responsible teachers/friends and I practice the basics..
basics are the basic.
Cheers

Yes. I had no formal training the first few years I got into it, but reading, watching YouTube videos, and learning to emphasize safety, form, etc. does wonders

It comes from my notes from (the lecture portion of) John Farnam's Defensive Handgun class.  
I believe he has repeated that statistic during every DTI class I have ever participated in.  That would be 20 plus times over the past 16 years, the last time I heard him state it was June 24, 2015.

I do not know where Farnam acquired the statistic, but I am confident he could tell you where it came from.

I apologize for my inability to give the actual citation.

I am not the best note taker in the world, but unlike a lot of people, I do take notes.  My notes tend to be bullet point lists of the concepts and talking points presented in a class.  In 2004 I started using a computer to work up my notes, prior to that I wrote them out long hand.

I am also basically lazy, so I tend to start off a repeated class’s notes using the previous class’s notes and edit them only when things change noticeably.  Below is the cut and paste of the relevant section from my notes.

2004 notes
The police know that when they get a report of a gunshot wounding
75% of the gunshot wounds are accidently self inflicted
20% of the gunshot wounds are intentionally self inflicted (suicide)
 3% of the gunshot wounds are accidently inflicted by someone else
 2% of the gunshot wounds are intentionally inflicted by someone else

2005, 2006, 2007 & 2008 notes
The person you are most likely to shoot is yourself
75% of shootings are accidents
23% of shootings are suicides
2% of shootings involve shooting somebody (other than yourself) on purpose

2009 notes
Handguns are underpowered, ineffective pop guns that are only used because they are convenient to carry
75% of gunshot wounds are accidentally inflicted either to yourself or someone else
25% of gunshot wounds are self inflected on purpose (suicide)
<1% of gunshot wounds are inflicted on somebody else on purpose

2010 notes
The person you are most likely to shoot is yourself
75% of shootings are accidents
25% of shootings are suicides
<1% of shootings involve shooting somebody (other than yourself) on purpose

2011 notes
Only 3% of gunshot victims who arrive alive at the ER will die (most wounds are ADs to hands or legs)
60% are treated & released the same day
30% will stay overnight in the hospital
10% will spend multiple nights in the hospital prior to being released
74% of gunshot wounds are self inflicted accidentally
24% of gunshot wounds are self inflicted intentionally
1-2% of gunshot wounds are intentionally inflicted by someone else
Average number of rounds fired through a pistol in the United States is 7

(Added note: The 7 round statistic is the total number of rounds the average owner of a pistol in the United States will fire through their gun during the total time they own it.  Farnam stated this statistic came from Colt as a response to a suggestion he had made to them.)

2012, 2013, 2014 & 2015 notes
75% of the time somebody is shot, it was by accident
25% of the time somebody is shot, it was self inflicted intentionally.  
Only 1/5 of suicide attempts with a gun  are successful.
1% (less than) of gunshot wounds are intentionally inflicted on someone else

If people couldn't train themselves to shoot, how would anyone know how to shoot?


It all has to start somewhere

Just like some people can teach themselves anything else. Just like some people can't teach themselves anything.

Ever hear of Alvin York?

small highjack


The Discovery of the Sgt York Battlefield

The founding fathers declared all able-bodied men are to be a part of the militia (today's oathkeepers, militia, 3%'ers, preppers, etc.) and to train and equip themselves. In other words, the founding fathers are telling YOU right now as to what they feel your responsibility is as an American male of 'military age'. The answer, aside from nifty stats and formal instructors (with good advice), is YES. You will doubtless get there faster (and safer) with training from a capable individual, but you can certainly train yourself. Keep safety first in mind at all times and you will be fine.

Get out and compete?  If you can go to a match and regularly beat the instructed and instructors, I'd say you're doing something right.

I'm in no way, shape, or form discouraging training, and could stand to try out some formal training myself....but you absolutely can get good (or very good) by practicing hard.

I also believe Basic Rfiel marksmanship (BRM) can absolutely be learned on your own.

There will be some rokkie mistakes you will make and they will go uncorrected though.
there is a risk they will turn into training scars ..
But even so it defintly is doable.

Afterwards you can run yourself through a class and polish what you learned and fix rookie mistakes.

Anyone can "shoot" with no experience whatsoever...

but if you are talking about learning to shoot for the purpose of self defense, completely different story. I had been a "shooter" since I was 6 years old, and I am now 52. About 10 years ago I started focusing on tactical shooting, carbine, handgun, shotgun. It is amazing how many bad habits, "training scars" one has to overcome to become proficient in self defense techniques with firearms.

I dont know about all that.  I cant say that holds true for the LEOs that I work with

I have a natural eye. I guess I was born with the ability to shoot well. But no, to reach above average levels "or what I call them" you do need professional instruction. A trainer who knows what he's doing can tell you more about yourself by watching you grip and break trigger once then you thought you knew.

Theres a lot of guys who can shoot "good". If you want to shoot "very good" you have to have experienced input and you have to be smart enough to listen to it and apply it. Along with being smart enough to know the value of dry fire drills.

You get competent by frequent repetition and having shooting friends as serious as you correcting you and having them filming you is good for things such as a flinch or poor reload performance, etc. Basic, medium, advanced, and the occasional refresher courses is something needed to stay with the times and keep being fluent with that repetition while final tuning the muscle memory.

For the instructors here, some of you are going at extreme lengths for job security saying only a skilled instructor gets you there. Both gets you there, life goes on, you're not losing money here, breathe, you will be fine and still have a job tomorrow.

I came to post mostly this.  Everyone should read this over carefully, and not just blow past it.

You don't know what you don't know.

The biggest thing most shooters have never received any formal instruction on is SAFETY.

A competent instructor can show you the little nuances of how to be safer.  I just ran a couple's 2 Day, 1 Night Home Defense course.  Since I keep up to speed with as many firearms accidents and the details of those accidents, I incorporate an active program to prevent them by paying close attention in the moment to what is going on with guns and shooters.

In my pistol courses, we do a lot of drawing and re-holstering.  I go over how to safely draw a pistol, and how to safely re-holster, mitigating clothing and any potential trigger guard entanglements, as these are a factor in ND's.

I personally look at the opening of the holster to ensure that it is free and clear of any hazards, then slowly insert the pistol with my finger well away from the trigger.

I also grew up shooting since a very early age.  I thought I knew it all when I was a kid because I had done a lot of shooting, but I didn't know much at all compared to what I learned from seasoned shooters later on.  I was always safety conscious though, and very much aware of where muzzle were pointed, fingers located, backstops, etc.  A lot of that came from reading American Rifleman and applying logic actively.

My suggestion is to get competent and reputable instruction that is available.  It will mass dump a lot of information into you that could potentially take a lifetime to learn.

The most effective courses are ones where you get a lot of one-on-one instruction that is tailored to your specific needs and circumstances.  An experienced instructor will be able to perceive and see things with you that you would never know, unless you had another instructor watch multiple angle video clips of what you are doing, which would cost more.

So yes, you can teach yourself to do something if you are passionate and persistent, sourcing as much information as possible, but professional instruction will be orders of magnitude better.  I learned that lesson with playing the guitar.  I'm mostly self-taught, but I had a guy from GIT give me pointers every week when I first got my guitar, and that helped out tremendously.  He was able to show me pitfalls to avoid, while where to focus on technique, holding the guitar, how to tune, alternate picking economy versus inefficiency, accents, metronome work, and better ways to play what I was trying to do.

You can learn a lot about the trails on the mountain from a man who has been walking them his whole life.

It is cheaper and quicker to get good instruction.

Before my first pistol training course, I was self taught. I was pretty good, though I would find myself getting into bad habits depending on what i had been focusing on. Like when I first got my shot timer, I was trying to get faster and faster and my accuracy degraded. Then I put the timer away and made myself focus on accuracy and shooting further. By the time I went to my first class, I had probably shot 10,000 rounds through handguns over a few years time. In that class I saw a few ladies go from having never shot, to being able to safely and competently chew up the center of a target. I mean, they learned in days what it took me probably a year to figure out. I came away thinking, "Damn, I should have done this sooner."

The biggest things I changed after training was drawing and presenting the pistol. How I cleared malfunctions. How I charged the pistol. I was able to shoot more accurately at all distances, but especially at 25-50 yards. I learned some new shooting positions. I learned to spend more time doing things I don't like doing (like support hand only shooting).

If you can find the time and money, I don't think anything will help your shooting more in less time.

I see you're in Arizona. Do yourself a favor and contact Independence Training. You won't regret it.

^^ He's right.

No, you need feedback from a timer, the target and your match ranking.  It is loads easier with a good instructor, but it can be done.

I've found that a timer is not beneficial, at least to me. Rather put that money for a course instead of a timer. And I have found that a competent shooting buddy to watch and give feedback, is easier to do. A timer doesn't tell you if you have a flinch or not. A timer doesn't tell you if your trigger finger placement or technique needs improvement.

This right there. You do stuff that you have no idea you're doing. Personally, I found that a group environment full of strangers will throw you off just enough to make these things stand out. Training classes are some of the best money I've ever spent. You won't be a mall ninja from one class. You have to work on things and train to correct them after you've been shown your errors/mistakes/bad habits/ etc. There's some good stuff on Youtube, but it's not going to teach you the things you need to know about yourself and your equipment like good instructors will.

The target will tell you if you have a flinch.  

A timer is critical for improvement.  Hell of a lot of difference between a draw that "seemed" fast and a 0.68 second draw to an A at 7 yards.  It is an objective measure of ability, just like hits on the target.

No, it doesn't.

Never knew I had a flinch because my POI was the bull, at a six hold until it was pointed out. Now instead of a bunch of well grouped holes, I can now write my name cleanly if I have the ammo to do it.

A timer is conditioning you to only react by hearing the beep. Real life does not involve a beep.

There's more than one way of doing things. You need a beep. I need feedback from a competent instructor or a friend who know's how to shoot.