Why Beginners Should Stick with Stock Weapons

We’ve all seen him at the range. That one guy who always shows up with several Pelican cases full of custom AR-15s, each adorned with the highest end, name brand attachments. EO Tech, Aimpoint, Surefire and Trijicon are obviously the only acceptable brands. On his waist is a Crye Precision battle belt with more pouches than even Batman could know what to do with. In his Safariland ALS holster is a custom ZEV Tech Glock 17 with a Trijicon RMR and Surefire X300 weaponlight. Because to this guy, the mere thought of going with the Streamlight TLR-1 HL at almost half the price is vomit inducing. Almost as vomit inducing as not shipping out any new handgun he buys to Agency Arms the same day he buys it.

With all the Oakley, Copenhagen, Crye Precision and Bang energy drinks, surely this guy must know how to shoot right?

Wrong.

You take one look at this guy and you realize that a schizophrenic baboon without hands could shoot better. In addition to his apparent lack of skill, are his egregious violations of firearm safety rules. Muzzle awareness? Trigger discipline? You might as well be speaking Martian to him. Or maybe his electronic ear pro is so high tech it filters out the words from peasants who shoot stock weapons…

Either way, for a guy fully clad in Kevlar, it might be the rest of the range patrons who would benefit from protective gear whenever this barrel rolling nimrod is around.

So what gives? The guy is decked out in the latest tactical gear that even Seal Team 6 doesn’t have access to and only has the most custom of weapons, doesn’t that by default mean he can hit a 1 inch grouping at 300 yards?

Nope.

As most reasonable and knowledgeable shooters will state:

You cannot buy skill.

Obviously the above example is a hyperbole. After all this is the internet, when has being realistic ever been the cool thing to do?

But I digress…

While the example I bring up is intentionally outlandish in the interest of sarcasm and making a point, it honestly doesn’t deviate too far from the reality of many novice shooters.

Recently, I was approached by a close friend of mine who wanted to purchase his first handgun. After some time at the range and trying out different handguns, he ultimately decided on the Sig Sauer P320 compact. I applauded him for his excellent choice. (Cue the rabid Glock fanboys.)

However, before he even had the handgun in his possession, he immediately began asking me what kind of accessories or mods he should get. Night sights? A new grip module? A weapon light?

My answer to him was this:

Ammo.

Suddenly the narrative I mentioned at the beginning doesn’t seem so outlandish does it?

The reality is this, many novice shooters get drawn into the marketing aspect of firearms. Like any other industry in a capitalistic society, firearms and firearms accessory companies’ primary objective is to make a profit. They do this by selling products that are often times marketed to improve shooting and skill. And while this can definitely be true with certain products, the reality is that in order to take advantage of those products, it requires the user already have a solid foundation of basic skills. The accessories/mods are there to augment not to build from the ground up.

In this day and age, especially with social media being such an integrated component of our daily lives, it’s even easier to fall prey to the marketing trap. With so many so-called firearms experts and gun gurus on the internet advocating for products, it’s really no wonder that anybody from novice to veteran firearms enthusiasts could fall to the hype and wrongly believe that if they buy a certain product or accessory it will make them a better shooter by default. But this simply isn’t true.

While at the police academy, a defensive tactics instructor dropped this kernel of knowledge on my class, “mastery is nothing more than flawless execution of the basics.”

Consider this, if you put a person who has never driven a car before in the driver’s seat of a high performance race car, the chances that they will be able to negotiate a race track with high speed and precision is nil. The same logic applies to firearms or really any other skill that requires building motor programming. Brain experts have stated that it takes thousands upon thousands of repetitions for the brain to commit certain actions to memory and for those actions to become subconscious. All the fundamental mechanics of shooting, from the draw, the presentation, and trigger prep, press,and break, sight alignment and sight picture, are all motor skills that require multiple repetitions to master. No amount of accessories or add ons will allow somebody to circumvent this reality.

Also consider this, I myself just within the last half year or so put together my very first “custom handgun.” I’ve been shooting guns for almost a decade. I’m a former police officer who’s received training from multiple world class shooters and grand master USPSA/IDPA champions. I just now feel as if I’ve reached a level of skill where it would be appropriate for me to take advantage of a customized weapon.

So in closing, practice and train until the basics no longer require conscious thought or effort. Once this is accomplished then a shooter can revisit adding accessories and add ons to help augment their skills. Until then, my advice is this, save your money. Spend it on ammo, range fees and classes. Or don’t. But don’t be surprised when the guy next to you shooting a stock Glock outshoots you.