I joined a highland TA regiment during the last days of the SLR and the ranks were bursting with crack shots, mainly game keepers and farmers (or poor farm hands like myself), but we all had an interest in marksmanship and the great attraction of the TA was the ability to have a huge amount of full bore practice (full bore ammunition is very expensive), and there is a need to practice a LOT to get good at it.
In the Highlands young lads, and I guess any rural area where shooting is commonly done, are given a .177 air rifle around the age of 8 or 9 and start to practice with that. Can be done indoors if there is a decent hallway or barn and the skills learnt getting good groupings with that are directly transferable to full bore on the range way down the road. I've seen experienced (civilian) shots walk on to the range and get 10" groupings at 600m with an SLR whilst they are still early in (military) training. 10" at 600m with a gas operated rifle fitted with iron sights is pretty good indeed! A local lad & friend of mine was a game keeper until he joined RM in the early 90's (he then went to 45 cdo), and when he came home during leave in training, and later Norway, we talked extensively about marksmanship and the training, especially as they had the SA-80 then and I was still with the SLR being TA. The general feeling then was that the SLR was a much better weapon all round, at least for marksmanship, but the SA-80 was more effective, despite its many faults, as it got more lads unused to rifle shooting, more accurate more quickly so overall it achieved more for less, especially in an era where civilian shooting is much more rare that it once was.
Only word of caution is that iron sights are different to optical, not only the way the shot is lined-up, placed and released, but the whole weapon is slightly different, more weight, centre of gravity is higher, sight picture & etc., so switching from iron sights to optical requires quite a bit of practice too, but .177 air rifle groupings at 15m will work wonders whatever level one is at, all for the cost of a tin of pellets.
In the Highlands young lads, and I guess any rural area where shooting is commonly done, are given a .177 air rifle around the age of 8 or 9 and start to practice with that. Can be done indoors if there is a decent hallway or barn and the skills learnt getting good groupings with that are directly transferable to full bore on the range way down the road. I've seen experienced (civilian) shots walk on to the range and get 10" groupings at 600m with an SLR whilst they are still early in (military) training. 10" at 600m with a gas operated rifle fitted with iron sights is pretty good indeed! A local lad & friend of mine was a game keeper until he joined RM in the early 90's (he then went to 45 cdo), and when he came home during leave in training, and later Norway, we talked extensively about marksmanship and the training, especially as they had the SA-80 then and I was still with the SLR being TA. The general feeling then was that the SLR was a much better weapon all round, at least for marksmanship, but the SA-80 was more effective, despite its many faults, as it got more lads unused to rifle shooting, more accurate more quickly so overall it achieved more for less, especially in an era where civilian shooting is much more rare that it once was.
Only word of caution is that iron sights are different to optical, not only the way the shot is lined-up, placed and released, but the whole weapon is slightly different, more weight, centre of gravity is higher, sight picture & etc., so switching from iron sights to optical requires quite a bit of practice too, but .177 air rifle groupings at 15m will work wonders whatever level one is at, all for the cost of a tin of pellets.
