I was wondering since im going into the service in about 2 years, how do you earn the rifle and pistol expert awards?

the rifle expert is earned with a rifle score of 220 or more on the range. the pistol i haven't done so i will let someone that knows fill you in on the details.

ok, ive never shot a rifle in my life, is the rifle expert award acheivable by someone like me?

you have more of a chance than someone who has shot at a range a few times. its just that you havnt picked up any of the bad habbits.

well, i didnt think of it that way. is learning how to fire the rifle and such that hard? what about the kick of it?

Originally Posted by FULLMETALJACKET

ok, ive never shot a rifle in my life, is the rifle expert award acheivable by someone like me?

MilidarUSMC's right. We had a guy at an encampment who had never fired a rifle in his life, let alone seen one up close. He shot Expert, 40 out of 40. I on the other had who has ample time with rifles particularly the M16, shot Sharpshooter (35 out of 40). Only six of us out of 90 got Sharpshooter.

So long as you apply the basic fundamentals that you will be taught you should be fine. I personally have a tendancy to look over my sights which gives me an erratic spread when I do not focus. I have shot expert 3 times in the Marine Corps to date.

Originally Posted by Cadet Seaman

MilidarUSMC's right. We had a guy at an encampment who had never fired a rifle in his life, let alone seen one up close. He shot Expert, 40 out of 40. I on the other had who has ample time with rifles particularly the M16, shot Sharpshooter (35 out of 40). Only six of us out of 90 got Sharpshooter.

I should be pointed out that the cadet is talking about Army scoring and not Marine scoring. The Marines issue seperate badges for these awards whereas the Army issues qualification bars or "tacks" for different weapons beyond just rifle and pistol. For example there's a qualification bar for the M-60 machine gun though I think now they've changed it to just "machine gun". There's also a qualification bar for grenade. All of these can be either expert, sharpshooter, or marksman (though I always thought it was kind of odd to call somebody a grenade sharpshooter :P ).

ha! i just see those Rifle Expert and pistol Expert medals and im like, wow, i want to be like those guys.

Don't worry about it. I had never fired any type of firearm before I went into the Army. I never (in 22yrs.) scored less than expert with the M16 or pistol. I was chosen for the rifle, pistol, and machine gun teams after BCT. My fav was the .45cal. pistol and one of the teams I was on placed second ina national shoot. Just like Marinerhodes said, listen to your instructors and you'll be fine.