Rifle Expert Award

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.
 
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.
 
FULLMETALJACKET said:
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.
 
Cadet Seaman said:
FULLMETALJACKET said:
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.

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 ).
 
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.
 
I competed for years as well, Top. Started in my youth doing biathalon which was a natural extension of my love of track. From there I found that I wanted to compete even when there wasn't snow on the ground and so got into EIC for several years.

I worked with our teams here in Vermont as well. Late in life I discovered a new love. Odd as it may seem to hear, I fell in love with machine gun competition. Running two miles humping an M-60 with an AG and firing at targets along the way all while utilizing proper breath control and experience to be able to fire the 60 single shot, yep you heard me right, single shot!. That takes practice, let me tell you. That was alot of fun to do in my remaining days with my old unit. I only got into that at the state level as a lark. Now I'm just looking forward to firing anything at all besides what's in my gun locker.
 
Sounds interesting Charge. We always competed with two man M60 teams (shooter and spotter) and were limited to three round bursts. The teams actually remained intact when the shooters swapped out. Even though there was always tons of pressure to do well, it was lots of fun.
I was first selected for the rifle team when I go to my first company out of AIT. The 1SG said "didn't you just get out of AIT?". I said yes and he said "You're on the rifle team, get on that truck". Off I went to the rifle range. I reported to the Sgt. in charge and he handed me an M1903! Yep, a bolt action Springfield. I didn't even know how to load the thing. The Sgt. was patient enough to teach me and I wasn't too bad a shot after all.
I eventually learned to like it and when I got to 'Nam I ended up in an infantry scout platoon and on "special" occaisions used my own personal M1903A4 with a 2.2X scope. I guess the rifle team training paid off.
 
Three round bursts were the official shooting method, Top, however, the 1st SGT who coached our machine gun teams taught us how to fire single shot and in so doing get better hits on the targets. Just accomplishing it at all was an achievement. We also found it really depended on the gun as well. Some 60s were touchier than others and those were near impossible to fire single shot. We picked out and marked our favorites for competition.
 
Yeah I know Charge, that's my point. It's hard enough to keep to three round bursts, I can't imagine firing one rounders.
 
Since you are going into the USMC, I am fairly certain that you will get one of those badges...I may be mistaken, but I think the Marines have the highest percentage of people with those awards. My father shot at the range and got 9 out of 10 on the black..or something is how he says it. They told him he missed one shot. He declares to this day that he just hit the exact same spot and they couldn't notice it...of course he doesn't really give a darn anymore lol
 
FULLMETALJACKET said:
so how do you earn it? shoot expert? in BCT?
That's just the first opportunity you'll have. After that, depending on what your job is and what weapon you are assigned, you'll have an annual opportunity to score Marksman, Sharpshooter, or Expert. At least that's how the Army does it.
 
I qualified sharpshooter with an "M1 rifle" and that was what the bar hanger had on it. I missed by a few points making expert because someone took the rifle that I had been using on the last day of qualification and the front sight was damaged on the one left in the rack.

I shot expert with the M1 carbine and the hangar just had "carbine" on it. That was a strange distance range, 1000 inch.

Later I qualified as basic missileman and that was a marksman badge with a bar that was "Missile". Also, we had to qualify with the Colt .45 and that bar went under the marksman badge and had ".45 Pistol" on it. We also had to fire shotguns every year for familiarization but thank God there wasn't a qual bar for that. I was beginning to look like a Russian general with all the badges.
 
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