The Everyday Marksman

The Everyday Marksman


Becoming a Sniper with John Simpson

July 04, 2019

Detailed show notes with images: www.everydaymarksman.co/john

Show Notes Summary

This was a fun episode to record. When John Simpson reached out a while back to let me know that he had a new book on the market, I jumped at the chance to bring him on the podcast as my first interview. John is a veritable encyclopedia of sniper history and know-how.
During the course of the interview, the conversation wandered through John’s start as an Army Special Forces light weapons sergeant on through his developing sniper training curriculum for both the military and other training agencies. We also touch on why he wrote The Foundations of Sniper Marksmanship.

Beyond that, we also dove into some of the ancillary skills required in order to become a proficient sniper. Among these topics were the importance of physical fitness, flash memory recognition, and the dedication to do the work.

Key Points

If there’s one key takeaway from the entire interview it’s this: becoming good at shooting is not voodoo, it’s the result of doing lots of little things correctly over time. The sum of those little things builds up to something great.
With that, John offered a lot of advice when it comes to learning new skills. Not the least of which was avoid spending time watching others do it the wrong way. The Army doesn’t teach you how to jump out of planes by showing you all the ways you can do it wrong, and we shouldn’t learn marksmanship that way, either.
This relates to a topic I discussed in my review of With Winning in Mind by Lanny Bassham. Study and surround yourself with people who are doing it the right way, and you’ll naturally begin to copy them and become better yourself.

With that, you also need to use objective criteria for judging your performance. The target doesn’t lie, and if you’re not doing it right then it will show. Use a sequence of repeatable and observable steps to make sure you’re doing things the correct way.
Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

One important message was that you should not try and change something and make it “better” unless you fully understand and master the current way it’s done. Sniping, as we know it, goes back to World War I. I covered some of those elements in my discussion of the designated marksman rifle.

More importantly, though, marksmanship has a very long history. In his book, John uses illustrations from the 1889 Army Firing Regulations manual. These depictions of the classic rifle shooting positions are nearly identical to what we still practice today.
Know Your Limits

During the interview, John relayed a story of a police sniper student who turned in his rifle and admitted he wasn’t ready. John appreciated the honesty and said that he’s rather someone “Brief your limits before your capabilities.”

Memory Training

Another interesting topic we delved into was the role of memory. I mentioned Kim’s Game, which up until this point I thought was an acronym for “Keep in Mind.” In fact, it’s a reference to a Rudyard Kipling novel with the titular character Kim O’Hara.

John also discussed a concept called Flash Recognition. The idea came around during WWII as a way to quickly recognize enemy aircraft. John argued that it’s still very effective, and provided examples, but that the military abandoned it after they continued to “fix” it until it didn’t work anymore.
Ballistics Downrange

Another key point of the discussion focused on the behavior of bullets as they travel downrange. One of the reader questions was about whether or not bullets get more stable as they travel.

The short answer is yes, they do.

Read the more detailed show notes with images at www.everydaymarksman.co/john