Breathing when shooting: when to stop, and for how long

Breathing when shooting comes down to five habits:

• Breathe normally while you settle, and stop only to aim and fire.
• Stop in the relaxed pause after a breath out; never force the air out.
• With a pistol, breathe with the lift, and stop breathing by the time the sights reach the target.
• Hold your breath no longer than 8 to 10 seconds for a single shot; past that, lower the gun and breathe.
• Stop at the same point in your breath for every shot.

Breathing moves your chest, belly and shoulders, and the gun moves with them. The pistol training guide of the US Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) says this makes an accurate shot almost impossible: you must not breathe and fire at the same time, but hold your breath for a short time. The CMP’s guide to rimfire sporter shooting says the same of a rifle: you cannot hold it still while you breathe.

Target Rifle Australia (TRA) puts it in terms of where the rifle points: the natural point of aim rises and falls with each breath, which is why, it says, each shot must be taken at a set point in the breathing cycle. The USAMU guide wants breath control used systematically and uniformly: the simplest way is the same breath for every shot. More on the natural point of aim in Natural point of aim.

The natural respiratory pause is the short, relaxed moment after a normal breath out, before the next breath in. The USAMU guide holds the breath there, after breathing out, when the muscles are relaxed rather than strained. Quandahl calls it the best time to stop: you can stay stopped longer there, without discomfort, than with your lungs full.

Reaching the pause takes no effort. At rest, the MSD Manual says, breathing out is passive: the lungs and chest wall, stretched as you breathe in, spring back to their resting shape once the breathing-in muscles relax. So do not push the air out. Forcing it, Quandahl warns, makes you tighten your chest muscles, the last thing you want.

To find the pause, Quandahl suggests a simple drill: have an instructor or coach give you a signal just to stop breathing, and you will stop right in it. He also names two beginner’s habits: taking a deep breath and holding it, which keeps the chest muscles working until fatigue sets in; and pushing all the air out, which has you breathing faster than normal.

When shooting a rifle, breathe normally while you settle into the aim, then breathe out and stop as the sights come onto the target. In the NRA’s Shooting Sports USA, you breathe normally as you pick up the rifle, shoulder it and start to point it, then breathe out and stop once the front sight is on the bull. The CMP’s rimfire guide takes two or three normal breaths while bringing the aligned sights onto the target, then breathes out, stops and aims. With TRA, you breathe normally until the rifle begins to settle, then hold where the breath out ends by itself.

Not everyone lets out as much air. The ISSF National Coach Course for rifle, by Goran Maksimovic, teaches beginners to take two or three breaths, each shorter than the last, then breathe out about half the air and stop. Quandahl notes that how much air you keep in your lungs moves the natural point of aim up or down: one more reason to keep the amount the same for every shot.

Rapid fire needs a plan of its own, the CMP’s rimfire guide says. With a bolt action or another manually operated rifle, take a short breath each time you work the action; with a semi-automatic, you may take one breath before the first shot and fire the whole series on it. The time allowed is on the CMP Rimfire Sporter card. For the air rifle, the breathing section of Air rifle positions adds what the NSRA and SvSF advise.

When shooting a pistol, time the breath with the lift: breathe as the pistol rises, and stop breathing as the sights settle on the target. The difference from the rifle starts with the arm. A pistol is lifted to the target for every shot, and the CMP’s guide to junior pistol shooting has you lift and breathe at the same time, in coordination. For a precision shot in the classical one-handed stance, it gives this sequence:

1. With the arm straight, lift the pistol to a point above the target while taking one deep breath, in and out. How high is up to you, within what your range allows, but keep it the same for every shot.
2. Take a second, normal breath as the pistol comes down to the target, with your eyes on the sights to align them, and bring your finger onto the trigger.
3. As the aligned sights come onto the target, breathing stops; the hold and the shot follow.

Quandahl describes another technique, used, he writes, in international pistol disciplines: breathe in as the pistol rises from the ready position to the target, then hold air in the lungs while the shot or the string is fired. He counts it among the exceptions to the respiratory pause.

The USAMU guide, written for slow, timed and rapid fire, says experienced shooters usually take a deep breath before firing, then breathe out slowly and hold, relaxed, with their attention on the sights and the trigger. Its recommended method has you breathe out naturally, as in ordinary breathing, and not hold air in the lungs; yet its sequence for timed and rapid fire releases the final deep breath only partly.

The sources differ, then, on how much air to keep. Try the methods in dry practice, keep the one that gives you the stillest sights, and use it for every shot. Dry practice means an unloaded gun you have checked yourself, ammunition and pellets out of the room, the muzzle in a safe direction, and only a gun whose maker allows dry firing.

How long a timed or rapid-fire string lasts is set by the rules: see cards such as the NRA B-8 and the ISSF 25 m rapid-fire card. If you cannot hold your breath through a timed string, the USAMU guide’s answer is to practise firing it faster, and Quandahl gives the same option. The guide allows a quick, short breath in the middle of a string if you must, but not as your normal technique: it breaks your concentration on the sights.

For a single shot, hold your breath for no more than about 8 to 10 seconds; if you have not fired by then, stop and breathe. These four coaching sources agree to within a few seconds:

Hold longer, Quandahl warns, and your body starts calling for air, pulling your attention from the sights to your need to breathe. His rule is short: if you feel the need to breathe during a shot, stop the shot and breathe. When you break off a shot, put the gun down with the muzzle downrange and your finger off the trigger. The USAMU guide has you take several deep breaths before you hold your breath again, and between shots and strings throughout the firing.

When to put the gun down for other reasons, and how long to keep it up at all, is in How to hold a gun steady.

Take up the slack by the time you stop breathing, and fire within that one held breath. In the CMP’s pistol guide, trigger pressure begins with the second breath, on the way down to the target. The USAMU guide’s slow-fire sequence takes up the slack and applies initial pressure before you hold your breath, and starts the positive pressure after. In the ISSF rifle course, beginners take up the first stage as they stop breathing.

Do not breathe again until the shot has gone, Shooting Sports USA says. And the shot is not over when it breaks: for Quandahl, follow-through starts as soon as you stop breathing and lasts until the gun settles back into the aiming area after the recoil.

The breath sets a deadline, and it can spoil the press either way. Pressing too slowly is the trigger-control error the USAMU guide calls holding too long: a press so slow and cautious that the air runs short and the stance loses some of its stability, so the trigger is pressed when conditions are poor. Too fast, and you snatch the shot to beat the deadline. When the air runs short, take the pressure off the trigger, lower the gun and breathe; Trigger control covers the press itself.

If your groups come out taller than wide, ask whether every shot went in the same pause: breathing moves the aim up and down, though it is only one possible cause, and Reading your shot groups lists others. Each card you scan in Shooter shows where every shot landed and the group’s size; what the shape says about your breathing is for you and your coach to judge.

Should you inhale or exhale before the shot?

With a rifle, breathe out and stop: Shooting Sports USA, the CMP and Target Rifle Australia all stop after a breath out, and the ISSF rifle course after letting out about half the air. With a pistol, the breath comes with the lift, and the sources differ on what follows: the international pistol shooters Quandahl describes keep air in the lungs, while the USAMU guide lets the breath out first, only partly for timed and rapid fire. Either way, stop at the same point for every shot.

Should I take a deep breath and hold it?

Usually not. It is what most beginners do, Larry Quandahl writes in NRA Family, and full lungs keep the chest muscles working until fatigue sets in. Stop in the relaxed pause after a breath out instead, or, with a pistol, use one of the lift-and-breath methods above.