Maintaining a reasonable shooting standard

IMO, once you become proficient, with handgun or rifle, it becomes muscle memory.

Maintaining physical condition to execute that muscle memory becomes the issue after that.

I find I can stay very proficient with a rifle pretty much indefinitely. Handgun skills drop quickly.

Winshooting and action pistol disciplines require practice for me. If I miss a few weeks of pistol dry fire drills my performance drops off hard. The first few pigeon shoots of each season usually show up my lack of mounting and swallow and bat tracking sessions in the garden.

Generally speaking, my shooting seems better the more I shoot. Groupings, speed, comfort etc are all much better when I get to the range the second time in a month.

An old soldier (who could really shoot) told me it is way more effective to shoot ten shots every week than 40 shots once a month. He could hit a golf ball with almost any handgun at 15m.

I'm inclined to look up at my target when firing. To get rid of that, I go out for a couple of practices before the hunting season. As much as I know my reloads, I go "check" them. I do that thing Ds J refers to of rather shoot a few shots on more occasions than a huge bunch once.

I took my 44 Ruger along with Mr Treeman on one of his hunts. We saw a rabbit while driving and I shot it at 30 + m with ease, first shot I had fired in 30 odd years. This was after 30 years abroad, no shooting.
This little spur of the moment show off of mine earned me a lecture from Mr Treeman about "just" killing things.

I am inclined to believe that simple shooting, aiming ability stays with one forever, but the skills of wing shooting, competition shooting are a different matter. Shooting requiring other skills over and above lining up the sites, aiming ability.

I took my 44 Ruger along with Mr Treeman on one of his hunts. We saw a rabbit while driving and I shot it at 30 + m with ease, first shot I had fired in 30 odd years. This was after 30 years abroad, no shooting.
This little spur of the moment show off of mine earned me a lecture from Mr Treeman about "just" killing things.

I am inclined to believe that simple shooting, aiming ability stays with one forever, but the skills of wing shooting, competition shooting are a different matter. Shooting requiring other skills over and above lining up the sites, aiming ability.

This makes sense. I had quite a flinch and didn't know/realise it. It only became clear as I shot more.

This makes sense. I had quite a flinch and didn't know/realise it. It only became clear as I shot more.

I developed a flinch/snatch seemingly out of nowhere about 5 years back and it only affected handgun and then only when shooting fast. Rifle, shotgun and slow fire pistol were unaffected. It nearly did my head in and I shot out >10k rounds in solo drills at the range trying to chase it down. Eventually killed it with 15 to 20 minutes of dry fire drills 5 days a week. Took a month or so and touch wood its still gone.

As per JamesNotBond's comment I think that the static and dynamic skills of shooting aren't equally durable. Also the stuff that you can think through and concentrate on while firing slowly and deliberately like stance, breathing, sight picture, trigger control, follow through and so forth aren't everything you need to shoot fast or at moving targets. The latter skills degrade fairly quickly for me and require constant brushing up.

Shotgunning was my nightmare until the very last shot of the previous season. I didnt have time to think, just point and shoot on guinea fowl and I shot my first ever fowl on the wing.

Last week we did our first drive and I remembered not to think - three guineas went down with five aimed shots.

With rifles and handguns, my shooting is definitely better if I practice more.

Aaaaag you Ou's .................... I just shoot fantastically with ease all the time, if I shoot badly I blame the rifle till I shoot better.