Jerry Miculek & the .500 S&W Magnum

I’m a big fan of Jerry Miculek because he’s an exceptionally skilled shooter and by every report I’ve ever seen he’s a supremely nice guy to boot. Everyone I know of that’s interacted with him has had only good things to say about the way he conducts himself. The knowledge that he’s a class act contributes to my enjoyment of his youtube posts considerably. This week he posted a great video showcasing his attempt to empty a S&W .500 magnum as fast as possible:

The high-speed work they do on his channel is pretty impressive, giving insight into what’s happening during recoil that you just don’t see in many other places. Note how during the first run even Jerry can mis-time a trigger pull and anticipate. He’s human after all…

I know that whenever something like this gets posted somebody out there thinks that if they were a sponsored shooter they could do this sort of cool stuff on camera too…but that’s not quite accurate. There really isn’t much money in the competition shooting world. There are precious few people who are able to make a reasonable paycheck just as a shooter, and they almost certainly had to work their way up to a pretty high level before ever getting a sponsorship. Jerry spent many years working on his skill before he was ever given the major sponsorships. He didn’t get good because he was sponsored, he was sponsored because he was good.

When you see Jerry shoot, you’re witnessing the end result of decades of focused, intense effort and practice. When most people went home from their job and watched TV, Jerry went home and dryfired and worked on his reload technique. He did that for a couple of decades and viola! World records followed.

The bit that impresses me most of all is that when you watch these videos it’s clear that Jerry is having an absolute blast shooting. Here’s a guy who has busted millions of primers in training, has spent countless hours dryfiring and working on his technique, and he still seems to be as passionate and enthusiastic as ever. They say never make your love your profession because you’ll grow to hate it. Mr. Miculek seems to have missed that memo. He still seems like the guy who gets to go to the range instead of the guy who has to go to the range.

Keep being rad, Jerry. You’re the man.

 

 

3 Comments

  1. Hi there! We’ve been commenting that video here in Italy, with my shooting buddies. Apart from his “usually super human” skills, we were amazed at how he manages to hold the revolver clamped between hands (web of strong hand NOT acting as recoil backstop – if I tried that, I think the gun would slice its way through my hands under recoil!). And then, on the slomo, we could see the shockwaves of recoil going through his arm tissues – you can see the wave build up through forearm, biceps, shoulder!). Talented and enormously focused, but he must have mighty strong arms / wrists as well! GOSH!!

  2. I’ve had a chance to meet Jerry a couple of time and in my limited contact your assessment of him as the perfect gentlemen is on the money. He is also the consummate professional. During the IDPA World Match a couple of years ago I was an SO on Stage 1 which had two swingers behind a car. Jerry bounced one off the rear window and wound up with an FTN. No four letter words no pouting, just an “understand what I did”. He put it behind him before the next stage and, needless to say, finished the match on top.

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