5 Pro Tips: How To Stay Cool While Shooting

Too Hot To Make a Shot? Suns Out Guns Out!

Staying cool while shooting your guns in the heat is an essential skill for any shooter.

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If you’d rather stay home when the temperatures hit near the hottest decades of American history (80,90s,00s), then these tips aren’t for you. But if you can’t stand the thought of leaving your guns in their safe, all alone, pining to be free in the hot summer sun… read on.

Shooting in hot weather is tricky. Summer is one of the best times to shoot, but it’s also one of the most merciless.

In my background sport of Olympic style rifle, we make it even WORSE.

In a feat that seems borderline masochistic, we ADD clothes to our kit.

And not just any clothes. No. We add thick canvas and LEATHER, complete with boots and gloves.

Many a time I stood tall under the great blazing circle of fire, reminding myself that this self-made sauna was an essential torture of my sport; maybe even healthy. Didn’t the swedes champion Saunas? I told myself I was simultaneously earning medals & detoxing my body… Ignoring the fact our Swedish friends jump in ice cold snow after their sauna jaunts…

No such luck for us in the dead of summer.

So do we just tough it out? Not advisable. Heat stroke is a serious reality.

Here are some tips from a pro who has competed for the highest stakes – while wrapped up like a sun baked Harley Davidson themed burrito:

1. Cool Scarves: These little things make everything feel better. Yes, even when wearing leather. Somehow if the back of your neck is cooler, your whole body feels just a little happier. There’s science to it, but who cares about science when you’re sweating your eyelids off. They’re normally filled with tiny gel beads that swell and increase evaporation. Cool feeling neck = Cool feeling body = Cool head = better concentration.

2. Water But Better: It has to be said. Hydrate. But drinking water is not enough if the you’re sweating more than Biden at a kindergarten. You need electrolytes. I linked some delicious professional ones (don’t ask me why I know they double as adult pixie sticks) but even a teeny pinch of salt and sugar in a gallon of water helps, as well as coconut water. In fact, coconut water saved my life living in the remote parts of western Samoa. Let’s just say being stranded on a deserted beach is only fun in the movies… HYDRATE.

🍓 3. Eat Light & Small: Picture your stomach like a furnace. When you put fuel into it, it fires up. This can lead to many things, and temperature raising is one of them. When your body is digesting, especially large, high fat meals, your metabolism kicks in like flashdance. This is great in winter, but not in summer. My metabolism turns into a fiery phoenix after Chipotle (another burrito reference…am i just hungry?) Eat lighter, smaller, and more frequently as necessary.

Bonus tip: This tip also has the added benefit of keeping your blood sugar more level, which helps for shooting and any situation where intense focus is needed.

🌞 4. Sunscreen: While you’re concentrating hard on that target, the sun is concentrating hard on YOU. This doesnt help keep you cool, but it’s still important. I prefer a titanium based sunscreen because I don’t trust foreign chemicals soaking into my skin, but hey, this is America. Choose what works for you.

Bonus tip: Be aware of sunscreen around your eyes and on your brow. Apply strategically. Many people sweat the most in these areas. Sunscreen stings the eyes. Wear a hat or sunglasses as an alternative. This also helps dodge paparazzi.

5. Umbrella like a Victorian: Don’t be shy. Carry your umbrella proudly like a true gentlemen or lady shouldeth.
Umbrellas are a HIGHLY UNDERRATED tool.
Ive used them in the equator to keep my freckled skin from becoming crispy bacon, and every chance I get while filming and shooting in deserts, hot tarmac, humid spider filled wastelands — essentially every hot climate zone you can imagine.
This is the exact umbrella I use (mine is grey) & tested by skydivers in the wind (Mary poppins was an amateur).
Its nothing fancy, I don’t even know who makes it. It just works.
Until you try it, you’ll think an umbrella won’t make much of a difference in heat tolerance.
It DOES.
The victorians strolled around in neck to toe outfits and corsets (yes even the men). You better believe they didn’t carry their parasols for style alone.
So tip your hat to the ancients, grab a gin and tonic, and carry your own portable shade tree.*

(*Don’t drink and shoot..you dapper hooligans.)

Bonus tip: Set this up on a tripod or other high element, and you’ll be able to provide simple pop up shade for yourself, wherever you are. Is that sweat oozing out of your pores? Nay. Its sophistication.

Ah. There ya have it: My top 5 tips to BEAT THAT SUMMER HEAT INTO SUBMISSION – er – enjoy yourselves while shooting under the sparkling sun.

Of course there are more tips, like wearing the correct kind of breathable clothes (I’m enjoying this one currently, 2A snark a bonus), taking periodic breaks in shade, portable fans, crawling into an ice chest and staying there forever, etc.

But these top 5 will get you very far in your pursuits.

Now you can concentrate less on that bead of sweat running slowly down your spine (or is that a spider?!), and more on drillin’ that bullseye. 😎🎯

Aim True, and Happy Shooting,
– Kirsten

p.s. Want to know the exact opposite tip for freezing temps? Here’s how to shoot in the cold.
Or would you like to watch my seering hot pain from the comfort of your air conditioning, during the hottest filmed day of my life? Sure, it’s also a wild trick shot that NO ONE has ever done before or since…but. Pain. Check out the ever popular: shooting a double barrel pistol to split two playing cards at once. Sweat beads included.

You want more shooting tips, trick shots, reviews, and joyfilled mayhem? Then sign up for my newsletter here & follow the most stubborn-im-doing-it-anyway-even-though-its-110 degrees gun channel in the world at: youtube.com/kirstenjoyweiss – See You There!

Stay cool, my friends 😎🇺🇸