Instinct shooting has been around as long as shooting, itself. The same instinct that allows us to throw rocks with accuracy can be applied to most of the shooting sports. No one proves that better than expert archer Byron Ferguson when he shoots an aspirin, thrown into the air, with an arrow from his longbow.
Airguns came to instinct shooting through the outgoing personality of a Georgia tobacco salesman named Bobby Lamar McDaniel, but better known as "Lucky." He started teaching people to shoot without sights in 1954. Within six months, his business had grown enough to support him full time. In his day, Lucky was well known throughout sporting circles.
The Army wanted to improve snap-shooting abilities during the Vietnam war, so adopted Daisy's 2199 (Model 95 widebody minus sights) for Quick Kill instinct training. Tom Woodling collection.
Over the course of many decades, he taught thousands of people to shoot this way, but the one that stands out was world heavyweight boxing champion Floyd Patterson.
Floyd trained with McDaniel until he could hit a BB, thrown in the air, with one shot from a BB gun. Already a superb athlete, Patterson credited part of his accuracy in the ring with the instinct shooting training he had received.
Lucky started his business with old BB guns from which the front sights had been removed. Before then, heíd used .22 rimfire rifles, but the BB gun allowed him to teach in many more places. Several times in the beginning, he would take whatever BB gun happened to be handy at the moment, snap off the front sight with pliers and go to work. That changed when his fame grew.
A later version of the Daisy Quick Skill set included a gun, two sets of safety glasses, BBs and aerial targets. A program of instruction guided the shooters through roughly the same training Lucky McDaniel gave, though without his personality driving the sessions it undoubtedly took longer to learn. Tom Woodling collection.
Quick Skill
In the late 1950s, McDaniel visited Daisy to show them his revolutionary training method. They had just relocated to Rogers, Ark., and were quite interested to see how he was using their guns. By this time, his widespread fame and the highly promoted 1957 fight between Patterson and amateur champion and Olympic gold medalist Pete Rademacher had helped popularize him.
Lucky spent one whole afternoon in the Daisy parking lot demonstrating his prowess to the delight of the company's top officials. That day must have spawned a lot of company interest. Within a year, Daisy was selling an entire instinct shooting set, designated the No. 2199 Quick Skill set. The set included safety glasses, aerial targets, instructions as well as a special model 95 widebody Daisy BB gun without sights.
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