I know for sure it does!
I have a passion for both firearms shooting and airgun shooting and mostly in a match environment. I started as a boy with BB guns, and then to nice Diana springers, then into a 22 magnum as my first firearm, but shooting friends 22's also in my early teens. I was already a decent shot by then having put 10's of thousands of projectiles down barrels. As was mentioned before - trigger time.
So in my first Metalic Silhouette match I placed high with a Browning T bolt at age 18. Did that for a couple of years. Never won a match but some of the best shooters in the country were in that club!
Went through the marriage and kids thing and didn't shoot much in my early to late 20's.... Work, money, church, 3 kids, and short on time... Actually sold every gun I had to pay bills...
Later on in life I got into IPSC and USPSA centerfire pistol shooting and started winning local matches frequently but I hit a wall in my ability level in how accurate I was in a world class setting. During this time I stumbled onto a deal on a Steyr LP5 PCP pistol, by practicing a lot with it I became a much more "precise" pistol shooter! At the American Handgunner World Shootoff competition I got 2nd in unclassified division my first year. Got bumped straight into B class and won that division two years later, then advanced to A division. I attribute a good portion of my success to shooting that PCP air pistol and learning just how accurate a pistol can be! BTW, even though this match was man against man on steel, accuracy was the determining factor - can't miss fast enough to win, right?! In other words the guy that hit all 7 steels usually won.
Discovered Field Target air rifle with the AOA club somewhere in this time frame. The years went by and I won our State match more than a few times. While all this was going on I got into long range steel matches with centerfire tactical rifles. Long story short, after I won the AZPRC long range series two years in a row I was approached by one of the shooters with this question - Steve, what is the reason you are so good at this stuff, c'mon man tell me your secret??? My reply was "I practice with air rifles and have been doing so for many years". I'm not exaggerating, he actually thought I was kidding, LOL, if you could have seen the look on his face! I said nope, I'm totally serious!
Anyway, forgive my long windedness. I guess my point is that because of the low recoil of PCP's, the low noise, the nice triggers, the follow through needed, etc, I can see "THE HOW's and WHY's" of a messed up shot, shots that I wouldn't even know that I had messed up with a firearm.
I really was able to fine tune my marksmanship fundamentals because of PCP airguns and that enhanced my abilities with firearms!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes and I learned about wind and holding off because of Field Target which directly transferred into long range with a centerfire!
Yes, bench shooting, but that’s all I do now anyway and I will say this all my 6mm ppc’s and Br’s have been sold to buy pcp’s! I now only have two varmint rigs left, it took a little bit to get used to a two stage trigger because my comp. guns had single stage Jewel 2oz triggers, I’ve adjusted 2 of my pcp triggers to single stage I left the Red Wolf and Raw triggers alone, but I have much more fun with the pcp’s because I can shoot in my back yard or even inside! My rest and bag’s I already had! So that was a plus also...
