TargetTalk

Hi Everyone

I was at my regular practise shoot last night and as I was going into the range I asked the club president to come in and give me some coaching after I had done my sighters.
He watched me shoot a 5 shot card and then proceeded to disassemble my technique.
I was holding my arm too rigid, and my triger control was way out. Also I had no real warmup and practise routine so after addressing the actual problems, Ron took me through some excersises that do not involve firing pellets. First, dry firing and correct sight aquisition then trigger squeezing, done with the gun resting on the bench. Ron told me that I was taking up the first stage as I was lowering the gun and he always coaches people to leave the trigger intil the sights are aligned, then squeeze in one continuous motion.
To test my corrected technique I did ten dry fires and ten trigger squeezes then proceeded to print a group on the back of a card. The result? 4x9 and 1x10. A second card lacked the impressive score but maintained the tight grouping, which was the point of the excersise.
I did another session of dry firing and trigger control and then attempted a card from the front. Goodbye tight groups, back to spraying all over the card. Darn my concious mind!!
Ron remarked that with the two good groups I shot on the back of a target, I proved to myself I can shoot really well. Trigger control is the key.
Anyway I just thought I'd share. I know what I'll be doing next Monday. Dry fire and trigger. I won't fire a shot until I'm fully warmed up and in the groove.

Here's an exercise I do that takes some of the tedium out of dryfiring:

five dry fires then one live. If the shot is 9 or better, fire another live. If not, do five more dry fires then try another live. After a number of dry fires, I find that I really concentrate on the live shot so that I can continue the live firing.

A couple of comments - Other warm ups you should do are light physical warm ups. I just loosen my arms neck and shoulders but there are more specific drills available. Also I would sugegst that the the first stage is taken up above the aiming point i.e. when coming down onto the target. That is what all the coaches I've spoken to suggested. If you just go from none to shot release in one pull then you loose the whole benefit of having a two stage trigger.

I shoot a card or two on the back most training sessins as it helps you to focus on the trigger release and sight picture, without the distraction of the black.

Rob.

these are some great posts, and what I like to see being exchanged. I am instituting a monthly contest of sorts, where, the best post of this sort will win a prize, maybe a hat from one of the manufactures or some tins of pellets or sticker selection or somthing to reward those posts that are most informative.

maybe I should I pick a few each month and have everyone vote or should Warren and I just select a winner?

You guys just select the winner(s) it's much easier to administer - IMHO.

Rob.

RobStubbs wrote:I shoot a card or two on the back most training sessins as it helps you to focus on the trigger release and sight picture, without the distraction of the black.

Rob.

Are you focusing on any particular aiming point when you do this, or just a general center-of-mass hold?

-Ted

Ted,
My approach is to try for a similar point of aim as for live firing. I know some guys just aim in the middle of the card but that's not where we aim normally so I don't see the point.

Rob.

I don't think there is much to be gained from being anal about the exact aiming area. Just aim where it feels natural or, as Rob does, where he perceives he normally does (which in itself probably feels natural to him).

If the sights are lined up and, more importantly, the trigger is good then the worst that you will get is vertical stringing. I don't think that will happen though as muscle memory and the sub-concious will take over and keep it all nice and tight.

When I first started shooting I was amazed when my instructor/coach demonstrated by firing 5 slow .22 shots at the back of a target at 20 yards. The resulting group was about an inch overall.

A few years later I found that I could do the same thing for novices I was instructing. If only we didn't have to shoot with an aiming mark ;^(

I now realise though that this party trick was missing the point. The whole idea about shooting at the back of the card is that it removes the "score goal" element of shooting and allows you to concentrate on the "process goal". In other words, it's not what you do but how you do it.

My coach, years ago, would have me line up for a 25yd timed fire, get ready completely, except the final trigger press. Then he would raise a full size target back in front of my sights and have me begin the time fire without seeing the bull at 25 yds. The blocking backer was pretty close. The group on the 25 yd target shot through the backer was actually quite good

After giving this some thought, I must disagree with one of David's points:

"I now realise though that this party trick was missing the point. The whole idea about shooting at the back of the card is that it removes the "score goal" element of shooting and allows you to concentrate on the "process goal". In other words, it's not what you do but how you do it."

I would humbly suggest that the point of the blank target drill is that by removing the trivial distraction of "aiming" (pointing at the target) you are diverting more of your limited mental processing ability toward what is much more important- aligning and releasing the shot.

Consider: you are probably wobbling just as much against a blank surface (if not more!). The group is tighter because the contribution to error of misalignment is much greater than the contribution from wobble.

Try shooting at an aiming bull without any score feedback.

Your performance will be not as greatly improved (feedback vs. no feedback) as the improvement that results from aiming bull vs. no aiming bull.

I certainly agree that " . . . it's not what you do but how you do it . . . " has merit- as long as we are talking about "perfecting technique" (focus on behaviors) as superior to "putting holes in paper" (focusing on scores).

Steve Swartz

I think that Steve and I are essentially talking about the same thing.

He is talking about focusing on the behaviours or scores, I am talking about process goals and score goals. Different phases of the same things.

I don't think there is much disagreement.