TargetTalk

Hi all,

So I was wondering what tips people had to keep a constant sub-six sight picture. In all of my targets I shoot sub six but I'm consistently seeing a lot of vertical variation, more so than horizontal variation. Are there any dry-fire exercises I could do to improve the consistency of the vertical range?


Thanks!

My experience with verticle stringing is peeking at the bull or trying to set the sub six distance by checking the gap. I don't know a dry fire exercise that will cure that if that is what you are doing. I do live fire and concentrate on the sights.
Ben

Thanks,

I have some suspicions that it's the case as well. The vertical stringing has made me anxious at times and led me to peek at the bull which probably just makes it worse in a vicious cycle.

vHoff wrote:Hi all,

So I was wondering what tips people had to keep a constant sub-six sight picture. In all of my targets I shoot sub six but I'm consistently seeing a lot of vertical variation, more so than horizontal variation. Are there any dry-fire exercises I could do to improve the consistency of the vertical range?
Thanks!

You've gotta have faith - that 10-ring is really quite big and ANYWHERE in the 10-ring plus 1/2 bullet diameter all the way around gets you a 10.
You've gotta have faith - your hand/eye/brain coordination will give you better consistency in the area of aim than any conscious effort
You've gotta have faith - all it takes is lots of practice

Spencer wrote:

vHoff wrote:Hi all,

So I was wondering what tips people had to keep a constant sub-six sight picture. In all of my targets I shoot sub six but I'm consistently seeing a lot of vertical variation, more so than horizontal variation. Are there any dry-fire exercises I could do to improve the consistency of the vertical range?
Thanks!

You've gotta have faith - all it takes is lots of practice

Like Spencer says, lots of practice. It is an area aiming method that doesn't need to be super precise - as mentioned the 10 is fairly big. Once you get your head around the idea that you're not trying to be super precise you'll find in naturally happens. In practicing it a lot you're training your brain to subconsciusly recognise the right sight picture and it takes a while to really learn and ingrain that.

Rob.

Freepistol is absolutely right. You're "peeking" at the bull, meaning you're letting your focus jump back and forth between the front sight and the bull.

It will kill your scores. It will also make you tend to grab the shot when something looks right...another score killer.

Sometimes going to a stronger lens in your glasses (pulling your eye to the sight) will make this difficult so you can break the habit.

I agree that peeking at the bull will give you the vertical and sometimes "yipped" horizontal stringing. It is a tough habit to break. Dry firing against a blank white wall helps to train the eye to stay on the front sight. Something I did this weekend when I caught myself "peeking" was to mentally mutter the words "Area Aiming." Doing that seemed to bring my focus back to the front sight and allow me push the bull into the background of consciousness and break the shot cleanly.

ciscovt

I believe in order to improve your score, your can do some practices like this.

1. As you can have a consistent vertical string, which meas that your aiming should be OK, in such case this may be a result of your trigger movement, you are using to much force to pull the trigger. Try to concentrate that every time you place your trigger finger on the same location on the trigger blade. Even with the same pull, a bit high or low on the trigger blade will result in either hitting high or low.

2. If it is a result that you cannot hold the pistol steady long enough to fire, try doing some exercise to strength your arm muscle. One I find pretty easy and rewarding is gripping a one liter water bottle and hold it straight like aiming, hold and count to 10 (roughly 10 secs.) and do it 100 - 150 times a day.

ISSFFP wrote:I believe in order to improve your score, your can do some practices like this.

1. As you can have a consistent vertical string, which meas that your aiming should be OK, in such case this may be a result of your trigger movement, you are using to much force to pull the trigger.<snip>.

Triggering errors don't normally manifest themselves as vertical stringing, plus the OP said he had problems with 'sight picture consistancy'.

Rob.

try to fix your sight as shown in the picture.
Distance A should be the same everywhere
If you do so you create a white/yellow ╔╗
this will improve your shooting
The morini pistols have a screw to create this sighting

succes with it

Madmull:

Nice picture. I've never actually seen anything that looks like that outside of a picture, tho'. In fact, I think that if you did manage a clean sharp-edged image of all the elements in reality, it would take too long to judge the horizontal and vertical spaces to be "equal" - I just don't think the human vision system is built to do that very well. Add to that the fact that some of the bits are moving around and trying to measure equality is probably a good recipe for chicken finger. IMHO, of course.

The big problem is that the round bit up top in the middle does not have a sharp edge. Getting the post centered and level is the primary task and not terribly difficult (theoretically), but I have to let the gap between the top of the post and the fuzzball settle into a sight picture that may vary with the light and how my eyes are working at the moment. There is no sharply defined gap above the post, just a light area that blends into the fuzz. I try to be consistent and adjust the gun's sight elevation until it is where it needs to be under those conditions.

I don't know if that is the right way - and if someone has a better method, I would love to hear it - but a sight/target picture with crisp lines all about is just not going to happen.

Roger

RandomShotz wrote:Madmull:

Nice picture. I've never actually seen anything that looks like that outside of a picture, tho'. In fact, I think that if you did manage a clean sharp-edged image of all the elements in reality, it would take too long to judge the horizontal and vertical spaces to be "equal" - I just don't think the human vision system is built to do that very well. <snip>

Roger

Actually the human brain is designed exactly like that. We (it) loves regular patterns so an even distribution like depicted is just what it needs to hit the spot. Sure it will move but the training is to get it ingrained and recognised as the desired pattern. Oh and the bull will be out of focus and fuzzy.

Rob.

My sighting picture is about like this... at least as of today. For the Richmond 'Hibernation' match this past weekend I was still aiming sub-7, hugging the bottom edge of the black with the sights just as I'd been doing for the past few months. After about 250 shots including warm-ups over the 3 days I was very tired. Sore neck muscles and eye quite tired of trying to make the black meet the black. So last night at home I bumped my 46m's sights up a few notches and went back to sub-6 as I'd been shooting back in the spring. Started getting tighter groups right away, though it's going to take a while to reacquaint myself with this and become comfortable, before the second-guessing and resulting fliers go away. Anyway, I've modified the above attached image to resemble what I'm seeing in real life, blur and blackness levels and all.



The hardest thing for me in this position is trying not to fuss too much about exactitude. Just as with the sub-7, though I think not quite so much due to the more general aiming area, there is a tendency to hold much too long if I worry about getting that gap just right. And then of course my hold starts wavering more and more broadly as the muscles become saturated with lactic acid, and there's the risk of yanking the trigger just to 'get rid' of the shot, to move on. I'm a lot better than months ago at not letting that happen, abandoning the hold and resting half a minute and trying again... but it still happens once in a while, for disappointing shots into the white or at least out in the 7 ring. If I compress the process into a more disciplined, but not panicked few seconds, the odds of hitting at least in the 9 ring go WAY up.

[/quote]

Actually the human brain is designed exactly like that. We (it) loves regular patterns so an even distribution like depicted is just what it needs to hit the spot. Sure it will move but the training is to get it ingrained and recognised as the desired pattern. Oh and the bull will be out of focus and fuzzy.

Rob.[/quote]

For me it works, and i agree the bull is a bit fuzzy altough i try to correct this with the diagnafram on my shootingglasses.
I now shoot a horizontal line about 4 centimeters high and goes from the left 7 ring to the right 7 ring.
i trained to get to equal white lines when lowering the pistol and search for the same white line under the bull.
scores went up from 450 average to 500.

Ofcourse my body hurts everywhere when i am finished after a game, but thats the beauty of free pistol. lactic acid means you have to control your breathing technique. or with other words there is a shortage of oxygen.

madmull

Sorry to resurrect an old post but it seemed the most relevant. I had an aweful competiton weekend.

One positive thing that came from the weekend was a discussion with a coach about sight picture problems. I explained that after 45 minutes I had shot just 3 competition shots. It was observed that my white gaps were approx 30% of the width of the notch combined (15% each) with the front post making up the rest (70%) and was told this can lead to "chicken finger" as you cannot get a perfect sight picture. This is exactly what happened.

I was told the optimum would be 25/50/25 and to try and reduce the width of the front sight such that it appeared marginally smaller then the black aiming mark. Again a reason for this is that as long as the foresight is under the aiming mark you are more likely to pull the trigger then if it drifts slightly left or right during your aiming.

I had other issues but was wondering how this compared with other peoples knowledge and experience.

I do a lot of my dryfiring practice pointed at a blank wall. It allows me to concentrate just on maintaining proper sight alignment while squeezing the trigger. No pesky target to distract me.

A74BEDLM wrote: I was told the optimum would be 25/50/25 and to try and reduce the width of the front sight such that it appeared marginally smaller then the black aiming mark. Again a reason for this is that as long as the foresight is under the aiming mark you are more likely to pull the trigger then if it drifts slightly left or right during your aiming.

Sorry to be blunt, but if you are using a sub-six hold, why would you even look at the "aiming mark"? And if you are using a six-o'clock hold, switch to sub-six or center.

BTW, the correct term for "aiming mark" is "distraction mark".

FredB

If you look at these sight picture posted above all show the front sight 100% lined up with aiming mark (distraction bull or whatever you want to call it!). This in itself surely leads to snatching - all lined up - go go..snatch or chicken finger as when its not all lined up you can't pull trigger.

We can all pull trigger on blank wall - dry firing. Its a great exercise and I do a lot of dry fire but ultimately unless you never shoot at a real target you will be required to aim and fire with a full target in front of you.

So back to original question regarding front sight width vs size of aiming mark?

This can mess with your mind because the size of the sight and bullseye change, depending on where the eye is focused. This is caused by a change in the "focal length" of the eye when focused near or far.

To keep it simple: focus on the front sight only and the apparent width of the front sight should be the same as the bull.

A74BEDLM wrote:This in itself surely leads to snatching - all lined up - go go..snatch or chicken finger as when its not all lined up you can't pull trigger.

This doesn't happen once you adopt and accept the concept of area aiming.

You know that there is no way you are going to be able to hold everything perfectly still so just line the sights up perfectly and place them in a comfortable area relative to the aiming mark. All you then need to do is pull the trigger without mucking up the alignment of the sights.

Once the sights are aligned, instead of worrying about where they are positioned it might be productive to concentrate on just standing still (a novel concept to many pistol shooters).