I went back shooting after the summer holidays... not good.

[Guest]

Before my holidays, I was consistently scoring around 530 points in Standard Pistol—I know it’s not a great score but at least I was doing it consistently whether training or competition. Then, I had 20 days of holidays in which I did not do any shooting whatsoever (some dry firing only). Now, after the holidays, I have gone to the shooting range a couple times. But my scores are considerably lower now—while I haven’t done a full competition I can make it a guess from 470 to 500 points which is a poor achievement for anyone but total beginners.

Trying to analyze what I have done during this last couple training sessions I see that my point of impact was changing every 15 rounds or so, yet I did not notice any changes in my grip. Sometimes I made really tight groups while other times my groups opened the size of the 9 ring—sometimes the 8 ring. This happened in all the series, be it 150, 20, or 10 seconds. I discard any damage to the gun—it’s as good as it can be. I’ve been taking special attention to stance, gripping, trigger finger, sights, etc. On the other hand, the timings in all the series have been reasonably good, except once in a 10-second series where I only shot 3 rounds…

One thing that I’ve noticed looking at other shooters (they all are better than I) shooting Standard Pistol is that their pistols do not visually move during recoil while in my case the muzzle moves upwards half to the full sight of the front sight—the muzzle stays upwards always. The sights do not seem to go back to the aiming area by themselves ever.

My only plans for the next training session are making good shots I slow fire for the most part of an hour then shoot a few series (2 to 4) in the timed and rapid series. I’m not dry firing at home anymore because I kept doing it during the holidays and I don’t see any advantages in it besides the lights at home are totally different from that of the range.

All in all, not knowing what to do makes my training a bit dull and discouraging. At this point, I’m open to all sorts of suggestions and criticism.

[Bob-Riegl]

Gee, I must be the only other one with that problem. I suggest that you return slowly and limit your practise to Slow and 10 sec. stages only, for the first few days. Do not make extensive practise sessions---45 min to 1 hour in duration are more than sufficient, and avoid tiredness. Re-check your stance, hand grip, trigger finger position. Begin with your slow fire stage and try to call your shots without looking at a scope. In other words go back to basics, slowly progress---I am sure that with patience the old you will return soon. Just imagine what I went through with an 18 year layoff from pistol and shooting only smallbore in that period. Cheers! "Doc"

[Guest]

Thank you for your kind words, Bob!

I've just done a range session like you suggested before (50 rounds slow fire + 20 rounds in 10 sec. series) and I must say that I'm already recovering my lost skills—faster than I thought. That being said, I'll be doing a lot more slow fire work from now on. I will be relegating the turning target to something to be done occasionally—like once a month.

Something that I have noticed is that I tend to move the whole shooting arm upwards and hold it there as I'm experiencing recoil and many shots are vertical high —mostly in the 9 ring— which I figure it means that I'm anticipating recoil. In other words, I have a sub-six hold but the sights are aiming at about the center of the bullseye after the shot is released. Also, sometimes I tend to rock backwards.

[Philadelphia]

Something that I have noticed is that I tend to move the whole shooting arm upwards and hold it there as I'm experiencing recoil and many shots are vertical high —mostly in the 9 ring— which I figure it means that I'm anticipating recoil. In other words, I have a sub-six hold but the sights are aiming at about the center of the bullseye after the shot is released.

FWIW, I had a similar problem and discovered that I was tightening my shoulder and upper arm muscles as part of gripping the gun and that would cause the gun to want to rise. When I was able to allow my shoulder muscles to stay more relaxed while still maintaining a firm grip using just the muscles in the forearm (isolating out the upper arm), it stopped happening.

[BOB TODRICK]

This is the one thing I've come to dislike about vacations. I in fact now try to limit my vacation to 2 or 3 one week breaks throughout the year. Anymore than a week or so and I find it takes twice as long to get back in form.

[Guest]

Thanks for your advice fellas! :)

I realize I was overtightening my shoulder so I went for a tryning session at the range where I specifically concentrated on relaxing my right shoulder. I obviously felt a bit awkward during the first few shots but that feeling faded away rather quickly.

Here's my slow fire target where I shot 50 rounds--this target may be a bit worse than that of my previous training session:



Then, I shot four series of 5 shots at 10 seconds which are no good at all. I shot two series, then walked away for like ten minutes, and I finally shot two more series:



As you can see, shots heavily strayed to the right, both, before and after taking that ten min. pause and I don't know why. Maybe I was just too tired.

Now, I should find out why I shot those high-rightwards shots on the slow fire target and also the reason for the shots in the rapid fire target being displaced to the right. Any ideas? I'm a right handed shooter. I figure my shooting position must be close to that described in the Yur' Yev for Duelling. I also tried being more inline with the target like suggested by Antal in his many books but I didn't appreciate any differences other than slightly more stressed out neck muscles.

At this point, all I can say is that I felt shooting 50 rounds slow fire was a bit too much for my concentration so I'll try shooting 30 or 35 cartridges slow fire then shooting two 10-second series after every 15 slow-fire shots.