Beating Chicken finger?

[RobinC]

30 years ago I could shoot air pistol (FWB 65) to a reasonable standard, ave 370+, with a PB of 380+, (it was 40 shots then!) I had a 20 year break and returned just over a year ago as both a retirement pastime and as therapy for a balance problem caused by illness.
Now at 63 I have fought for a year to rebuild some semblance of a standard using a Steyr. I realise that I'm unlikely to regain 30 years but frustratingly I can on occassions get close, but have struggled to beat the dreaded trigger stalling, despite dry firing estensively (no problem during dry fire) and having good coaches for guidance including one national coach and another a legend from my days, but I can't seem to consistantly get the better of the problem.
I am now trying the East European approach described in The Hitch Hikers Guide, trigger control by Warren Potter, of separating the aiming and then taking the trigger straight through in a separate function as soon as the gun is steady.
It appears to be generaly successful but does feel so very very alien to what I have always done, and despite it working I'm stupidly finding it difficult to over come my subconscious which wants to do it the standard way.
Does any one else use the technique? Warren, if you are out there, help!
Best regards
Robin

[jackh]

I will bet your eyesight at 63, requires a lens to see the front sight. And that it is still difficult to focus and concentrate on the sight. For me at 60 now, with my lens, I see the sight clearly if the lighting is cooperative, but still it is difficult to keep my eye ON the sight. There is an acceptance of those conditions that I have to battle. I mean acceptance of seeing what I see and doing the best I can with it. I do not mean acceptance of wobble. That's the next battle in my mind.

[RobinC]

Jack,
I use shooting glasses, and have a lens set up to focus on the foresight with the target in a nice blur, that's not the problem. The actual problem I'm sure is a reluctance to accept the first good hold and just take the trigger, there is a little voice inside that thinks it can get it steadier and won't let the trigger go off. Have a look at the article on this site in Coaching and info, hitchhikers guide, trigger contol by Warren Potter, he describes exactly what I was doing, I'm now using his suggested technique but not sure if I should even though it appears to work!
Best regards
Robin

[GaryN]

It takes a LONG TIME and LOTS of practice, but you will get it. The brain just has to get used to doing something new.

I came from the same old school American style.
I used to shoot with a 6-oclock sight picture, then moved to sub-6. It took my brain a LONG LONG time to get used to the different sight picture. If I did not pay attention, the front sight would drift up into the 6-oclock position.

The idea is to "trust your hold." As you get better, your hold gets steadier, and the "arc of wobble" gets smaller. So the shot group will get tighter. If you pick when to fire your shot, because of brain and muscle lag, by the time the shot is released, it is likely that you have drifted off the best score that you picked.

The other thing is, I learned that I MUST get the shot off within about 6 seconds, or my hold just gets WORSE and WORSE. The idea of holding until the hold get better just does not work for me. A good shot after 6 seconds would be a fluke. I shoot by 6 seconds or I abort.

[deadeyedick]

I too have suffered from this extremely annoying condition, which in my case at least, magnifies my sensory state with regards to trigger feel.
Finally, I decided to fight fire with fire, and adjusted my trigger to suit my "heightened state of trigger finger sensitivity. I have an LP10, and adjusted the second stage to its minimum, and brought the first stage progressively up until a combined weight of 500+ grams was achieved. This had the effect of matching the sensitivity of my trigger finger to the release of the sear. This new setup has required minimal adaptation, and has produced remarkable results [ in my case ]. The outcome has been an increase in confidence when allowing my sight picture to settle into place, and an almost cerebral release of the shot, very similar to many free pistols I have used.

[2650 Plus]

I would suggest almost every thing before my post plus work to develope a confidence building mental drill before you raise the pistol. Concern about resulte seems to be the major cause of the chicken finger malady and decreasing the concern has been for me the most straight forward solution. Also, relax the trigger finger and keep it relaxed through out the application of pressure. Muscle tension makes the trigger feel like it weighs five or six pounds. Good Shooting Bill Horton

[lastman]

I found that rather than dry firing a good way to beat this condition is dry rehearsal. This is where you do not have the trigger cocked and just press the trigger through to overload. It took a good year of doing it but now I don't even think about the trigger.

I know when it has taken too long so I stop or it just break naturally.

[Misny]

I have been having the chicken finger monkey on my back for a while. It looks like I might be making some progress by picking up the pace. It seems like by getting the individual shots off quicker and spending less time between shots is starting to pay off for me. The faster pace seems to build confidence in my shooting, while taking a long time to shoot gives me time to nurture doubts. YMMV

[RobinC]

Misny
I quickly abandoned the Warren Potter technique and have actualy followed the same approach as you, I have worked quite hard to improve my pace. I build it up to a rythem in my sighters and shoot more sighters than I used to, 10 on a blank card and then 5 with an aiming mark and straight into match cards. It is working and also find my confidence is better.
Best regards
Robin

[Guest]

Try LOTS of dry firing and shoot 20, 30 or more shots on a target. If you have chicken finger it is because you are worried about what might be about to happen based on what has already happened. Forget score, don't look at your targets and shoot so many shots on a target that it is impossible to score it. Then consider your overall group location for any sight adjustments.

[grip]

I shoot a Steyr LP10. Not so long ago I was a hopeless air pistol shooter and suffered badly from chicken finger. The trigger seemed to weigh a ton. After much experimenting and receiving a lot of advice I've settled on the following method of trigger release which works well for me. While bringing the sights down into the aiming area I take up some of the trigger pressure and hold it there while I align the sights. When the sights are aligned I begin taking up the rest of the pressure and continue with it until the pistol discharges, no matter what. I'm very careful to concentrate only on the sights and not the target. Wobble is then less obvious. If I lose concentration I put the pistol down and start again. Once I started using this method my scores improved dramatically and early this year I managed to shoot 571.

[luftskytter-]

I was pleased with my own shooting at todays training session, only about 70-80 shots, about ten into each card. I shot better than I have done for several months. After a card where the gun hit low, I changed for a cylinder with more pressure: it's been acting a little funny lately.
ANyway the main reason I did well today I believe was concentrating on this: Accept your wobble!

This simply means that if you wobble a little bit, that's OK.
Just take up the first stage while in the aiming area, and squeeze nice and slow while in a time-window of reasonable wobble.
Trying to improve on this will only get you into trouble.
A slight, easily visible wobble doesn't hurt much.
So I was wobbling enough to be tempted to do something about it.
But some of the ten-shot cards where I didn't do other mistakes, were nines and tens only. I did some funny things too: one card had three nines plus the other seven shots in a very tight group up to the right due to "compulsive funny sight alignment" rather than twitchy triggerwork.....

The next card was all about getting the sight alignment back to hitting centrel, which I managed quite well and started hitting in the middle again. Seems it was mostly due to holding my head to the right. Maybe adjust the grip a little instead? It was a good day at the range, and a good thing it wasn't competition. Easier to learn new things when not counting points. Like improving your trigger work,,,,,,,

[2650 Plus]

For Grip. I found that thinking allign the sights , finger move and going back to allign the sights only taught me to dally and to continue mentally jumping back and forth from sights to trigger finger.and back to sights. I finally taught myself to start the finger moving and then moving to perfecting sight allignment until the shot fired or I aborted because I lost concentration on the sights. This was much more productive and my match scores showed a marked improvement. If what you are doing is producing match winning scores I am not sugesting a change, But this change worked for me. Good Shooting Bill Horton