Query for Experienced Competitive Shooters.

[amarinder]

Sometimes, the sights are not aligned at aiming area. Its either perfect or slightly towards left. If I try to correct the sight, most of the times I end up making bad shot towards left scoring 8 or 9. Would it be right to slightly change the aiming area towards right when the sights are towards left. This way my chance would to either hit 10 or 9 and not 9 or 8.

[rmca]

No.

If the sights are not in the same place, odds are that you are grabbing the pistol in a different way from shot to shot.
Make a conscious effort to try to realise if your hand is grabbing the grip in exactly the same way every time.

You can try this, grab the pistol and with your eyes closed raise it and let it settle in the aiming zone. Only then do you open your eyes. Where are the sights in relation to the target? Left/Right? up/down? Adjust the position of your feet until you can align the sights with the target.

Check also the position of your finger on the trigger. Make sure it's always in the same place.

Hope this helps

[SamEEE]

Do the same thing every time and you set yourself up for success.

Every time you deviate from your original plans you are doing yourself a disservice.

It sounds like the you are not indexing properly when you grip the pistol (hence left and right deviations). This can stem from a number of things; but my first guess is that the grip isn't helping you to index consistently.

Probably the most critical bit of the grip for this regard is the part of the grip where the middle finger holds the front shelf up, also consider the heel of the grip around where the palm joins the bottom of the wrist. - experiment with blu-tac; or something similar. Play around and learn as best as you can. Read widely - the subject is more than I can touch on here.

Play around until the pistol points only straight in your hand. Don't accept anything short of straight in your lift - the sights only work if they are correctly aligned.

Even with a turd of a grip (figuratively) you should be able to lift straight, but it will be hard. And hard isn't fun.

Again; accept nothing but perfect. Repeatable-Perfect will come with practice. Compromise, or rather anything short of a straight lift; will lead to wasted time, and effort.

[David M]

my first guess is that the grip isn't helping you to index consistently.[/b]

Grip is not correct.

With a relaxed hold a right handed shooter the sights will be slightly high and slight right.
When tensioned in the shooting stance the sights are in line.
With the sights inline you then move your feet and shoulder to align the sight to the target.
It can take a lot of time and lot of small adjustments to get a grip correct.

[amarinder]

No.

If the sights are not in the same place, odds are that you are grabbing the pistol in a different way from shot to shot.
Make a conscious effort to try to realise if your hand is grabbing the grip in exactly the same way every time.

You can try this, grab the pistol and with your eyes closed raise it and let it settle in the aiming zone. Only then do you open your eyes. Where are the sights in relation to the target? Left/Right? up/down? Adjust the position of your feet until you can align the sights with the target.

Check also the position of your finger on the trigger. Make sure it's always in the same place.

Hope this helps

The problem that I am facing is that :
Before raising the pistol, I straigthen my arm and check the sight is correct and is in line with arm and wrist.
Then On raising, few inched above the target,I again verify the Sight picture. Most of the times its correct.
Then on smooth lowering, I keep and eye on sight picture to maintain their alignment. Upto the block circle, the sight are aligned. But the moment it reaches the aiming area, they are like this (PIC ATTACHED). At this point I realize that my wrist is at some angle to arm and I have to slight move my wrist to get the SIGHT ALIGNMENT.

[Spencer]

...Before raising the pistol, I straigthen my arm and check the sight is correct and is in line with arm and wrist...

AHA moment #1!
it is unlikely that sights aligned before you raise the arm and pistol will be aligned when you raise the pistol.

[David Levene]

...Before raising the pistol, I straigthen my arm and check the sight is correct and is in line with arm and wrist...

AHA moment #1!
it is unlikely that sights aligned before you raise the arm and pistol will be aligned when you raise the pistol.

...and you'll usually find that, because the eye is higher than the pivot point of the shoulder, if the top of the sights are lined up above the target then the front sight will drop when you come down to your aiming area. Many shooters unconsciously adjust their wrist to overcome this during the drop to the aiming area.

[amarinder]

...Before raising the pistol, I straigthen my arm and check the sight is correct and is in line with arm and wrist...

AHA moment #1!
it is unlikely that sights aligned before you raise the arm and pistol will be aligned when you raise the pistol.

...and you'll usually find that, because the eye is higher than the pivot point of the shoulder, if the top of the sights are lined up above the target then the front sight will drop when you come down to your aiming area. Many shooters unconsciously adjust their wrist to overcome this during the drop to the aiming area.

Got your point.
So, before raising from stationary point and lowering from above the target towards aiming area, one should ignore the sight picture? And only ensure that other elements like grip pressure, trigger finger,etc remain right ?

[David Levene]

I wouldn't say "ignore" the sight picture, IMHO you should watch it very carefully during the raise to ensure that your focus is locked on to the front sight.

If you are coming straight up into your aiming area then your wrist will make the adjustments needed during the raise.

If you are raising above the target then that is where you can check your sight alignment, allowing that the front sight will need to be slightly high at that point.

As for grip pressure and trigger finger position, if you have trained them correctly then you should not need to think about them, they should be automatic.

[Ed Hall]

Some extra thoughts:

What you are currently seeing is most probably the result of your shooting position/grip/etc., being in balance. Anything you do with your grip, wrist, arm, etc. during that raise will unbalance the pressures within your system. If you move the muzzle over, even slightly, this applies a pressure to the side as you hold.

All pressures should be in line with (parallel to) the bore. This includes the gripping and triggering. First, make sure these are in line. Does increasing the grip pressure a little misadjust the sights? Does your trigger pressure misadjust the sights? Work toward the answer being, "no," to both of those questions. Then, rephase my negative questions to positive ones and look for perfectly aligned sights, even if you vary the grip and trigger pressures slightly.

All adjustments to the grip, trigger, etc. must come prior to the shot and be balanced with all pressures in line as described above. This also means no adjustments during the sighting, simply allow the sight alignment to remain steady and let it hover over its area.

A brief note about checking the sights prior to being within your aiming area. As mentioned by others, if your wrist is "locked**" with your sights aligned while on target, the sights will misalign elsewhere. During training, find out what the sights should look like in the various check points. Start with everything perfectly aligned on target and then see what that translates to above and below. That way, as the lift progresses, you can have confidence that it is unfolding properly.

Now, there is one last thought I'll put forward before I close: If all of the above is in balance as described and the sights are this close to being perfect, I would suggest trying to leave the entire system from the sights back to the shoulder alone and slightly shift your head to make the alignment. This has to be only a very minor shift. If you have to make a major shift, go back to all the above.

**You cannot truly lock your wrist, but you can stabilize it such that it is in a steady position. If you break that steady position during the raise by moving your wrist around, you cannot regain the same level of stability.

[toddinjax]

At this point I realize that my wrist is at some angle to arm and I have to slight move my wrist to get the SIGHT ALIGNMENT.

I think the line above is a huge issue. Think of lifting a suitcase or a guitar case by its handle, you'd keep your wrist in its naturally straight position; flexing your hand in any direction but that to which it naturally falls will make the task more difficult, maybe even cause pain if you hold it like that for a while. If your wrist & hand isn't in that natural position, it is compromised. My suggestion would be to find that hand/wrist position before lifting the pistol and maintain it throughout the entire shot process.
I've nowhere the skills or talents of those who responded before me, but your comment just beamed out at me. Hope this helps.

[zanardi50]

Thought I throw this into the mix:

Record yourself going through the shot process, or have someone stand next to you to verify. Assuming that you're right-handed, you may have inadvertently turned or tilted your head ever so slightly to your left without you being aware of it. This will change your sight alignment to what you are describing. For a guy with basketball for a head on a short stubby neck, I no longer find using the near 90 degree stance comfortable because my head tend to want to snap back to its natural position (facing forward) instead of keeping my head turned too much sideways to see the sights lined up. As soon as I relax my neck muscles my head turns away from the perfect alignment and the pic you showed is what I see.

HTH,

Bill

[amarinder]

I have made considerable improvement just by correcting the mistake in which I used to align the sights before lifting. New method of lifting, in which the front sight is higher than rear sights before lifting, has brought in considerable improvement in sight stability and alignment. Also, now I make 10 degree (approx) angle with firing line which bring the gun more closer to aiming area rather than towards left of target which earlier used to happen. Also, I pay more attention to keeping the LIFT straight rather than forcing my arm towards target. If there is any distance between target, I make changes in my feet angle.

But the on reaching the aiming area,I have to make some changes in wrist in vertical direction to align the sights with aiming area. (Earlier I had move wrist in horizontal direction.)This is happening because I am yet to know the exact angle I need to make with the wrist before lifting the gun such that the sights are perfecting aligned on reaching the aiming area.