TargetTalk

BEA wrote:Believe who and what you wish, but I did not almost make the team.

I am sure you are a very fine shooter Ben.

And I am sure your triggering skills are very good, because you are a master class Conventional pistol shooter.

The why of shooting is always going to be an opinion, because when something is working for us, we dont need to know why. When something isnt working we start looking for ways to make it better.

I was inspired to start paying a lot of attention to my triggering based on what Bill Blankenship had to say in the Pistol Shooters treasury. It seems to be working, but the proof will be how I do this next year in matches, as practice doesnt really count.... :-).

Just my .02 cents. Yup, I can shoot without a front sight do it all the time while function testing fresh .45 builds. What does it mean? What does it teach? Not much. Dry firing and shooting at a blank card would be better. Simulating something that you will not be doing or close to doing in a match is maybe wasted effort. Think of it like this. Each time you train, you are sending a message to the sub-conscience , "This is what I should do, this is what it should look like" If you train on a blank card, the sight picture and lack of disruption are being etched in your mind, this is good training. If you are training lifting the gun for RF, your are etching in your mind and body the proper technic and stopping point for your arm. If you train something that your mind finds odd, it will duel with itself to rationalize which task you really are trying to do. That is not to say that shooting without a sight for giggles is a bad thing, I just would not make it a training regiment. As to trigger control. I have to side with BEA on this. Shooting a FR or AP with a 10 inch side radius requires tremendous control, and given that the center ring on both targets is less than half the diameter of a conventional target, the margins for error are greater. How many clean Free Pistol targets have you either seen or heard about? Not easy even at the world class level. Now I know that cleaning a long line target at Perry is not all that uncommon, but it is like talking apples and oranges. I occasionally teach SWAT officers, there we don't even bring the pistol top eye level in a close quarters scenario, this allows the officer to watch the suspects hands for weapons or weapon movement without the officers pistol or hands getting in the view. Most officers can shoot very well out to 20 feet instinctually , but this is something their sub conscience needs to remember since it will be used in real life. You could set up a control experiment, one shooter train for a year without a front sight, the other with a sight. Who do you think would have better results on a target?

"Who do you think would have better results on a target?"

Conradin!

Greg Derr wrote:Just my .02 cents. Yup, I can shoot without a front sight do it all the time while function testing fresh .45 builds. What does it mean? What does it teach? Not much. Dry firing and shooting at a blank card would be better. Simulating something that you will not be doing or close to doing in a match is maybe wasted effort. Think of it like this. Each time you train, you are sending a message to the sub-conscience , "This is what I should do, this is what it should look like" If you train on a blank card, the sight picture and lack of disruption are being etched in your mind, this is good training. If you are training lifting the gun for RF, your are etching in your mind and body the proper technic and stopping point for your arm. If you train something that your mind finds odd, it will duel with itself to rationalize which task you really are trying to do. That is not to say that shooting without a sight for giggles is a bad thing, I just would not make it a training regiment. As to trigger control. I have to side with BEA on this. Shooting a FR or AP with a 10 inch side radius requires tremendous control, and given that the center ring on both targets is less than half the diameter of a conventional target, the margins for error are greater. How many clean Free Pistol targets have you either seen or heard about? Not easy even at the world class level. Now I know that cleaning a long line target at Perry is not all that uncommon, but it is like talking apples and oranges. I occasionally teach SWAT officers, there we don't even bring the pistol top eye level in a close quarters scenario, this allows the officer to watch the suspects hands for weapons or weapon movement without the officers pistol or hands getting in the view. Most officers can shoot very well out to 20 feet instinctually , but this is something their sub conscience needs to remember since it will be used in real life. You could set up a control experiment, one shooter train for a year without a front sight, the other with a sight. Who do you think would have better results on a target?

I also dont think shooting without a front sight adds much to training, especially with a light triggered free or air pistol, but a lot of the master class shooters, and high masters will work on their triggering by dry firing without looking at the sight.


I also agree that cleaning a free pistol target is hard. I heard that Chuck Holt shot a 97 in the Mayleigh Cup match, and I know he did it with a Marvel unit on a 1911 dedicated frame with a 2.5 pound trigger. It was on the fifty meter free pistol target. Maybe those super light free pistol triggers arent as big an advantage as the international shooters seem to think. Maybe good triggering really is even more important than the gun, and the hold.

Some FP shooters like very light triggers. Some boost the pull up to 30 or 50 grams, maybe more. At any rate, FP is at the height of precision pistol shooting and until you have truly worked at it, the degree of difficulty and what really goes into it cannot be appreciated. This is not a remark to discount your opinion, but one thing is for sure...if you want to shoot a good FP score, or AP, all hands have to be on deck because there are no shortcuts. All the shooter abilities have to be in full play and this includes trigger, subconscious and sight alignment. As for dry firing without looking at the sights, how do you know if you are making a clean break without disturbance? I always thought this was the goal of dry firing, to practice watching the sights through the firing process. But as you have alluded to, training techniques are modified to the individual shooters needs.

Shooting a 97 on the international 50 meter target is a score anyone would be happy with. For myself, I judge how good a target is by how I do on the next one. A most likely time to shoot a poor target is right after a good one. I have no idea what his next target was and I hope it was another good one. This comment is offered to make some shooters aware that they might incorporate this into their training, that is being on guard concerning getting lazy after a success. It is extremely difficult to get on top of such a fine psychological wire and remain there. The balance is delicate. Example Darryls 590 AP score last year...that is a sharp edge that is so easy to fall off of but he didn't. Learning to shoot is one thing, learning to win is another.

I think BEA is modest, he's a 2 time Olympian in Free and Air Pistol, a multiple National Champion and Gold medal winner in World competition. He's walk the walk a long time.

BEA wrote:Believe who and what you wish, but I did not almost make the team.

To be fair to those who almost made the team, at 2004 Olympic selection match Zins was third in Air (behind Szarenski and Turner), a mere 1.2 points behind the first place after 4 matches and a final. He was first overall in Free, 3.2 points above Szarenski and some 30+ above third-placed Turner. Zins' high score in Free pistol was 560. He did not get to go to Athens because the USA team did not get any quota in free pistol that year. He never bothered to show up for Air/Free Olympic selections after that.

I hope this should be enough to put to rest any doubts of Zins' overall shooting qualifications. He is right there with the top US dogs in Air/Free and way ahead of them in bullseye pistol.

shaky hands wrote: I hope this should be enough to put to rest any doubts of Zins' overall shooting qualifications. He is right there with the top US dogs in Air/Free and way ahead of them in bullseye pistol.

Because I certainly agree about his overall abilities, I wonder if anyone knows what happened in the recent finale of Top Shots? Brian was in the final 4, but got eliminated at the first challenge when he shot the AK47 very badly. So badly that I just can't believe the fault was his! Did they give him a faulty gun, maladjusted sights, bad barrel? He said on the show that he didn't understand what happened, but I bet that was just for public consumption. Does anyone know?

Rover wrote:Sorry, Rob. It is NOT too simplistic. Any putz can hold the gun up with the sights in alignment.

Squeezing the trigger while doing that is a whole new ball game.

But have you noticed the importance of the front sight specifically, responsible for tight groups as opposed to the whole sight picture. This is why when I am not 100% empty minded I throw 8's, when I should be all front sight, if any "putz" can look at sights then any "putz" can squeeze a trigger gently. I would say if you want to practice trigger release, do so when dry firing but in a dark room so sights are eliminated, I have done this and it is good training.