TargetTalk

Lets start with information in the USAMTU manual. I dont have one at my desk so I'll have to put the concepts in my own words. First the bible talks about Stance. Where you put your feet and why. This varries so much from shooter to shooter that it becomes mostly personel preference. Never the less there are some positions for the feet that seem preferable. Start with the idea that there is a reason you stand the way you do when you are not shooting. Most people stand with the feet located about hip width apart. There seems to be a reason for that. I believe its where the body finds it the easiest to remain upright and most relaxed. Many shooters stand with the feet about shoulder width apart. Any wider than that and much of the effort to remain upright is transfered to the outer edge of the foot ang the ballance is maintained by the weaker muscles on the outside of each foot. With a more closed stance the ballance is made by much stronger muscles from the big toe and the next two toes.. Turning the toes out increases the area of support and provides advantages that most shooters believe helps them sustain the most comfortable stance. Some use a modified fencing stance but I have never trained to use itand have no expertise in that method Position, the relationship of the stance to the target. Usally found by taking the pistol in the shooting grip , closing the eyes and then raising the shooting arm to the line of vision, moving the arm right and left until a minimum level of tension is achieved in the muscles of the shooting arm A ballance if you will. By the way, there is nothing wrong with drawing a chalk line around your feet to enable you to return to the exact stance while working on this phase of your teaining. But don't draw the outline of the feet until you have established the correct Point of aim ie lined up with the exact center of your aining area. This proceedure will not always produce a proper point of aim. This will depend on whatever activities you have been involved over the last 24 hours. Should you take an exact stance , go through the preliminary drill and find that the sights are not properly allighed and that you are outside you normal aiming area, Try very gental streching excercises until you restablish the exact position you had orriginally. With practice you will find that you can return very precicely to the correct stance and position but its always best to check with the drills we have just discussed. Grip. There are many ideas about grip but I ended up using just one. That was the strong grip grip until tremmors start then back of until they stop. But as I understand it as l ong as the pistol does not shift in the hand from the recoil of the pistol it is doing part of its job. Next and in my opinion the most important is to provide perfect sight allignment when the pistol is raised to the level of the line from the eye to the aiming area..Next is to have the grip allow for totally independent Movement of the trigger finger straight back down the long axis of the barrel and causing the pistol to fire without disturbing the stillness of the pistol and without causing any missalignment of the sights. Work on your grip until you can accomplise every thing we have discussed up to now then dont change a thing as long as you are shooting the same pistol, This is called uniformity and is essential if you are to maintain any symbalance of control over your hand gun. Breath control and relaxation goes togeather. As you raise your pistol breath in, as you lower it to your aiming area breathe out . Hold whatever amount of air in your lungs is necessary for you to remain comfortable for the duration of the shot process. Relax every muscle that has nothing to do with holding the pistol still as you can. Good Shooting Bill Horton

Now to continue with the discussion. By uniformity I stress using every muscle in exactly the same way on every shot. The same position with the same tension. Even if Skanaker could do it differently most of us can't and should not try . Most of us recognize that the inner ear is the source of the bodies balance mechanisms, But try this. Stand erect , close both eyes and you will soon feel the body begin to sway. The eyes in sterospic vision use the visible horizon to help the body maintain its upright position. For best stillness you should shoot with both eyes open. No blinders, train yourself to psycologicly supress the vision from the non shooting eye. If you can't accomplish this as best solution then go to the smallest blinder that will work for you. The inner ear seems to work best when the head is held errect with the ears level. Also the head should be held in a stable position because if the head moves so do the eyes. Remember the relationship we wanted to establish with the position and grip?If you allow the head to move that essential relationship we established will change and the sights will no longer appear to be alligned with the shooting eye. Set your head position so that you are looking straight out of the shooting eye on the line of sight.A truism is that the stiller the pistol appears the easier it is to complete the act of firing the shot successfully. It ain't easy but the hard work will pay off in increased scores as you put the rest of your shooting sequence togeather . Good Shooting Bill Horton

Now to continue with the discussion. By uniformity I stress using every muscle in exactly the same way on every shot. The same position with the same tension. Even if Skanaker could do it differently most of us can't and should not try . Most of us recognize that the inner ear is the source of the bodies balance mechanisms, But try this. Stand erect , close both eyes and you will soon feel the body begin to sway. The eyes in sterospic vision use the visible horizon to help the body maintain its upright position. For best stillness you should shoot with both eyes open. No blinders, train yourself to psycologicly supress the vision from the non shooting eye. If you can't accomplish this as best solution then go to the smallest blinder that will work for you. The inner ear seems to work best when the head is held errect with the ears level. Also the head should be held in a stable position because if the head moves so do the eyes. Remember the relationship we wanted to establish with the position and grip?If you allow the head to move that essential relationship we established will change and the sights will no longer appear to be alligned with the shooting eye. Set your head position so that you are looking straight out of the shooting eye on the line of sight.A truism is that the stiller the pistol appears the easier it is to complete the act of firing the shot successfully. It ain't easy but the hard work will pay off in increased scores as you put the rest of your shooting sequence togeather . Good Shooting Bill Horton

Bill: Great post, the AMU manual is must have bedstand book for any shooter.

My various posts on the forum go through evey element necessary to shoot scores at or slightly over the 2650 level. The national record of 2680 is far above this level and beyond my knowledge. You will have to talk to Hershel Anderson to get the information you will need to exceed that monsterous performance. Better shooting for all, Bill Horton

Bill,

Lot`s of great stuff here. I was particularly struck by the notion that stillness in the body is improved by stereoscopic vision. Do you personally shoot with both eyes open? Do you use a blinder on the non-shooting eye, or do you just ignore it?

Best Regards,

Gordon

I think in 38 years of pistol shooting, I kind of understand the basics. Putting those three stool legs together just right is the rub. I find the key for my doing it these days is borrowed from old time shooter Joe White's writing. Joe White wrote "be very careful to keep the sights aligned before, during and after the fall of the hammer". I just say to myself 'keep them aligned', or 'keep it lined up'. If the shot fails to go off while it is easy to keep alignment, I stop. If any feeling or thought of forcing alignment or trigger enters my mind, I stop. (At least I should stop :)

Add: Why?
To keep them lined up I have to automatically have my eye on the sight. To keep them lined up I have to have the mechanics (as FP570 termed it) in place. Steadiness and location on target just seem to fall into place by themselves when everything clicks. Now if I could only get the trigger to co-operate all the time. :)

2650 Plus wrote:My various posts on the forum go through evey element necessary to shoot scores at or slightly over the 2650 level. The national record of 2680 is far above this level and beyond my knowledge. You will have to talk to Hershel Anderson to get the information you will need to exceed that monsterous performance. Better shooting for all, Bill Horton

Is the Bullseye forum broken?

The bullseye forum seems to be working fine, I am discussing fundamentals and the fundamentals are just that. They apply to every shooting endevor. The things that change are those techniques necessary to deal with the rules of the match and the differences in equipment. Have you any thing conctructive to add ? Good Shooting Bill Horton

2650 Plus wrote:I am discussing fundamentals and the fundamentals are just that. They apply to every shooting endevor.

Bill, you and several others seem fixated on the scores achieved by posters and appear to only be prepared to accept advice if you consider their score achievements to be high enough. Perhaps you could give us an indication of the ISSF scores you have achieved using these techniques.

Please note that I am not criticizing your suggested techniques, just challenging the idea that only those with high level score achievements make good coaches (or that those with high level score achievements necessarilly make good coaches).

I have never shot Bullseye and have no idea how good 2650+ really is. The scores of someone who uses the same fundamental techniques in Bullseye and ISSF would therefore give a useful comparison.

David Levene
aka CF590 or StP578

David as I shot more and more competition I studied and experimented and studied some more. The more I learned the better I shot. I think that the people that could beat me had a better understanding of the problems than I did so I tried to learn from better shooters, Some of it worked, some didn't My conclusion about the things that didn't work was that I had either misunderstood the information or just wasn't far enough along to be able to use it yet. I put that information aside for later and used what I understood, testing and training with it until something better came along or it simply didn't work for me. Often one or more of the concepts I had set aside started to make sense and I found that I could use much of the information to my advantage and my scores would increase. I had one excellent coach that I wish I had payed more attention to as I believe he could have accelerated my developement substancially. But for years I was exposed to coaches that were only qualified to score the targets in team matches and police the range at the conclusion of the match. Shooters coached shooters through the exchange of ideas during shooting breaks. This was the envioronment in which I shot most of my years . I didn't know any thing else existed. Good Shooting Bill Horton

My Best scores were Free pistol 560 N0 final,Rapid fire 22 shorts 588 Center fire Precision 94 Duel 100 [ Last out of an old score book as I no longer remembered] This was still on the square head man type dueling target in a shoot out for the US team the year Bill Blankenship won the world championship.I remember shooting a colt 38 special auto in the precision and a S&W model 52 for duel and thats about it. The ISSF has changed so much that I am not really qualified to discuss the fine points axcept when the technique is still very simular to what I shot. Basic rules dont change Fundamentals dont change and simplify, simplify, simplify. It doesn't take a doctorate to figure out how to shoot a ten. Good Shooting Bill Horton

David Levene wrote:
I have never shot Bullseye and have no idea how good 2650+ really is. The scores of someone who uses the same fundamental techniques in Bullseye and ISSF would therefore give a useful comparison.

David Levene
aka CF590 or StP578

David,

CF590 and STD578 are awesome scores.

Shooting bullseye and std is very similar, using the familiar routines for rapid and timed fire. The targets are different though. The bullseye slowfire target (scaled to the same distance) has a seven ring which fits easily into the ISSF eight ring. It is therefore significantly harder to do well on the bullseye slowfire target. However the situation is exactly reversed for timed and rapid. The Bullseye sustained fire target has an eight ring the size of the ISSF seven.

Overall, my scores are roughly equivalent in both.

How good is 2650? It is a little over 98%. Definitely highend master. You have to remember that bullseye has traditionally been the national shooting sport in USA, a place where there are almost as many privately owned handguns as there are people. This makes a huge pyramid of hobby shooters with a very elite summit. Bill has his place there.

One of the really impressive things about 2650 is the endurance component, that it involves shooting 98% through the equivalent of four and a half 600 point ISSF matches, in one day, and doing it with three different firearms. .22 .38 (or other centerfire) and .45. It was designed to call upon the skills of military (.45) and police (.38) plus the .22. A terrific test of all around skill with a pistol.

In any case, there is no reason to distinguish between basic shooting techniques of BE and ISSF except as concerns trigger weights as per FP.

Best Regards,

Gordon

P.S. Other more knowledgeable people may well correct what I have said here.

gordonfriesen wrote:David,

CF590 and STD578 are awesome scores.

Thanks Gordon, and also for the information on bullseye.

The only reason I gave those scores is to justify my claim that high scoring shooters do not necessarilly make good coaches.

Can I detect BS, yes.
Can I spot when a pistol shooter is doing something wrong, yes (I like to think I am quite good at it).
Will I tell that shooter how to improve their shooting, certainly not for a shooter who has advanced beyond a basic level. I will probably point out to the shooter's coach that there is a problem (which they will normally already be aware of) but fixing the problem is their job. All I know is what I did to get reasonable scores but am fully aware that my techniques will not suit everyone. A good coach however will be able to come up with ways of solving the problem.

I am not saying that good shooters cannot be good coaches, but there is no reason why they should be any better than those who have not reached high scores. The reverse can often be true.

So speaks the coach David. I cannot say that you are wrong as much is "right on " I will say again that I learned more from TD Smith, Frank Green , Bill Blankenship. Joe Benner, Bill McMillan,Ect Than from any coach except one [Col KP Dunn also a top shooter]. That is just the US shooting enviornment which seems to be different from the rest of the world. We make do with what we have. Good Shooting and good coaching, Bill Horton

David Levene wrote:

gordonfriesen wrote:David,

CF590 and STD578 are awesome scores.

Thanks Gordon, and also for the information on bullseye.

The only reason I gave those scores is to justify my claim that high scoring shooters do not necessarilly make good coaches.

David,

None-the-less, those scores inspire great respect, and I would add that many a shooter would be happy to have your informal input on his performance.

I think Bill is onto something with his cultural comparison. I live in Canada, not USA, so I have a perspective somewhat between the two, European and American. I think the difference is in the way we conceive of the sport. I think a young person who was considering fencing or Karate would naturally seek out lessons and hence at least an instructor if not a coach. On the other hand, if a kid wanted to swim, he might get in a program, but he might also just go down to the beach and jump in the water. In USA, shooting tends to be almost that informal.

But then, while lots of guys are just blasting away at the range, there will also be people there who are participating in club level competition and our casual shooter might thus become, with no further ado, a league bullseye shooter. This would compare well to bowling, where people are competing all their lives without ever having actual coaches. Maybe a British equivalent would be darts at the pub, where some guys get, to put it mildly, very good, but without neccesarily taking the whole thing too seriously.

Anyway, that`s me. I have a local club. I learned to shoot reasonably well by trying to emulate the old hands. I got into ISSF because one of these who is also a Canadian Champion told me that bullseye leads nowhere in Canada, but ISSF could possibly lead me to international competition.

So I have models and mentors and friends, but no coach.

What I believe would be very helpful for me, would be to hear from shooters like you, just exactly what you find essential to your training. What are the drills that you do and in what order and in what proportion? It's like music. There is a blend between the time practicing scales, the time practicing real pieces, and the time performing.

Forget about coaching for a minute. From my point of view, the exact way that another man "practices his scales" is of great interest, because it is not unreasonable to suppose that if I do the same work, I may acheive similar results.

Best Regards,

Gordon

Gordon, David:

Very insightful posts.

That's one of hte thigns that drew me to TT initially and motivate me to post (even against the occasional "headwind").

I think it's related to the notion that at some point the "true amateurs" and "hobbyists" with a genuine interest in doing the best they can given finite resources need more than "work hard enough and you can medal at hte olympics."

It isn't that simple . . . and it isn't as (in some repects) "easy" as that.

While it is true there are no shortcuts tehre are indeed a whole lot of inefficient "long cuts."

I would hazard the opinion that the *default* answer for the vast majority of true amateurs (frankly I find the term "hobby shooters" insulting) is that you are doomed to flail away for hours nad months nad years never getting anywhere close to your real potential; and that a focused/organized approach to training could get you much farther down the road.

Steve: If it insults you.(hobby shooter) why keep bringing it up. Try to stand proud. No excuses. Just be a shooter.

For Gordon, In response to your question about both eyes open, Definately yes. I fought through the double image problem until my shooting eye began to transmit only that image of the alligned sights and the non shooting eye just quit when I was concentrating on alligning the sights. This took almost three months of intensive training before the results I have described began to work . A year later I was completely unaware of the issue as it had become an ingrained habit. Good Shooting Bill Horton

2650 Plus wrote:For Gordon, In response to your question about both eyes open, Definately yes.

Bill,

I`ll give this some more work then. I have often seen the statement that both eyes is best, but you never see anybody that does it. I`ll see if I can follow your example. Right now, I can see the sights allright, but what I found disturbing is the bull. I have to get the inactive eye to drift a little farther away so that the bull is the right size (seen only through the shooting eye).

Thanks,

Gordon