TargetTalk

How long does it take to teach yourself to begin the trigger squeeze and continue the action till shot execution as one lowers the pistol into the target area. My friend (in a way a coach) asked me to keep squeezing the trigger even while seated and looking at a target that has an e-shaped cut out stuck on it. It more or less looks like the ideal sight picture.


Warm Regards,

Dev

Or you can squeeze the trigger with your eyes shut while visualising the ideal process.

Actually I don't think the Russians do ANY live shooting until they have perfected this.

JamesH wrote:Or you can squeeze the trigger with your eyes shut while visualising the ideal process.

Actually I don't think the Russians do ANY live shooting until they have perfected this.

Is there a time frame for this? Is the coordination like that of driving a manual shift car? It happens without thinking after a while?


Regards,

Dev

Dev wrote:How long does it take to teach yourself to begin the trigger squeeze and continue the action till shot execution as one lowers the pistol into the target area. My friend (in a way a coach) asked me to keep squeezing the trigger even while seated and looking at a target that has an e-shaped cut out stuck on it. It more or less looks like the ideal sight picture.


Warm Regards,

Dev

I think the process just takes a dose of faith and courage. Begin the steady, uninterrupted squeeze prior to an optimal sight picture secure in the knowledge that your sights will be aligned and in your aiming area by the time the shot breaks. If you have reached the point where you can call your shots, you can do this if you believe you can. If you wait to see your optimal sight picture before initiating your squeeze, by the time the trigger breaks, that optimal will most certainly be gone.

I also have to disagree with placing anything at all on the target to look at. IMHO, it is best to completely ignore the target, and anything which slows down the process of traning toward that end is not good.

The control factors involved in a shot delivery start with how soon after you settle into you area of aim is the best control and stillness? Wouldn't it be nice if the pistol would just fire at that time? Don't you recognise that this mandates starting a steadily incressing presure some time before that moment of perfection occurs? How much before the best time should you start the finger moving? That depends on how you use initial pressure and how fast your finger moves naturally or how fast you have trained it to move.Now we get to the important stuff. The mental process you use to insure that you are perfecting sight allignment before tha pistol fires cannot be sustained indefinately so that is also a consideration. How about eye focus on the front sight? Also limited in duration and there is always the possibility of burning in an immage and the brain beliving the sights are still alligned when they are not.Almost every thing in this dissertation indicates that taking a long time to fire the shot is detrimental to producing a winning score. Good Shooting Bill Horton

Dev wrote:How long does it take to teach yourself to begin the trigger squeeze and continue the action till shot execution as one lowers the pistol into the target area. My friend (in a way a coach) asked me to keep squeezing the trigger even while seated and looking at a target that has an e-shaped cut out stuck on it. It more or less looks like the ideal sight picture.


Warm Regards,

Dev

I have been shooting for the better part of 2 decades now and I still haven't got it to a level that I am completely happy with.

As Bill described there are so many factors that go into being able to press through the shot execution. But if you want to just learn how to smoothly apply pressure to the trigger until it breaks, dry fire in a dark room.

With regard to putting a cut out on a target. To me it does not represent an ideal sight picture because there is no movement and no matter how good you get there will always, always be movement.

Good luck

I must add that I believe placing a picture of perfectly alligned sights against a fuzzy grey ball helps train the sub-concious to properly allign the sights and maybe even help eye focus to identify how things are supposed to appear when the pistol is in firing position. I look at the picture plan my shot and then raise the pistol and go into my shot sequence to deliver the shot. I am convinced this helps me shoot better shots. Good Shooting Bill Horton

Thank you for all the training tips that you have shared. I am a little amazed by the wealth of information. My problem is that when I begin the trigger pressure as I lower the sights, I feel as if I am in slow motion. The ear plugs anyway push me into an inner world of silence, so it seems to take forever. Last night I was aborting when I found that I hadn't begun to apply pressure on the trigger as the pistol was coming into the ideal sight floating place.

For some reason my shots have started to go lower in the middle of the forty pellets that I was shooting. I think I just held lower than I normally do.
How much of a difference could a new box of pellets make? I decided to ignore where they were going as I wanted to just get the trigger part right.
I think I will ignore scoring till I get a bit of a hang of the trigger.

Oh another thing, sometimes I have squeezed the trigger in a manner that felt like a cheeeken finger but oddly enough it resulted in a ten or a nine. Is this a fluke or a glimpse into how one can squeeze a shot off fast?

Warm Regards,

Dev

One possible training process is:

1 - Learn to visualise the ideal sight picture (no target, just the sights)

2 - Learn ideal trigger control - smooth and steady right through the 'break' and with follow through. Do this with the pistol rested on something, with at least the wrist in the correct position.

3 - Learn ideal trigger control, while visualising the ideal sight picture

4 - Learn to aim with a good sight picture on a blank target, adjust your stance until you're comforatable and stable

5 Learn to dryfire on a blank target, visualising the ideal sight picture and concentrating on trigger control ie with your eyes shut

6 - Learn to dryfire on a blank target, concentrating on the sight picture and trigger control

7 - Learn to live fire on a blank target, concentrating on the sight picture and trigger control

8 - Learn to dry fire on a target with an aiming mark, ignoring the aiming mark as far as possible.

9 - Learn to live fire on a target with an aiming mark, ignoring the aiming mark as far as possible.

Don't jump steps until you've perfected each one, if it starts to go wrong go back to the previous step.

Notice live firing comes last, once everything else is 100% or close to it.

You can also intersperse:

5a Learn to live fire on a blank target, visualising the ideal sight picture and concentrating on trigger control ie with your eyes shut aim, squeeze, shut your eyes, shoot. - This is surprisingly valuable, but needs care.

Timescale for the above, 3-6 months?

Thank you so much James H, Bill Horton, Philadelphia and Lastman this board is the nicest one I have ever been on. You are all responsible for making the shooting sports the best. I will concentrate on the steps given by you. I have a few months before the pre-nationals, hope I shall be ready this time.

Warm Regards,

Dev