TargetTalk

There are, depending on who you talk to, there are about 7 Pistol shooting basics.

Stance
Position
Grip
Sight alignment
Trigger control
Breathing
Mental discipline

Now, take these basics and re-arrange them into order from most important to least important.

After this, put a percentage of importance on each.

Let us know what you think....

Fair to distinguish a difference between:
1. Sight alignment
versus
2. Sight picture ?

Can we add: Follow-thru ?

Could we consolidate: Position with Stance in one ?

I agree with Atomicgale's tweaks.

I've been meaning to ask a similar question for some time. LOTS of people will tell you that they are all important, but I've never seen a breakdown of the relative importance of various fundamentals and details. I was thinking about about it in terms of a 600 point air pistol score. At the risk of hijacking the thread (Sorry, David), here are the notes I had put together a while back, but never got around to posting:

1) Trigger control: 345 points - - Everything else is useless if you are going to yoink on the trigger. Even if you don't move the pistol out of alignment with your trigger pull, if you know when it's going to go off, you can anticipate the shot and push it around by grabbing at the grip (yes, even with an air pistol).

2) Sighting (i.e. sight alignment/sight picture): 210 points - - If you don't keep the sights aligned, you won't hit the middle of the target. Sight alignment is more important than sight picture, but you need both. This is where having decent glasses/vision is important.

3) Sleep: 6 Points -- A bad night's rest will definitely hurt your scores.

4) Stance: 6 points - - Natural-Point-of-Aim (NPA) is probably more important in sustained fire events than for air pistol. I've intentionally shot using "UPA" (Un-natural Point of Aim). I tried shooting square to the target, at my NPA (roughly 45 degrees), and in line. The two extreme positions felt weird, but I basically shot about the same. I'm including having a lightly locked wrist & elbow as part of the stance.

5) Pistol "Grasp": 5 points - - By this, I mean how you hold the pistol, as opposed to the "grip" (the hunk of wood or plastic on the pistol frame). You need this to be repeatable, which is best obtained by careful repetition. Obtaining a good "grasp" should be a deliberate act, not the result of just grabbing the pistol. That said, I've shot good tight groups with pistols that I've never held before, with grips that made repeatability a bit tricky (see below).

6) Pistol Grip: 5 points - - I do feel that having a pistol grip with enough physical features to guarantee a repeatable grasp is helpful. I do NOT believe that having the grip exactly molded to one's hand is necessary, and it could even be detrimental. If you don't want the pistol to twist out of alignment with any variation in grip pressure, I think you should actually minimize any contact on the sides. The repeatability produced by carefully fitting the palm of the grip, for example, could easily be outweighed by the uncontrolled sideways force it applies. I have shot countless targets with grips that did not fit me in ANY sense of the word, and yet my scores were not dramatically worse than normal. As a college team armorer, I have had to test fire a wide range of pistols with grips that do not fit me in ANY sense of the word. That includes shooting an extra small left handed pistol, which was painful, but worked. If you can align the sights & squeeze the trigger properly, the results can be amazingly good.

7) Breath Control: 5 points - - I find this comes pretty naturally with a little practice. If you don't come up with a process/sequence where you can comfortably hold your breath during a shot, you are going to have problems.

8) Stretching: 5 points - - I didn't pay much attention to this for years. As I've gotten older, I noticed I seem to take longer and longer for my shots to "settle in" during the sighting period. Stretching definitely seems to help, although by the time I'm done with my sighters, the effect isn't huge.

9) Fitness: 4 points - - Being in generally good shape, with good cardiovascular conditioning is a benefit over the course of a long match. This is an area I should probably work on more...

10) Nutrition: 3 points -- Short of starvation, I've never noticed any correlation between what or when I've eaten and my scores. I don't load up on sugar or caffeine before a match, nor do I suddenly cut them out completely.

11) Pellets: 2 points -- Only to the extent that you don't shoot junk. I've shot many of my best targets with RWS Basics.

12) Shoes: 2 points -- Yes, I feel VERY slightly less stable in VERY squishy shoes. I think the effect is quite small compared to the natural wobble in the rest of the "system". I've shot in different shoes over the years and never noticed any significant effect on my scores.

13) Hydration: 2 points -- I bring water to the line for a match, but when I practice at home, or test pistols for the team, I don't pay much attention to it. Never noticed much effect...

After a couple of years of air pistol shooting I still consider myself a beginner - as my scores dramatically prove - so take my post with a bit of salt:

To the list above I'd like to add one more thing:

2b) "Twitch control" (for lack of a better term)

What I mean is that as a subprocess of sight alignment/picture, I find it extremely important (and ever so hard at the same time) to keep the front sight from starting to 'dance' inside the rear sight gap as I descend into the aiming area with aligned sights.
No 'front sight dancing' = a decent shot for me.
Some days it looks like I've got some form of Parkinson's disease = shots all over the target - of course.

Sight alignment, trigger execution and wrist lock are the more important.

A very thought provoking and interesting question that gets to the heart of the matter, again some very thoughtful responses I'm still mulling this over and will talk to our team and see what their consensus is as this is not as simple as it looks, as if pistol shooting was ever simple.

After a LOT of discussion we have come up with this:-
For competition shooting

1. Mental state
2. trigger
3. Sight alignment
4. Sight picture
=5. timing go/no go
=5. follow through
6. Grip pressure
7. Stance
8. Breathing

Mental state - You can often shoot tons in practice but in comps you cant and in finals you shoot like a novice.
Trigger - random shot generator - have you ever seen your trigger trace on scatt
Sight alignment - front to back and have you ever done the maths of how far a little bit of out of alignment miss places the poi.
Sight picture - over rated 'cos if you are thinking about this you are not looking at the front sight and alignment, this is where trust should be and accepting your movement.
Timing - how often have you just thrown points away but trying to make a dodgy settle work.
Follow through - often solves everything if you actually do it properly.
Grip pressure - the silent killer of your shooting under pressure.
Stance - everything seems to work for different people look at the scores before worrying about the stance
Breathing - everyone is different but keep your mouth open to reduce heart beat bounce.

As "mouthy" as I am, I'm not really going to jump into this one.
Sight alignment and trigger squeeze is everything.
Stance seems to be "trendy."
Play with the rest to your heart's content.

I hope this has made you think about the basics.
Top of my list is Trigger control at shot release (90%).
If everything else is perfect you can easily destroy a shot at release.
The last 2/10 second before and after the shot break is critical.

Mental discipline can make up for many errors in technique, in my view. Trigger control and sight picture come next.

m1963 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 30, 2024 6:44 am Mental discipline can make up for many errors in technique, in my view. Trigger control and sight picture come next.

"Mental discipline" can be broad I think. Do you mean with mental discipline, discipline at all those points mentioned above and take it easy the day before and the same day for example?
Or just the mental discipline to stay focused and shoot sharp?
I think this last thing can be a bad habit, which will only lead to stress. Perhaps just shooting and don't give a sh*t, will help you further?

Is there room for strength in the list of training exercises? At the moment I am wondering if dry firing 10 shots with breaks, will be a good training.
Perhaps I should start with 7 for example. Being able to shoot 7 shots or more without a serious break should prevent exhaustion at the shooting range, where I shoot 5 times and have to stop for refilling magazine.
But overdoing this could lead to rush and tension in shooting while often shooting under pressure.