TargetTalk

Muffo wrote:

JulianY wrote:At 10 m the 4.5 / 5mm fore site should be about the same size ad the diamiter of the black ( your milage will wary a bit. depending on you arm length) so at zero the black should be about the with of your fore sight.

personly i would recoment a grey dot so you remeber to focus on the sightsn and dont get used to a clear infocus black

julian

It should be at 10m but if its the same size at 0 then it doesnt tell you when you are outside a 10 ring hold

Sorry Muddo, i am not sure what you are getting at ?

looking to the original question;

"When shooting on a 5m air target the 10 ring size is reduced to simulate what it takes to shoot a 10 at 10m. Does anyone know what the size would be at 0m. I do a holding exercise with a piece of blue tack on the wall. The bigger the piece the worse your hold can be and stay on it. So i was wondering how big the piece should be to simulate a 10 ring hold."

my presumption is they want to dry fire (0 feeet) There for you want the same sight image. so proportion fore site is relavent not distance. ( yes the maths isthere, but most people dont have calculators for eyes)

I guess I missed the point.

JY
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Simply all i am trying to do is determine a size dot to put on the wall in front of me to cover with the front sight and when i move off it i have moved outside a 10 ring hold. I have state titles in 1 month and i cant do any shooting in the mean time as my old Air pistol has packed it in and It will be 3 or 4 weeks before I have my new one and I want to work on my hold in the mean time using my free pistol

Like others, I still can't understand why you insist on praticing "holding exercise" @ 0 meter. Why not 5 or 1 M ?

Since no projectile is used, the size of the 10 ring will be half @ 5 M and 1/10 @ 1 M, and so on, @ 0 M the 10 ring and the target will not exsist, it will be infinitely small, or do I miss something?

Most shooters I know and myself included, pratice dry fire by placing a dot on the wall simulating the sight picture of the event in question, if the hold; sight picture; trigger release...etc are good, it will be a 10, never give what size is the scoring ring much consideration.


Tony

In that case, you should be investing your time in dry firing against a blank surface.

"Holding Exercises" as you describe them (*especially* if you add dry fire to the exercise) will do much more harm than good.

Steve

Doing it against a blank surface doesnt show up the movement of the arm which I am trying to improve. I cant actually dry fire as I dont get my air pistol for a few weeks yet so i can simply do holding exercises with my free pistol

Steve Swartz wrote: "Holding Exercises" as you describe them (*especially* if you add dry fire to the exercise) will do much more harm than good.
Steve

Could you elaborate please?

Muffo wrote:Doing it against a blank surface doesnt show up the movement of the arm which I am trying to improve. I cant actually dry fire as I dont get my air pistol for a few weeks yet so i can simply do holding exercises with my free pistol

I don't think many are questioning the validity of holding exercises, the question is why do you require a scaled down ten ring to do such exercises?

Personally either a small dot (big enough easily to see) or a cross hairs on the wall will show you the amount of movement.

Couple of things in response to Tom's question. These won't make much sense to you if you and I do not share the same fundamental understanding of how a "proper shot process" works OBTW. Disagreement over how the "proper shot process works" has led to many heated disagreements (and misunderstandings) in this forum over the years.

So here goes- with the basic definition of "proper shot process" as smoothly approach the aiming area, align the sights, settle into the aiming area, focus on front sight (physically) and perfectly aligning the sights (mentally), then breaking the shot (either the act of releasing the shot driving you to fine tune alignment, OR the stability of alignment giving permission to release the shot). This definition suggests that "hold" per se is not an integral part of the proper shot process, other than how "hold" relates to achieving "settle in the aiming area."

That having been said, with respect to holding exercises in general and as the "end of runway" cramming for a match:

- "Stability" of hold (smooth and predictable vs. jerky) is much more important than "magnitude" of hold.

- Training on "magnitude" of hold requires you to focus mentally (and intermittently physically) on an "aiming object." This mental/physical focus on the "aiming object" will necessarily distract you from (best case) or mislead you away from (worst case) the proper focus on sight alignment and front sight.

- Stability of hold can be worked on against a neutral/blank surface

- Magnitude of hold is typically worked on against an aiming object (as Muffo is intending to do)

- Stability of hold can be worked on without the negative side effects of the distraction/aiming object; and can be improved in the relatively short term. By improving the stability of your platform (stance, lean, grip, etc.) through improving technique, you can see improvements in stability fairly quickly.

- Magnitude of hold can mainly be improved in the very long term through improvements in physical strength and endurance; frequently the "side effect" of workiing on stability of hold will be to see improvement in magnitude in hold. And proper weightlifting/conditioning etc.

So

"Dot drills" (or any holding against a distraction object) have real negative side effects, and the benefits can be achieved through other means.

Now maybe I can't relate to the problems of the new shooter as well as I used to . . . but one of my first major epiphanies I had when I was learning to shoot well was that "size of hold" is a "nice to have" but

"An Eight Ring Hold Won't Prevent You From Shooting 580s"

while

"Improper Focus/Shot Process Will Doom You To 550s"

I wouldnt disagree with you on any point there i dont think. I am shooting 560s but my hold atm is probably 7 ring. It use to be nearly 10 ring but i had a lot more shake so i spent a long time dry fireing on a blank wall, now it is brilliant but the whole target wavers in the back ground so much making it hard to havee confedance in letting the shot realease