Shooting a Blank Target for Practice
Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 4:08 pm
I had read that several of the military teams advocated practice on a blank or turned over target so that their shooters could learn to focus on the sight alignment instead of worrying about sight picture as well. I had had that in the back of my mind and wanted to give it a try in practice but never had the opportunity (mostly because I never get to practice at all).
Yesterday at the indoor bullseye match in Oak Ridge, on the .22 portion , I shot my marvel kit with an ultradot on it for an about average score (for me) of 815. For Centerfire, I shot my Sams Beretta to practice ball gun/iron sight shooting, but when I put my outdoor glasses on with the reduced prescription for iron sights, I could not see the front sight at all. I don't know whether the problem was the lighting not working with the tint of the glasses or if I was just having a "bad eye day", but after my first shot at slow fire was a miss just out of the scoring ring, I knew I had to try something else.
So I just took off my glasses (I'm 20/40 in my aiming eye) after the first shot and shot the rest of the match without being able to see the bull at all. I ended up with a final score of only 753, but as I learned to focus on the sight and got a reference point somewhere in the center of the paper, my last 6 strings of fire averaged just under 89%, which on a good day, should get leg points with a ball gun, so I was pleased with the outcome.
My load was Remington-UMC green box 115FMJ, and my Sams gun will shoot this pretty darn well. With handloads it is unbelievable.
Anyway, I just thought I would put this out there for new shooters, who want to work on shooting iron sights and wanted a good practice tool. It sure makes it easy to concentrate on the iron sights when the bull is taken completely out of the occasion.
If this sounds like a silly recommendation, keep in mind this is from the perspective of someone who has been shooting less than 2 years and this might only help newer shooters.
Thanks
Mark
Yesterday at the indoor bullseye match in Oak Ridge, on the .22 portion , I shot my marvel kit with an ultradot on it for an about average score (for me) of 815. For Centerfire, I shot my Sams Beretta to practice ball gun/iron sight shooting, but when I put my outdoor glasses on with the reduced prescription for iron sights, I could not see the front sight at all. I don't know whether the problem was the lighting not working with the tint of the glasses or if I was just having a "bad eye day", but after my first shot at slow fire was a miss just out of the scoring ring, I knew I had to try something else.
So I just took off my glasses (I'm 20/40 in my aiming eye) after the first shot and shot the rest of the match without being able to see the bull at all. I ended up with a final score of only 753, but as I learned to focus on the sight and got a reference point somewhere in the center of the paper, my last 6 strings of fire averaged just under 89%, which on a good day, should get leg points with a ball gun, so I was pleased with the outcome.
My load was Remington-UMC green box 115FMJ, and my Sams gun will shoot this pretty darn well. With handloads it is unbelievable.
Anyway, I just thought I would put this out there for new shooters, who want to work on shooting iron sights and wanted a good practice tool. It sure makes it easy to concentrate on the iron sights when the bull is taken completely out of the occasion.
If this sounds like a silly recommendation, keep in mind this is from the perspective of someone who has been shooting less than 2 years and this might only help newer shooters.
Thanks
Mark