Inevitably, I always seem to have a few fairly high 12 o'clock shots (7's) on pretty much every target - while the rest of the shots are clustered randomly around the bullseye (pic below). Other than concentrating or paying closer attention to my shooting to avoid throwing a few shots each round - are there any shooting drills recommended specifically to cure this type of problem?
My other bad habit that I just can't seem to break is that I shoot way too fast. I'm at least now past the 'see black' and it's time to pull the trigger phase - but I know I should slow down. Again, any specific drills beyond the 'pay closer attention to my shooting' that would help slow down my pace?
Generally, you are probably breaking the wrist up or squeezing the whole hand while pulling the trigger. The rest of your shots look reasonable.
If you watch carefully you can see the front sight get wider as you look from the target to the sight. I then tell myself "follow through" as I SQUEEZE the trigger.
I have recently overcome the same problem - after eliminating errors of high shots caused by poor follow through (looking up at the target as soon as the shot was fired) I was left with several poor shots that were simply caused by shooting too early, before I had settled into a minimum arc of movement in the aiming zone.
To solve the problem I stopped taking up the first stage of the trigger until I was in the zone and settled, rather than taking it up after fixing the sights above the target and coming down into the zone. This was a temporary measure to isolate the problem - after that I started taking up the first stage earlier, but still kept the control over when the shot was allowed to begin.
The source of the problem is "allowing the shot to take place" too early - there must be a time when you decide that the shot can take place, then the shot happens by itself after that. Before that time either your finger is not taking up the first stage, or you have trained your mind to wait for the "all clear to shoot" signal before it begins execution - it cannot be allowed to simply "shoot whenever it wants"
I liken it to having a safety set up in your shooting process, the safety must be taken off before the shot can be fired, and the safety is taken off only when you are prepared to shoot a 10 (or whatever your hold allows for)
this is advice from newbie to newbie - experts please chime in :)
I have also found it helpful to think of every shot as dry fire - the Matrix told us there is no spoon, I say "there is no pellet" :)
After shooting and thinking of it as dry fire I found it easy to have good follow through - no need to look at the target since it was "dry fire", just keep watching the sights - they will tell everything you need to know about where the shot went. (of course, after a few seconds I check to target to confirm :)
You may also find it helps your shooting early problem. I never shot early when I did dry fire, only with live fire.
This is also a temporary measure, once the follow through and the fundamentals are correct keeping the mental image of dry fire is no longer needed and may be gently shed.
Finish the shot!.... Follow through! (words to shot by). Now that Im shooting on a scatt I shoot WAY to fast (matches in under 30 minutes) So my shot plan has to be written down and in front of me. OR IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. A shot plan that ends with (for me) FINISH THE SHOT!. Recently Zurek was having the same problem (how long has he been shooting) and He wrote about it. Finish the shot was all I remember from that note, it helped me immediately. How to shot slower (wish I knew) wait for the ten or an indicator to PUT THE GUN DOWN ! You should be shooting 560, 570 in no time, You already know how to shot a ten so dont pull the trigger on those 7s anymore and your a AA shooter. ......................In using my scatt the past 3 days I found out my hold is great (on a scale of 1 to 10 a 10) I am amazed at my trigger pull. I always consdered hold the most important, not anymore. If I can just FINISH THE SHOT AND SLOW DOWN ! I will shot to my full potental. We have alot in common......back to the scatt before lunch is over............David
Yep, those 7's really ruin your day. Thanks Rover :)
To answer the first question above, I'm doing a center hold. I've found that I shoot better with a center rather than a 6 o'clock. But possibly that's a self taught mistake which is contributing to my poor shooting.
Thanks for all of the other suggestions. I suspect that I need to think though again all of what was suggested and just pick one of the ideas at first and then add it to my 'routine'.
joe1347 wrote:Yep, those 7's really ruin your day. Thanks Rover :)
To answer the first question above, I'm doing a center hold. I've found that I shoot better with a center rather than a 6 o'clock. But possibly that's a self taught mistake which is contributing to my poor shooting.
Thanks for all of the other suggestions. I suspect that I need to think though again all of what was suggested and just pick one of the ideas at first and then add it to my 'routine'.
You might be tending looking at the shots already on the target instead of the front sight...
Let me ask if you see the high shot go. That is do you call them accurately? If you are missing the call the problem is most likely technique . Some of us has beens call this quiting on the shot or a concentration break. Some refer to it as failing to follow through. I don't know if this will be helpful but IMHO you cannot have follow through without a suprise shot as I define follow through as the reaction time lapse between the shot being fired and recognition of the firing by the shooter. This is at least something you might consider for future training. Good Shooting Bill Horton
2650 Plus wrote:Let me ask if you see the high shot go. That is do you call them accurately? If you are missing the call the problem is most likely technique . Some of us has beens call this quiting on the shot or a concentration break. Some refer to it as failing to follow through. I don't know if this will be helpful but IMHO you cannot have follow through without a suprise shot as I define follow through as the reaction time lapse between the shot being fired and recognition of the firing by the shooter. This is at least something you might consider for future training. Good Shooting Bill Horton
If it helps, I believe that I'm able to call most of the high shots.
gandalfpc wrote:I have recently overcome the same problem - after eliminating errors of high shots caused by poor follow through (looking up at the target as soon as the shot was fired) I was left with several poor shots that were simply caused by shooting too early, before I had settled into a minimum arc of movement in the aiming zone.
To solve the problem I stopped taking up the first stage of the trigger until I was in the zone and settled, rather than taking it up after fixing the sights above the target and coming down into the zone. This was a temporary measure to isolate the problem - after that I started taking up the first stage earlier, but still kept the control over when the shot was allowed to begin.
The source of the problem is "allowing the shot to take place" too early - there must be a time when you decide that the shot can take place, then the shot happens by itself after that. Before that time either your finger is not taking up the first stage, or you have trained your mind to wait for the "all clear to shoot" signal before it begins execution - it cannot be allowed to simply "shoot whenever it wants"
I liken it to having a safety set up in your shooting process, the safety must be taken off before the shot can be fired, and the safety is taken off only when you are prepared to shoot a 10 (or whatever your hold allows for)
this is advice from newbie to newbie - experts please chime in :)
You advice regarding taking up the first stage later seems to be helping combined with a trigger adjustment to reduce the first stage travel.
not sure, but needing to shorten the first stage (I am guessing because pulling through it was throwing off your sights) seems to point to a less than perfect "straight back" trigger pull
If taking up the first stage throws the sights I give it a second try, straight back - I abort if I fail to get it.
joe1347 wrote:
If it helps, I believe that I'm able to call most of the high shots.
If you are calling them correctly then you must be recognising something different about them. What?
I think that they fall into two categories (at least as of one hour ago - I'm sure I'll find yet more ways to throw shots). Either I'm taking my focus off of the sights and looking at the target when pulling the trigger or I'm simply rushing the shot and pulling the trigger even though I know that I should put the gun down and try again.
Looking at my last two targets, I believe that the 7 on the upper left target was caused by my taking my eyes off the sights and looking at the target. The 5 in the lower right target was I think a lapse in concentration and pulling the trigger when I shouldn't have.
Also, I intentionally tried to slow down my pace on the upper left target - as compared to the lower right target - and it seem to help tighten my grouping.
Do you see where this thread is going? You are concentrating, and you have now gotten several other people to help you concentrate, on exactly what you do NOT want to do, and all the ways that you might be able to do it. Score a big one for the wild shots!
Meanwhile you are totally neglecting the tight group in the center of some of your targets. Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to concentrate on those shots, and how you do them? After all, they are what you want...aren't they?
Giving conscious attention (positive or negative) to a behavior tells your subconscious that you value and cherish that behavior. I'm not promising that if you forget about the wild shots they will just go away. However, I can promise that if you keep concentrating on them, they will NOT go away.
Problem with center-aim and with 6 oclock aim with too little white, is, that its very easy to 'push' the frontsight into the black ball instead of just underneath it, hence, high shots (with centerhold, black on black is always hard to see).
Vertical straying might also be caused by breathing technique.
Do you use belly breathing?
FredB wrote:However, I can promise that if you keep concentrating on them, they will NOT go away.
Once you have identified what is causing your bad shots you can forget about them. During training you can then concentrate on the perfect execution of that element of the shot process.
Merely hoping to eliminate errors by trying to repeat the complete shot process of good shots is, IMNSHO, bound to fail.
Anonymous wrote:Problem with center-aim and with 6 oclock aim with too little white, is, that its very easy to 'push' the frontsight into the black ball instead of just underneath it, hence, high shots (with centerhold, black on black is always hard to see).
Vertical straying might also be caused by breathing technique.
Do you use belly breathing?
From shooting centerfire pistol - I've just gotten used to a center hold - which possibly may be a mistake. I've run across recommendations to put orange paint on your front sight for center hold shooters. Not sure if that's ISSF legal - or whether it actually does help (or hurt).
However, possibly I should give a 6 o'clock hold a try for a few sessions and see if I'm throwing fewer shots - and more importantly - getting tighter groups as suggested previously.
As for breathing. I don't think that I even know what belly breathing is. I usually take a breath and then let out a little right before a shot.
Please read Fred B. post again.David is IMHO just wrong. The shortest path to championship level shooting is to learn from your best shots. Locking in the procesds that gives you the best results is a no brainer. I see two problems when studing your target. One is trigger control [ low left] and the other is semi related [anticipation of the firing of the shot] To fix it perfect your steadily increasing pressure on the trigger and think only about perfecting sight allignment until after the pistol fires. Last every concept in your shot sequence should be totally positive. NO NEGATIVE influence any where in how you plan and execute the shot. Good Shooting Bill Horton
If you're going to test a change, I'd suggest a Nygord sub-6 or 'standard' sub-6. It didn't take me very long to adapt from my 6 to a Nygord sub-6.
I think it might help you concentrate more on the sights. "Seeing" the bull and keeping your sights inside makes it far more distracting. Same with the standard 6 hold. With the standard 6, it's easy to get distracted by white coming and going as your top sights does it's natural wobble.
Far less distracting to deal with increasing and decreasing amounts of white.
