Tighten Target Grouping

mc5 · Post by **mc5** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 5:24 am

Hi,
I wonder if anyone out there can give any tips or a training excercise to tighten my grouping. I shoot 10m AP twice per week and dry fire for ten minutes three times per week. I would appreciate your thoughts on this as I seem to have reached a plateu and cant move forward.

Thanks

MC.

jackh · Post by **jackh** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 11:48 am

From 10cm to 5cm? Or 5cm to 1.5cm?

Rover · Post by **Rover** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 1:11 pm

As the New Yorker replied when asked by a tourist how to get to Carnegie Hall:

"Pratice, man, practice!"

It doesn't sound to me that you are doing nearly enough. You could also be doing training exercises. You can find these by doing a search here.

Isabel1130 · Post by **Isabel1130** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 1:24 pm

If your shots are within your area of hold, and you are not making triggering errors, the only way you can improve your scores and tighten your groups is either to make your hold better OR learn how to time your shot so it usually occurs at the point your hold is the best. If you are getting fliers, then you are making triggering errors and you need to train to eliminate them through lots of dry firing and ball and dummy drills. Ultimately there is no easy way to do it and sometimes people get discouraged because the harder they try and train, the worse their shooting gets. I think the number one error in all pistol shooting is holding the gun up to long. Study after study with monitors on shooters shows that their best hold is between three and about 8 seconds after raising the gun, and if you are not getting the shot off during that time period, the best skill you can teach yourself is to NOT take the shot. Put the gun down and start again.

RobStubbs · Post by **RobStubbs** » Sun Oct 17, 2010 1:16 pm

First is that you need to train and not practice. Dry firing is a great tool, but only if done correctly. Like live firing training you need to work on specific elements. I generally get people to identify their weaknesses and train to improve them, but you really need a coach to help identify them and work out some appropriate drills. Simple things like follow through and over holding are relatively easy to self diagnose - just need to count whilst shooting. Once identified you can then train the correct technique and improve. As I said above though, it's much easier if you can find and work with a coach.

Rob.

paulo · Post by **paulo** » Sun Oct 17, 2010 8:57 pm

I was given advice as to shoot a white page, and see if my shots grouped, until they do you need to try and correct all the faults to the best of your ability, since I don't have access to a trainer I used this charts and information, read the instructions on the charts as they can only be of use if you understand their application.

go to
www.targetshooting.ca/

pick - Documents Library

under Analysis read the three options

1. Pistol Shot Error Analysis Document
2. Pistol Group Analysis
3. Shooter Fault Terms and Definitions

Good luck.

mc5 · Post by **mc5** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 1:33 am

Thanks for the replies.
I think a coach would be a great help, that's something I will look into. At the moment I should probably increase my training with some specific exercises. With a bit of hard work hopefully thing will improve.

MC.

Spencer · Post by **Spencer** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 3:27 am

mc5 wrote:Thanks for the replies.
I think a coach would be a great help, that's something I will look into. At the moment I should probably increase my training with some specific exercises. With a bit of hard work hopefully thing will improve.

MC.

got the parts right - just in thw wrong order:
- get the coach first
- then follow the specific exercises (given by the coach)

DIY coaching is feasible and many do so (books, internet, whatever), but there is an easier way called 'get a coach'. DIY coaching is like DIY brain surgery, feasible, but...

Hemmers · Post by **Hemmers** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 6:51 am

Yeah, coaching over the interwebz generally sucks. From your initial post we have no idea how good you are (as jackh says, are you trying to improve from a 10cm group or a 5cm group?). We don't know whether your position is any good, whether you're making any consistent errors, whether your basic hold is even any good.

A coach stood next to you can see all these things and more, and make training suggestions suitable to your standard and situation.

I think Rob over-simplifies when he says you need to train rather than practice. He's right, in that it's no good practicing yourself into bad habits. You need to understand the difference between training and practice here!

Get a coach and train yourself into only good habits, then practice, practice, practice until the good habits become second-nature, and of course intersperse practice sessions with training sessions because there's always room for improvement.