Air Pistol Trigger Timing vs Area of Aim

[brent375hh]

When I tell a new shooter to hold in an area of aim and squeeze the trigger, I am just trying to get most of their shot in the black, and not tell themselves " Now"!
I can't do this myself with any success. Holding The black is all the better I can do.

I come to my area of aim and "lean" on the trigger when the sights settle close to center and abort if it goes more that 9 seconds. Hopefully the shot breaks a liner 9, or better.

In watching world cup shooting, most shooters are in the area of aim or 8-11 seconds. I assume they are using judicious trigger pressure timing instead of just holding and squeezing a surprise break.

Any world class shooters on here that can weigh in?

[Gwhite]

I am not a world class shooter, but I have attended clinics taught by world class shooters & coaches, and read quite a few books written by similar experts.

I find it hard to believe the shooters in the videos are actually holding that long. I doubt you can detect their breathing, aim & trigger squeeze well enough from a video to really tell anything that useful. A lot of top level shooters will drop most of the way down, pause briefly, and then take a shallow breath before going into their final hold. That could easily LOOK like they are taking a long time to release the shot, when the final part of the process is much shorter.

Besides, it doesn't matter. I'm guessing that you are not a world class pistol shooter, who devotes many hours every day to refining their fitness & skill to shoot as well as they do. What makes you think duplicating their timing will magically work for you?

If you can work with an electronic trainer like a SCATT or Noptel system, you can see when YOU should be releasing a shot. Most people comes down into their "hold" from above, and take a second or two to "settle". There is a period of minimum wobble, which will begin to degrade as muscles fatigue, oxygen levels drop, etc. You want your shots to occur during YOUR period of minimum wobble. How long you take to settle, and how long that period lasts depends entirely on YOU, not on some Olympic level shooter.

The more you train, and the better your overall fitness, the longer your period of minimum wobble will be. Unless you are in excellent shape, it will probably be shorter after 50 shots or more. If it gets better over the course of 60 shots, you probably aren't stretching enough beforehand...

Trying to shoot at a specific time is a great way to develop trigger problems and anticipation. You need to work on the pace of your trigger squeeze so the shots naturally release during your minimum wobble period. The longer the period of minimum wobble, the more leeway you have in the timing.

Ideally, you want the shot to break as soon as you've settled fully. Shooting is a lot less tiring if you can do that, rather than wasting time holding the pistol up when your stability is already as good as it's going to get. There is also research that indicates you are slightly more stable immediately after relaxing down into your hold. That extra stable period may only be a second or two.

Brian Zins teaches that you should begin your squeeze as you come down, so the shot breaks as soon as you've full settled. For most shooters, if you wait until you've fully settled to START your squeeze, you are too late, and your wobble will have increased long before the shot breaks.

The closest I've heard of timing shots more precisely is a graduated squeeze, where you increase pressure on the trigger every time the sight picture is close to ideal. This is more common in rifle than pistol, where things are much more stable. I believe Skanaker mentions it in his book as something a very few elite shooters do, and he did NOT recommend it.

[JonPersson]

As you know…the whole point of trigger technique is to pull the trigger without the front sight moving…..how you pull the trigger doesn’t matter as long as you can achieve that. But the general opinion among all top pistol shooters I’ve heard talk about it seem to be that this is done by squeezing the trigger. But of course there is timing involved: the trigger should be squeezed when the arc of movement is at its smallest. And also, how long is a trigger squeeze? Well how long is a piece of string? It should be as long as needed to keep the sights still while doing it.

Is it hard? YES!!! And the bigger the arc of movement is the harder it is to continuously pull the trigger.
That’s how I get my 8’s: trying to chase a 10 when I should accept that my arc of movement will probably score a nine.

[dontshootcritters]

Great replies from Gwhite and Jon...thank you for the detailed reply Gwhite...sorry I didn't know what your christian name was

[seamaster]

Your hold is much better than you know. Much better than you expected. Don't hold until it is dead, immobile. Just like gwhite said, it is too late. Dead late.

Your hold is much better than you think. Let it flow, let it flow. Shoot while it flows. Trust yourself.

[Gwhite]

Great replies from Gwhite and Jon...thank you for the detailed reply Gwhite...sorry I didn't know what your christian name was

Just Gwhite is fine. It's a college nickname. Long story...

[brent375hh]

GWhite,

You are correct on many counts.
No, I am not a world class shooter. If I was I would already know what they are doing.
No, I am not in tip top shape. If I was, I think my hold would be steadier, and I could just press the trigger in one steady press.
No, I don't train for hours every day. But I am training harder now than when I shot my first match in 1977.

The fact remains for me, that because of my lack of fitness, I simply can't hold an area and trigger the shot. For me, that means shooting in the 530s. For me to shoot 560 requires a little timing element too.

I was just curious if someone knew what the elite shooters where really doing. After watching quite a few world cup videos with a stop watch, I was surprised at the length of time between watching their arm drop to a stop, and the shot taking place. I am sure that Brian Zins does start his squeeze early. Shooting a 3 1/2# trigger takes a different technique, at least for me. I have not watched any videos of Brian shooting air pistol, but I will look.

[Gwhite]

Have somebody watch your pistol movement, or better yet, make a video near a wall with a scale behind the pistol. Unless you are very wobbly, I doubt the front sight moves around by more than 1/4". IF your sights are perfectly aligned, AND you can fire the shot without disturbing that alignment, all your shots should fall on a 1/4" diameter circle on the target.

I'm guessing that isn't happening... That means you are suffering from some combination of 3 things (listed in order of importance, although 1 & 2 are very close):

1) Your sights aren't perfectly aligned. This introduces angular errors that spread out your shots. The alignment does NOT have to be perfect to still clip the 10 ring, but this is why concentrating on the front sight is so crucial.

2) You are disturbing the sight alignment with your trigger process. This will typically introduce FAR bigger errors than your natural wobble.

3) Your sight picture isn't consistent. This is not as critical as you think, which is why area aiming works.

Again, working with an electronic trainer can help a lot. It will show you how big your natural wobble is at the target, and if there are triggering/anticipation issues that are expanding your shots outside of that. You can then work on reducing those as two separate things.

[thirdwheel]

Two years ago I had the pleasure to watch a Junior shoot 580 in a match on electronic targets at a meeting, it brought home to me how most of us hold just far too long and do not drop soon enough if we do not like what we see. He lowered slowly but not that slow and had released within 3 seconds of finding the aim area. If it went longer he aborted the shot rested then reengaged. Yes I too have timed the gold cup competitors both men and women, they do hold for extended periods of time but they are mostly full time competitive athletes and are in a total different ball park than most of us. As Gwhite has said several times scatt is your friend.

[brent375hh]

Have somebody watch your pistol movement, or better yet, make a video near a wall with a scale behind the pistol. Unless you are very wobbly, I doubt the front sight moves around by more than 1/4". IF your sights are perfectly aligned, AND you can fire the shot without disturbing that alignment, all your shots should fall on a 1/4" diameter circle on the target.

I'm guessing that isn't happening... That means you are suffering from some combination of 3 things (listed in order of importance, although 1 & 2 are very close):

1) Your sights aren't perfectly aligned. This introduces angular errors that spread out your shots. The alignment does NOT have to be perfect to still clip the 10 ring, but this is why concentrating on the front sight is so crucial.

2) You are disturbing the sight alignment with your trigger process. This will typically introduce FAR bigger errors than your natural wobble.

3) Your sight picture isn't consistent. This is not as critical as you think, which is why area aiming works.

Again, working with an electronic trainer can help a lot. It will show you how big your natural wobble is at the target, and if there are triggering/anticipation issues that are expanding your shots outside of that. You can then work on reducing those as two separate things.

I think that I can hold a 1/4" circle against the wall. If my shoulder is the pivot point, wouldn't that be magnified about 10X at the target distance and be about a 2.5" circle at 10 meters? That means that I can just hope to shoot liner 7s or better at 10 meters, which is about my experience just trying to hold and press.

I guess I just need a Lot more conditioning to be able to hold a1/4" wobble at 10 meters.

[eugene]

As Gwhite mentions, double breathing accounts for much of the visible hold time in top AP competitions.

[Gwhite]

I think that I can hold a 1/4" circle against the wall. If my shoulder is the pivot point, wouldn't that be magnified about 10X at the target distance and be about a 2.5" circle at 10 meters? That means that I can just hope to shoot liner 7s or better at 10 meters, which is about my experience just trying to hold and press.

I guess I just need a Lot more conditioning to be able to hold a1/4" wobble at 10 meters.

You don't want to just hold and press.

The point of aligning the sights is to to counteract the angular error from the wobble. You don't just align the sights once, and then let the pistol flop around passively while you pull the trigger. You need to develop hand/eye coordination so that you are actively trying to maintain the sight alignment the entire time you are squeezing the trigger. That is what minimizes the angular error.

If you REALLY want to see what is going on, you have to to use an electronic trainer. Holes in the paper will only tell a small part of how they got there. A trainer will show you what your hold looks like, how big your minimum wobble is, how long it lasts, and (to some extent) if you are messing that up with poor triggering and/or anticipation.

[m1963]

I had one of the best pistol shooters I have ever met tell me two things- 1- pull the front sight through the rear sight with your eyes- imagine you are pulling it back through, to steady the sight picture. 2- a poor sight picture can often be overcome by the area of wobble, if your hold is good. However, bad triggering can never be overcome by anything. I find both points to be quite valid.

[porkchop]

If you REALLY want to see what is going on, you have to to use an electronic trainer. Holes in the paper will only tell a small part of how they got there. A trainer will show you what your hold looks like, how big your minimum wobble is, how long it lasts, and (to some extent) if you are messing that up with poor triggering and/or anticipation.

Gwhite would a Mantis be okay to use, because that is what I have access to? I'll have to figure out how to use it, but have an idea how they would work.
Stan

[Gwhite]

Thanks for the nudge. I bought a Mantis X10 recently, but I had to make a 3D printed adapter to clip it onto an air pistol cylinder. I haven't had a chance to play with it yet. My guess is that it's much better than nothing. Besides being more precise, the real value of the high end trainers is in the analysis options. Even if the basic sensing is OK, I don't know if it compares well in that regard.

I'll post a review once I have a chance to check it out. I'm learning to shoot left handed, and that will be a good time to try it. My lefty Steyr grip is stuck in Customs but should arrive shortly.

[-TT-]

The Mantis works well for tracking movement and wobble, it is particularly good at detecting triggering deviation. In "bullseye mode", it can display a trace of movement before and after the shot.

What it cannot do is accurately detect your actual point of aim. Because it has no camera, all it can do is detect your movement off an arbitrary "center" point. So, it cannot do everything the Scatt can do. It also provides much less quantitative data, such as angular deviation velocity etc. Which is fine and much less complicated! The fact that it does not require a target means you can use it any time, anywhere. For example, at your desk, in your living room chair, wherever.

All told, it's much less expensive, and is very convenient to use. I have the X2 (dryfire-only) model, and I use it often.

[porkchop]

This is an older Mantis, I'll have to find a way to attach to my Izzy, maybe with a plastic cable tie to the barrel. Any tips on what colour of lines to look for?
Stan

[CR10X]

Timing is the same for all pistol shooting.

When the wobble area is getting to it's smallest and headed towards the center.

Its not an instant in time or a single perfect sight picture. Keep the press moving as the wobble gets smaller / steadier in pattern. Your wobble area will eventually have a pretty consistent pattern, if you don't see the pattern, then start over.

Anything else is just projectile roulette.

[brent375hh]

Timing is the same for all pistol shooting.

When the wobble area is getting to it's smallest and headed towards the center.

Its not an instant in time or a single perfect sight picture. Keep the press moving as the wobble gets smaller / steadier in pattern. Your wobble area will eventually have a pretty consistent pattern, if you don't see the pattern, then start over.

Anything else is just projectile roulette.

I think we might be on the same page. I need to have some critical timing of trigger and movement to shoot well. I can't be pressing when my sights are moving in a direction away from center unless I want an 8 as the result. Not that I don't shoot 8s, I just have more if I simply hold an area of aim and start a clean press regardless of what the sights are doing.

The only time I just hold and press is shooting a .454." Projectile roulette" that lands on a paper plate is better than a clean miss in that case.

[UnGe]

All told, it's much less expensive, and is very convenient to use. I have the X2 (dryfire-only) model, and I use it often.

Does it work for AP? I bought X3 to try. On my .22 it detected ~ 8/10 dry shots, 9/10 live ones. On Izzy (attached to the pumping arm), it did not detect dry shots at all (sometimes it detected cocking), on live - ~6-7/10 shots, with 1-2/10 false positives on cocking. So I just returned it