What is follow through?

[Oldbear]

What constitutes good follow-through after a shot?
Is the ability to "call a shot" an adequate measure of good follow-through?
If you can see your pellet moving and the perforation is that adequate or is there some other magical measure of follow through?
Or do you have to hold on for 6 seconds after the shot?

[David M]

Follow-through is a term that dates back to the day of muzzleloaders ... flintlock, matchlock etc. they had slow ignitions with slow powder burns, slow build up pressure and sends a big ball down the barrel.
You could literally change your point of aim before the ball left the barrel. That's follow-through. You had to maintain perfect sight alignment and hold the firearm steady until the bullet got out of the barrel.
With modern-day firearms, the lock time is a lot shorter, but you can still pull a shot off target if you fail to follow-through.
Modern follow-through you should still hold the trigger in the pressed rear position and sight alignment maintained until the recoil is recovered. It is in this time that after watching the sight during the shot you should call your shot position. Then relax and confirm the shot position.
Time….maybe 0.8 to 1.2 sec?
I still have a Le Page flintlock pistol...........follow-through training gun.

[Gwhite]

The standard approach I was taught, coach & (try to) follow is to maintain your grip, muscle tension, etc. and recover from the shot by re-aligning the sights as if you are going to shoot a second shot. This not only provides good consistent follow-through, but is fully compatible with shooting timed or rapid in Standard Pistol & NRA Bullseye with a .22. If you get in the habit of relaxing immediately after your shots in air pistol or precision .22 stages, if will mess up your sustained fire with the .22.

[SteveT]

Many will advocate recovering back to the target before putting the gun down. I don't like training myself to align the sights on target and NOT pull the trigger.

If I recover back to the target, I plan to take another shot. Sometimes the sights don't align and I abort the second shot. If I am not planning to take another shot, the gun drops back down to the bench from recoil.

It is absolutely critical that you continue to hold on the target with aligned sights all the way through the trigger pull and bullet exit. It is quite possible to mentally relax a bit as the trigger trips, throwing shots off center. Once the sights go all haywire from recoil, the bullet is gone.

[PirateJohn]

The way I have practiced my follow-through is to syay focused on the front sight and verify that it has not moved throughout the shot process. I only need about a half second for that. Then I take a brief moment to see how I feel about the shot before looking at the score.

[marky-d]

I'm not sure if this completely holds water, but when I'm teaching a new shooter why follow-through is important, I try to explain that your brain works much faster than your muscles, so you have to force yourself to mentally keep focus even after your brain considers the action (firing the shot) complete. As an example, I guide them through the sequence of events:
1. Your brain decides it's time to pull the trigger.
2. Your muscles act to pull the trigger.
3. Your brain registers that the shot has been fired.
4. Your muscles relax and you move on to reload.

If one gets in a hurry and loses focus, failing to 'follow through', step #3 can occur as soon as the brain 'tells' the body to fire, so the command to relax and move on can occur while the shot is still in process. Steps #2 and 4 then get crammed together because your body hasn't finished reacting and the shot goes down the toilet.

I'm not sure if that makes sense to anyone else, and I'm not sure it comes through well in black and white, but the kids seem to identify with it enough to stick with it.

marky-d

[SteveT]

Thanks marky-d, that's a great way of explaining what it means to follow through until the shot is gone.

[JamesH]

Shooting is the process of doing as little as possible
Follow through is the process of doing nothing at all afterwards.

[Gwhite]

Brilliant!

[Gort]

Follow thru and trigger control are two sides of the same coin, you can't have one without the other. Example, when dry firing, when trigger control and follow thru are perfect their is no movement of the front sight.
Gort