Aiming too long

[Cvb]

Any tips to shorten aiming time? Any practice for this?
For air pistol I moved front sight back. Maybe this helped little.

[GaryN]

Like a house, start from the ground and work up.
- Is the the floor/ground HARD and FLAT? It is hard to shoot when you are on unsteady ground.
- If you are not able to stand steady, maybe your shoes are not FLAT, and you are rocking in them. My normal street shoes get worn in the corner of the heel, and I tend to rock into that worn corner. Get separate shoes for shooting, and ONLY for shooting, so it does not get a worn heel.
- If you are having trouble holding the pistol steady, maybe you need to do strengthening exercises for your arm and back.
- Practice raising, settle on target and shoot. If you are taking a LONG time to settle and shoot, then you need to speed that process up.

Dry fire on a BLANK paper, with someone timing you.
You timer will call you, at say 6 seconds, and you have to lower your pistol and start over.
The idea is for you to develop an internal clock that will "call you" when you hit YOUR time limit.
This time limit is individual, some are shorter some are longer.

For ME, after about 6 seconds, the LONGER I hold on target, the worse the shot will be.
So holding, and holding, and holding; hoping for a perfect sight picture usually fails. My wobble gets bigger and bigger, and my score will be worse and worse.

You will ALWAYS be wobbling. So do not expect to get and hold the "perfect" sight picture.
I learned to NOT shoot by sight picture. When I see the perfect sight picture, I tend to jerk the trigger, and move the pistol.

Instead, I settle on target, start the trigger pull, and HOLD the pistol on target, till the gun fires. That works much better, for ME.
For me, this was easier said than done. It took a LOT of practice to make this work.

If you do not have a pistol coach, there is a book by MEC that you might consider reading.
https://www.mec-shot.de/en/products/lit ... -shooting/

[Gwhite]

Try dry firing a LOT. See how fast you can squeeze the trigger without disturbing the sight alignment. Think about constantly increasing pressure on the trigger and LET the shot go off, don't force it by yoinking on the trigger. If it never goes off before you expect it to, you aren't trying hard enough.

[Cvb]

Thanks a lot!

I think that my basic process is quite ok. I'm just waiting too long too good sight picture. Because triggering working "automatic" it feels hard to short aiming time.

I will make more dry fire. I believe it could help.

[JamesH]

Try timing your shot with the trigger

Everyone is taught to line up the sights then start squeezing the trigger, this means the trigger is released well after the point of optimum stability, then they snatch the shot as stability gets worse and worse.

Set yourself a process which delivers shot release 1-2 seconds after you've settled into the aim, and work towards getting your sights aligned by that time.

And don't worry if you're still settling when it goes off, at worst it should be a high 9 - which is better than a snatched 7
Apparently some of the best FP shooters never fully settled, just released the shot as the sights were slowly falling through the aiming area.

Its a whole lot easier to lower imperceptibly slowly than it is to maintain a specific spot - then you're going up and down and left and right.

[thirdwheel]

The problem can be the two stage trigger as you start to pull the trigger and hit the second stage pause and start to refine your aim and then start the pull and it becomes a jerk as you start the motors running to pull, and pow the shot can go any where. Once you start squeezing the trigger do not stop - it's hard to do at first especially if you have been a second stage refiner for years. Above has been mentioned firing on a blank card and LOTS of dri fire to ingrain it, also has been said how fast you can do it without sending the sights everywhere. You may help to think the shot is inconsequential and does not matter (blank card) although it is not and get the score expectation out of your head for a while. You cannot do everything at once hold stance, aim and pull trigger so for now just concentrate on the pull the most while holding the stance still but staring at the front sight. You will be surprised how group closes up (I hope), follow through, follow through, follow through.

[BobGee]

This link is the best explanation of why you must concentrate on your trigger. It is based on practical pistol but is relevant to all pistol disciplines. It’s only 5 and a bit minutes so bear with it.

https://youtu.be/li0rGtXh23I

Bob

[BDVK]

I'm sure you do appreciate all the "info"

[kqrxbn]

Since I also tend to have this problem on and off, may I ask how long your process takes from (a) when you start lifting the gun and (b) once you've arrived at the aiming area? For me, it seems like it is best to take it quite easy (lift slowly, exhale slowly, lower slowly) but once I'm in the right area it's time to take the shot quite quickly (I'd say my minimum arc of movement is between seconds 2–4 once I've stopped). All in all, I tend to spend 12–18 seconds on the whole process from the time I begin inhaling just before lifting, but a majority of it is spent on travelling up and then down.