TargetTalk

Hello all,

it is very difficult for me to maintain an even horizontal level during aiming. I know that this aiming phase should not exceed a few seconds anyway, but always again I just sink down and have to work against what seems like gravity but probably is a mental problem.

I must admit that I am not physically in best condition either, but I really do not contribute this to physics.

The counter-measures that I tried so far were not very successful, maybe you have any suggestions or ideas?


Regards,
Robert

Robert_sfl wrote:I must admit that I am not physically in best condition either, but I really do not contribute this to physics.

Out of interest, why don't you.

I am not suggesting that you need to be a superb physical specimen to be able to shoot well but the muscles (throughout the body) that are used to hold the gun steady in the right position need to be as "fit for purpose" as possible.

David,
do you do special training for your holding strenght? I could imagine that most common training methods that build up strenght in the elbow would be the wrong thing for a shooter.

Robert

Robert_sfl wrote:do you do special training for your holding strenght?

What worked for me, especially during my winter non-shooting periods, was simply to wear a 1kg strap-on ankle weight on each wrist for a few hours at a time while going about my daily life.

Robert,

Aside from issues of physical condition, which are of course important, I have found that for any particular gun and grip combination, there is a horizontal level that "feels" right and where my shoulder/arm/wrist/grip "want" to end up. This ties in very closely with NPA, and there's been a lot of discussion about that on this BB.

Anyway, I would suggest that you try holding out your gun in your natural shooting position with your eyes closed, wait until you feel you have reached a point of equilibrium, open your eyes, and see if the horizontal level sinks from that point. If it does, than you probably do need to improve your physical condition.

However if it remains steady at that point, then you may be able - depending on which gun you have - to make adjustments to the grip angle, or get a new grip, or work on your present grip, enough to allow you to stay in the aiming area while you are holding at your natural horizontal level.

HTH,
FredB

Robert,

I sometimes have the same problem and I can tell you that at least for me - it has nothing to do with strength.

Sagging sometimes occurs after holding too long and sagging therefore is one reliable indicator that you should abort the shot. DO NOT try to ease the gun back up over the target and then lower it again since doing so would be major deviation from your original shot plan. Doing this also takes time which means you may end up holding too long - again.

I am a firm beleiver that after we first settle onto the target, we all have a narrow window when our hold is the steadiest. Finding your optimal window of opportunity is a very rewarding challenge. Above all STICK to your shot plan. If you start sinking - stop shooting. Learning when to abort is one of the toughest lessons of all.


However, when my gun settles too low almost immediately, I use a breathing technique.

When I notice that the gun seems to want to settle either too low or even too high on the target, I try to adjust my breathing by taking in and holding just a little more or less air into my lungs in preparation for the shot. When I adjust how much air I hold in, I notice that the gun tends to settle in at a different point as I ease down on the target. The more air I hold, the higher the aiming point at which the gun tends to settles. Think of it as resting your shooting arm on a couple of big soft balloon - your lungs.

If you think about human anatomy for a moment it makes perfect sense. The amount of air in your lungs has a tremendous impact on the musculature of the upper body including shoulders/arms etc. I think it is entirely possible to regulate where the gun will settle down by how much air you keep in your lungs. It works for me anyway.

I credit this advice to Brad Lightner who is one of the most proficient pistol shooters I know.

F. Paul in Denver

Thank you for the valuable advices, I will pay thorough attention to all of them.

In response to Fred, I actually did have the impression that when holding into the white above the black center portion, then no sinking occures (at least not within the normal aiming time). I thought it was only my mind letting loose when there is no sight picture. I will do testing about that, at first glance this theory would imply a steeper grip angle (my grip is pretty well customized and feels comfortable, but is adjusted to a rather shallow angle).

Paul, the point with the air volumina in the lungs sounds convincing; normally I do not have a problem with holding too long and sinking then, but the gun just will not settle and then sags right through my holding area.


Robert

Robert,

Thought of a couple more points to consider, one related to Paul's message.

1. Sometimes there's a tendency to slowly "leak" air (breath), which can cause a sagging effect. It's definitely possible to do this without being consciously aware of it - trust me, I know!

2. Another unconscious action can be to let the head sag, which causes the front sight to appear to sag, as it changes the alignment between eye, rear sight and front sight. Again, been there, done that.

HTH,
FredB

Robert
I too believe that breathing is more likely to be your problem rather than physical arm strength. Many shooters often take small in-breaths while holding without noticing. This forces the sights to raise slightly which is not really noticeable because your mind recalculates and allows gravity to lower the arm slightly. As you "leak" an out-breathe your arm slowly lowers and it then becomes noticeable because you actually your body has to use muscle action to lift the arm again aginst the pull of gravity.
I has a similar problem and solved it by really listening to my breathing and detecting small breaths which should not be there. It's best done wearing ear muffs. To combat this, you need to increase lung capacity so those small top-up breathe don't need to occur. Now that's where some exercise comes in handy. ;)
Good luck

Normally I take about 1/3 breath on the target, but I never focused on this too strongly. I´ll go into that.

Robert

Robert,

I suffered from the same problem. When aiming in the white wall during the dry fire exercises I could hold the sights for the whole minute, but when in the front of the target, the front sight willl start to sink.

I found two causes, the first one was the lack of focus on the pistol hold when I starting the trigger phase.

The second one was watching the target. My focus was on my sights (or at least I was thinking that it was), but my eye was making the fast movements to the target to make the adjustments to align sights and the target.

To resolve the first problem, I payed lot of atention to maintain the proper wrist locking without applying extra pressure with my fingers and feel the the muscular tension steady in my wrist when applying the pressure on my trigger finger.

There is also an issue of aiming focus. You should aim to an area instead of focus on particular point. Your pistol will move. Try to feel the movement in your shoulder and keep your wrist locked.

The target watching problem is the tricky one. Couple of things I tried. The easiest is to try the following shooting technique, which has already been described in detail in different threads on this forum.

Settle your arm and align your sights above the bullseye. (5 seconds)Move your arm slowly down in steady movement towards the aim area. Start the trigger action in the same time. When reaching the down point, settle for a fraction of the second and release the shot. It should not take more then 3 seconds to move your arm and release the shot.

The other ways consists of closing your eyes breifly when you sense that front sight start to sink and open then open the eyes wide open. By magic, the sights are aligned again.

- Ned