TargetTalk

I have been shooting an IZH 46M for 2 weeks now and am holding 95% of my shots in the black on a 10 m air pistol target at 10 m. Average score is 77-83 with an occasional "oh crap" shot in the 3-6 ring!

In general terms, what do I do now to get my groups consistently in the 8 ring or better?

Thanks in advance for your ideas.

John

Welcome to the sport and the TT forum.

The short answer to your question: Practice.

The long answer: Without knowing what you are doing wrong, it is hard to say what you need to change to get it right.

As a relative noob myself, I would ask if are you keeping a sharp focus on the front sight. It is possible that the shots that are inside the 8 ring deviate from the center largely because of your hold which is still developing, and the flyers happen when you let yourself sneak a peek at the target; it's a basic beginner mistake. Sight alignment is at the heart of good shooting, and if you are letting yourself get distracted from the sight picture even momentarily, where the pellet will hit is a crap shoot (and often a crappy shot). And make sure you follow thru - keep your focus on the sight after the pellet is gone and try to call the shot.

Beyond that, probably the best thing you can do is read some of the stuff you can find here, posted courtesy of our host: http://www.pilkguns.com/pistolcoaching.shtml

Then go back and read it again after you have shot for a while. There is a lot of information presented and some of it won't make much sense until you have logged some time in front of a target.

And have fun.

Roger

Once you've got a stable and repeatable stance & grip, the two most important things are:

1) Sight alignment: You have to focus on the front sight, and keep it lined up with the rear sight. A small angular misalignment will throw your shots out a lot farther than small errors in where the combination is lined up with the target. If you start looking at the target, you can't keep the sights lined up and you will get fliers.

2) Trigger control: once you got your sights lined up, you have to fire the pistol without disturbing that alignment. Dry fire A LOT until you can reliably fire a shot without perceptible movement of the sights.

Putting those two processes together simultaneously will do wonders for your scores.

I'm sure others will chime in. There's tons of good info in the archives, on the Pilkguns web site, and elsewhere on the 'net.

As mentioned getting a good, stable and repeatable position will go a long way. Developing a consistent shot routine, getting the shot off promptly and aborting when it goes off track are all key elements to learn. Developing a good follow through will help you identify good bits and equally be able to spot the poor. You should be able to tell where every shot went before you look at the target up close.

In training, especially with new shooters, I get them to follow through for a couple of seconds. Marking on a spare target where each shot went is also good for improving their concentration on the sights. None of the above will happen overnight though. Keep training and you'll soon start to see improvements.

Rob.

Thank you for your responses. I did have one other question I neglected to post:

Does dry fire practise using a blank wall without an aiming spot help develope the "sight picture form" of aligning the F & R sights and a proper trigger squeeze that doesn't disturb this?

I seem to concentrate on aligning the sights without an aiming spot. Thanks again for your comments.

John

jprater wrote:Thank you for your responses. I did have one other question I neglected to post:

Does dry fire practise using a blank wall without an aiming spot help develope the "sight picture form" of aligning the F & R sights and a proper trigger squeeze that doesn't disturb this?

I seem to concentrate on aligning the sights without an aiming spot. Thanks again for your comments.

John

Good question.

Dry firing will help you establish or learn the sight picture in a more pure form. So add in the target and you add in another element that in many cases you are not trying to learn. It's much easier to keep 2 things aligned than 3 and hence teach your brain what a good sight picture looks like. You of course need to train it to learn what the whole thing looks like but you can move on to that in subsequent training drills (which can still be done in the same training session).

The other thing dry firing can help train is the shot release. You should of course be doing exactly what you do when live firing, but because there's no bull, there shoud be no temptation to over hold to get the sight picture perfect. So shot release should be much more consistent and all shots released in the optimum time window.

Rob.

All the advice you received above is correct and excellent.

One small score-killing point I can make is: Don't try to snatch a shot at the bull as it wanders by. By the time you have processed the scene and reacted to it, it has been all over for a significant period of time.

The point is; trust your hold and go with perfect alignment and release.

Pistol Shooting is a mental game.
When you first start it is 90% physical and 10% mental, as you progress to the top end it changes to 10% physical and 90% mental.
At you stage you are in the physical stage, learn and train the basics until they become automatic.
Gradually the mental will take over, you will either master it or go nuts trying.

David M wrote:...you will either master it or go nuts trying.

Nobody ever told me that part. That explains a lot, really, since I am in no way mastering this @%&*# sport.

Roger

Again, thanks for the responses and the help. And as Roger hit on:

I must be meant for this sport if being mental is required!

1 more question: are there any matches for beginners (or that will tolerate beginners!) in the Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky area?

Off to the basement 10 m range after some blank wall dry firing. Thanks

Any match in that area will accomodate you.

Please try not to humiliate them.

Try to attend as many matches as you can. You'll find it quite different from your training sessions. Lot's more stressful!!! But in a good way...

It's also a great opportunity to talk to other shooters (before or after the match, not during...) and get to learn more about this sport.

You will also pick you quite a list of excuses to why they're scores were "abnormally" low that time ;)

Enjoy yourself, or go nuts trying...

jprater wrote: In general terms, what do I do now to get my groups consistently in the 8 ring or better?

Read this (multiple times):
http://www.pilkguns.com/anatoli.shtml
http://www.pilkguns.com/anatoli2.shtml

This is from the coach of the Russian team that still holds the records in free (Melentiev) and air (Pyzhianov) pistols. You will see that the sight alignment is of secondary importance. I suspect that preaching the sight alignment (and the ensuing concentration on the front sight) is what has been holding generations of US pistol shooters from Olympic glory. The Russians have so much more to show for their technique.
If you still are not convinced, but are savvy in elementary geometry, do this simple calculation. Measure the widths of the front sight post and rear sight notch of your IZH, the sight length (distance between sights), and the distance from your eye to the rear sight. Assume that you misaligned your sights so badly that the left of the front sight is pushed all the way against the left edge of the rear sight notch. Find the angular error and the corresponding horizontal deviation over 10 meters. You will be surprised at the result: 3.8 mm, give or take a few tenths. Compare this to the diameter of the 10-ring (11.5 mm) to say nothing of the 9-ring (27.5 mm) and you will be convinced that the most important things in shooting technique are elsewhere.

for 10M AP, with a relatively large target and short distance, I affirmatively agree "IT" is not the alignment. IT is the smooth trigger/ smooth follow through.

for free pistol, with relatively small target and very light trigger, IT is the front sight, AND the trigger.

Seamaster and Shaky Hands,

Thanks for the input. I'll read (and re-read and re-re-read) the 2 attachments over the next weekend to see what I can absorb!

Thanks for your help.

jprater, check your private messages. I'm in the same situation as you and I live near you.

I would advise you to consider getting the Rink grips for your IZH 46M. I just got one for my own and it seems to be a much better fit with a much more 'correct' angle. Given that the grip constitutes the entire physical interface between you and the pistol (except the trigger), it makes sense to have that part be right.

I'd been sanding, carving, and filing away on the factory grip and had gotten it to what I thought was pretty good for my hand, but right out of the box the Rink is better.

With the original (factory) grips I found that I had to do more "work" to keep the pistol on target: (1) I had to exert upward force through my wrist because the 46M is front-heavy and also because the grip angle was such that for me it 'naturally' wanted to point about 50cm below the target at 10m, and (2) my grips were probably still too thick up top, so I had a tendency to want to squeeze too tightly and overreach for the trigger, which always seemed too far away. The Rinks seem to require much less 'intervention' (muscular action), they make the pistol point at the right height, and they even seem to make it feel lighter somehow. I've only fired 30 shots with them so far (just got them yesterday!), but I wish I would have gotten them sooner.

There's more discussion of the Rink grips on the IZH 46 over at this thread:
http://www.targettalk.org/viewtopic.php?t=38064

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that the Rink grips look great on the IZH 46m. That won't help your score, but it will make you smile more.

I find it extremely funny that Rink grips get recommended just like that all over the place. Fitting isn't everything, grips have to make that pistol point in the right direction, and I know plenty of people where that is not the case, as the Rinks tend to let the wrist drop to the inside and are for many people too raked (Rink's history as free pistol shooter shows there). E.g. for me, the Rink would have to be a minus 10 degree (instead of the offered "zero" and "+7") in lateral angle, the thumb rest is much too low and many of them sit too low on the frame. So while it might be a better basis than many factory grips, it is not more than that. And using them just because somebody said that these are the way to go could be counterproductive, if they are not right for your hand. Modifying a grip is not magic voodoo, and I'm surprised at how many people invest hours and hours in training, and don't recognize the impact of the grip on the way their arm/hand works.

My K10 Pardini came with an as-stock but used Rink. It felt close enough to be a good basis for what I wanted. I raised the thumb rest with some putty, did some carving above my middle finger/below the trigger and above the web of the hand, a few other lesser tweaks here and there. Shot it like that for some months, then wanted a bit more rake so I added a shim under the trigger guard and similarly hollowed out on the opposite side of the frame mortise. The mounting bolt is slightly strained on an angle, but it snugs up nicely. The wrist lock felt very solid after that. I also carved into the aluminum a bit as my trigger finger rested against the gun too firmly, interfering with triggering. Now it's touching, barely, not enough to detract from accuracy.

What I'm saying is yeah, a Rink is a nice grip but obviously it's a starting point. A very nicely made starting point which for some will need very little modification, for others considerably more. Is that a bad thing? Just seems obvious to me, as hands have a lot of variations between shooters. Starting with the Baikal 46m's stock grip on that pistol I found it necessary to add a LOT of putty and even some wood then do more carving, adding, carving... and I had to add a lot of rake to it before it felt close. Then I made a new maple grip from scratch to finally get something sensible for my hand. That's a whole lot further to go to get something right. A large Rink would have saved me a lot of labour with my 46m.