Typical reasons for high shots?

[jabberwo]

Hi,

Looking for a little advice. Shot a disappointing 60 shot match yesterday. 1/4 of my shots were horizontally in the 9 ring; at least, a lot actually above the 10 ring. But vertically I pulled them up to the 8 or even the 7. When I plot my shots you can see two distinct vertical bands that show my horizontal hold is with in the 9 typically.

Last 10 shots of the match

Last10.png (43.29 KiB) Viewed 1767 times

What would cause one to do that so much? I think I looked "over" the sight at the bull way to many times, but is it as simple as that?

thanks,
Jab

[David Levene]

The first question has got to be "where did you call the shots?"

If you haven't got a pretty good idea where the hole is going to be before looking at the target then you probably aren't looking at the sights.

If you are looking at the sights and have called the shots where they actually hit then you can probably also say what was happening to the sights before the shot broke.

Calling shots is a much under-rated, but vitally important, skill: not just in training but also during a match.

There will be shots where you just hold your hand up and admit "no idea", but they should be(come) few and far between.

[jabberwo]

thanks for the input.

I can not call my shots with iron sights. There I said it. Is this the first step on recovery?

If I am focused on front sight, I don't know where it is in relation to the bull. If I know where it is in relation to the the bull, its because I'm sneaking a peak, or changing focus to the bull itself. All I do know is that when I am focused on the sight I can tell which way my front sight moves when the shot breaks. It either doesn't move (yeah!) or moves to the left (boo, my major triggering/gripping bugaboo). Or, as of this weekend, I saw it moving up a couple of times, but not all 13 times I hit a high center shot.

I know everyone says you should be able to call your shots. But in the 3 years of shooting AP I haven't figured out how to do that w/o knowing where the bull is and I'm "trying" not to look at the bull. I always have 3-4 shots per session that I thought were great because there was no sight movement, but I find out is waaay off the mark -- and I think its because I have sight alignment, but not sight picture.

With a red dot on my bullseye gun I can tell you with-in mm where it hit.

[David M]

If area aiming under the black, this is typical of holding too close to the black
with the foresight lifting to merge with the base of the black.
If you are letting your focus forward towards the target at shot break the group
will also lift, but it also spreads out.

[David Levene]

If I am focused on front sight, I don't know where it is in relation to the bull. If I know where it is in relation to the the bull, its because I'm sneaking a peak, or changing focus to the bull itself.

That really makes it sound like you're centre aiming and, of course, one of the big problems with centre aiming is that you try to be too fixated on the centre of the target.

[jabberwo]

Hi,

With my AP I am trying to do line of white aiming at the moment. I've tried area aim where I'm way down low on the target but really had horrible results. Tried pumpkin-on-a-stick and felt I was more likely to look at the bull; but at least I knew were I was and I think I had less "which way did he go" moments.

With the red dot then yes, it's center of bull.

thanks!

[rmca]

I can not call my shots with iron sights. There I said it. Is this the first step on recovery?

Sure is!!!

Concentrating on the front sight instead of the bull is a leap of faith for the new shooters (new to AP anyway...)
But trust me, the bull doesn't move. It stays put waiting for the pellet (bullet, arrow, stone, etc...)

The position of the sights regarding the bull is not as important as proper sight alignment. At least for now.
In other words, it is imperative that the front sight stays as much centered on the rear notch as you can make it. Like the image below.
Where your sights (front and rear) are in relation to the target isn't as much important, as long as it's constant. So, if you hold sub-six (like the image), do that for every shot. If you hold at six (lollypop), always hold at six, and this is why:

Let´s assume that your sight distance is 40cm (~15.74 inches) and that you are shooting at 10 meters (1000cm).
That means that you have 25 sights distance between you and your target.
If your front sight is one millimeter (~0.039 inches) to the right for example, the error on the target will be 2,5cm (~1 inch)!.
Now, instead of one millimeter, let's say you are 2 millimeters to the right, what is your error on the target? Yep, 5cm (~2 inches)!

You can easily tell if you are aiming two inches to the right without focusing on the target, right?
But if you can't tell that your front sight is two millimeters (~0.080 inches) to the right when the shot breaks, then your shot will be 5cm (~2 inches) to the right on the target!

My advice would be to dry fire a couple of shots, just paying attention to your front sight. Don't let your eye escape to the bull.
Then try a couple of shots (with pellets) in the same manner, ie, paying attention to the front sight.
Forget the bull for now. Don't even look at where the shots landed on the target. Then dry fire again, then two shots, etc...
Do these two steps until you have ten shots on the target. Only then would you pull the target to you. What's the group like? Tighter? Should be...

Without you knowing where your front sight is when the shot breaks, all the advice given so far by me or the others will not help you.

Hope this helps

[Rover]

What RMCA said.

I have noticed that when my eye goes to the bull, the shot is low. It appears to me that you are squeezing your whole hand along with your trigger pull to get high shots. You might want to work on your grip a little.

You can check this by aiming at a wall and squeezing your hand. Did the sights move? Where?

Also, the sight picture above is ideal (says Nygord).

[EdStevens]

Good advice. Calling your shots is only possible if your eye is open and focused on the front sight and (initially at least) the break comes as a mild surprise.

In my experience, high shots for me usually happen for one of two reasons:

• I am "mid-ranging" when the shot goes off: my eye is focused somewhere between the front sight and the target. You need to be focused only on the front sight during that last critical period when you press the trigger to break the shot.
  
  I have unconsciously "peeked" the front sight up above its proper alignment with the rear sight in order to see it better. This will be when shooting indoors under less than ideal light, and with aging eyes and iron sights it's just hard to focus on the front sight.

It's back to the basics for me to fix this. Sight alignment (front sight to rear sight) trumps everything else.

[jabberwo]

shooting indoors under less than ideal light, and with aging eyes and iron sights

The situation exactly.

Also talked to a very good shooter, and another good shooter/coach and game away with the fact I was shooting with a very relaxed grip (on purpose), perhaps too relaxed. Hence as mentioned above I may be changing grip pressure as I trigger.

I'm also not happy with my grip and will be looking for a Rink like I have on my bullseye .22.

Thanks folks, always willing to listen to your thoughts!

-= jab

[therider]

The first question has got to be "where did you call the shots?"

If you haven't got a pretty good idea where the hole is going to be before looking at the target then you probably aren't looking at the sights.

If you are looking at the sights and have called the shots where they actually hit then you can probably also say what was happening to the sights before the shot broke.

Calling shots is a much under-rated, but vitally important, skill: not just in training but also during a match.

There will be shots where you just hold your hand up and admit "no idea", but they should be(come) few and far between.

David,
Thanks for this post, very illuminating. I have had a couple of months last summer when I could not understand why I was shooting so badly and could not at all call the shot. It was always a random result for me and I was blaming the gun. The truth is that lp10e was hiding my mistakes and mgh1 was telling me how bad I am.
I then realized that for a split second I was closing the eyes at the break of the shot, as if I needed to protect them from an explosion.
The moment I realized that I solved the problem and I can now call, although as you say, there are 1 or 2 shots per series where I haven't the faintest idea!!!!

[therider]

Sorry guys,
What do you mean with "iron sights"?

This is again an interesting thread.

Could high shots not also be related to too much force exerted by the pinky finger which suddenly reduces during trigger pull

[Rover]

There you go...another guy trying to buy points with fancy grips.

Forget it! You're as likely to have ill-fitting grips with a pair of Rink as you currently have.

Get out the rasps and putty and fix your present grips. If you don't know how, then you don't know what's wrong with what you've got.

BTW Iron sights are the ones on the gun.

[David Levene]

You're as likely to have ill-fitting grips with a pair of Rink as you currently have.

I agree (unless you have them specially made for you)