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Competition, Action Shooting And Training. Competition, Three gun, IPSC, IDPA , and Training discussion here. |
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Seeking advice
I created a thread elsewhere here asking for advice, and got some helpful suggestions which still need processing. Someone suggested posting over here.
To the point, I need to improve pistol accuracy beyond 15 yards. I'm 61, just bought guns last July and August, 9mm and 45 acp. Plus shotgun and rifle. I took three great classes with FTA in Chino-Corona and learned skills and above all, safety in all phases of gun handling and shooting. Still, when I go to the indoor range I don't shoot accurately beyond 15 yards. Some anticipation and most likely jerking or moving the gun when pulling the trigger, even though I work on this often. Should I treat this like a golfer and go to a "pro" for a lesson or two or three? Take more classes? Or join a group and/or compete for fun and marksmanship? Perhaps a combination of these (the competition sessions look fun and practical). I do not want to lose sight of the importance of 1) accuracy and 2) real situations if I am carrying. If I don't thank all of ya, I'll say thank you ahead of time. |
#2
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Slater,
I would recommend going to a pro as they can work you through your issues and get you shooting better sooner. I personally have gotten good results attending front site and plan on attending in another week. There is plenty of good training around your area. Worth doing dry fire skins and practice on the basics rather than ingraining bad results when by shooting poorly over and over again. It stops being fun after a while. So yes seek professional guidance. |
#3
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If you want to come down to Rainbow Range, PM me and I will meet you there and we can work on your technique. It would be strictly "good will" - you just need to bring your gear and pay for your own range time as my guest.
This would give you enough information to work on your own, or to have a better understanding of what you need in terms of lessons. Disclosure: I am an NRA certified pistol instructor, an RSO and a USPSA L10 "B" class, working on moving up to "A" this year.
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NRA Benefactor Member |
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#6
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Spend some time doing dry fire at home before spending money on an instructor. Anticipation flinching can be easily cured through trigger pulls in front of a white wall at home. Focus on support hand grip strength and watch that front site. Just keep pulling until you can do it without any front site movement and it will transfer to live fire.
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#7
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The two most important factors in handgun accuracy....
- sight alignment - trigger control Is it possible that at 61 years old you are having some issues with keeping aligned sights motionless enough out beyond 15 yrds? Happens to all of us as we age... I cannot emphasize trigger control enough as have other posters here and in the handgun forum. I just read this post and find it VERY relevant: Quote:
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"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue." ----Sen. Barry Goldwater Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." ----Benjamin Franklin NRA life member CRPA member Last edited by OCEquestrian; 02-08-2018 at 10:16 AM.. |
#9
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Someone (I think it was Rob Leatham) said once you learn to isolate your trigger finger from your other fingers, you have mastered shooting. But the catch is, that's the most difficult part to learn."
You will definitely get more benefit from dry firing than shooting. |
#10
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Here you go, one of the top teaching schools in the USA is coming here next month. It will be well worth the money and save you time from having to relearn bad habits.
https://www.tacticalperformancecente...-days-prado-ca
__________________
"... when a man has shot an elephant his life is full"- John Alfred Jordan "A set of ivory tusks speaks of a life well lived." - Unknown |
#11
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Get some pro help - it is worth it in the long run.
In a nutshell - you need to master your grip - not only hand/finger placement - but pressure. You need to align sights You need continuous even pressure on trigger while maintaining the above mentioned skills. You don't want to sit and dry fire and ingrain a bad habit - so learn the proper way - then practice the proper way. If you have a problem with jerking the trigger - DRY FIRE (No loaded ammo in the same room) - what I have found is set an empty shell case on the end of your slide by the front sight. Carefully extend - pull trigger - the shell casing should remain in place. Do this a few thousand times and you will build a "muscle memory". Don't worry about speed - work on smooth. You should also be doing some muscle exercises. You probably aren't used to exerting that much grip pressure over and over. Get a set of grip exercisers and work on your grip. Work on holding your arms out extended. Muscle movement at arms length makes a HUGE difference at 50 yards. Shooting is easy - shooting well takes A LOT of practice. Steve |
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Nice! Thank you. |
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I had a huge accuracy problem when I changed from competing with a 1911 to a CZ. The 1911 masked some technical problems. I took a class from Ben Stoeger shortly after the change and while I still had my issue. I took crap from him all weekend long about my accuracy and wish I had it under control prior to the class. It would have been far more beneficial if I had it done before hand. I learned quite a bit from the class, but I went home extremely motivated to fix my accuracy. I literally spent about 30 minutes a day for three days in front of a white wall (no target, nothing to look at but the front site) and did both double and single action trigger pulls. Fixed it that quickly. It is amazing how quickly you can control it when it is ALL you are focused on.
Now, I still have an issue during actual competition where I start to loosen my grip as the stage progresses and my accuracy begins to dip. More work to be done for my crushing support grip to become second nature, but I can be accurate quite easily when focused. |
#17
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A light single action trigger is the hiding place for people who never understand and master "trigger control" ....
__________________
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue." ----Sen. Barry Goldwater Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." ----Benjamin Franklin NRA life member CRPA member |
#19
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It would not make much difference shooting slow, however the timing would be off when shooting faster in a competition setting until one gets used to the new platform.
__________________
"... when a man has shot an elephant his life is full"- John Alfred Jordan "A set of ivory tusks speaks of a life well lived." - Unknown |
#20
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__________________
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue." ----Sen. Barry Goldwater Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." ----Benjamin Franklin NRA life member CRPA member |
#21
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That is not what we are talking about particularly though. We are talking about changing platforms.
__________________
"... when a man has shot an elephant his life is full"- John Alfred Jordan "A set of ivory tusks speaks of a life well lived." - Unknown |
#22
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Quote:
__________________
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue." ----Sen. Barry Goldwater Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." ----Benjamin Franklin NRA life member CRPA member |
#23
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Which is changing platforms.
And it is not just the trigger either. Grip is different as well due to the differences in the guns and even the trigger location is different. I think one can be as proficient in one platform as well as the other but after spending a lot of time on one particular platform it might take a bit of time to get just as proficient in the other. Also, we were not talking about untrained shooters either.
__________________
"... when a man has shot an elephant his life is full"- John Alfred Jordan "A set of ivory tusks speaks of a life well lived." - Unknown |
#24
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__________________
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue." ----Sen. Barry Goldwater Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." ----Benjamin Franklin NRA life member CRPA member |
#25
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Now, slow fire, sure I agree with you there.
__________________
"... when a man has shot an elephant his life is full"- John Alfred Jordan "A set of ivory tusks speaks of a life well lived." - Unknown |
#26
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In a regular course of fire even GMs won't have those splits overall. Sure they can hose close targets at sub-0.2, but those are few and far in between (I mean, "few and next to each other"). The rest require a bit more subtlety. Here is from Brian Enos Forum. It was ten years ago, but the first response is from a well known shooter. This is consistent with what every master or grand master I've ever shot with or talked to had to say on the issue. The key to thinking about splits is to see how much they contribute to the overall time. A reduction of even 0.1 per shot on 30 shot course is 3 seconds. A more realistic improvement of 0.05 brings this down to 1.5 seconds. That amount of time is negligible relative to the amount of time non-M/GMs will waste just on entering and leaving positions... Sorry for the tangent, particularly because I completely agree with the point you're making. Just wanted to provide extra info to those who read this thread and are less familiar with the process.
__________________
NRA Benefactor Member |
#27
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However, I agree with your overall point that the split time is usually NOT the low hanging fruit unless it was ridiculous like 0.5 secs. The biggest improvement one can make overall are the transition and entry and exit times as that is the low hanging fruit. As a matter of fact that is what I personally have been working on the last few months in practice sessions.
__________________
"... when a man has shot an elephant his life is full"- John Alfred Jordan "A set of ivory tusks speaks of a life well lived." - Unknown |
#28
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No, it really wasn't. The CZ is single action after the first shot. I was shooting those crap as well. The issue I had is that I started competing with a 2lb trigger with virtually zero reset 1911 (done by a very competent gunsmith on a STI Trojan). The pistol allowed me to compete and be accurate with poor grip strength and a not so disciplined trigger pull.
Where this is all relevant to the OP (which is what I was trying to help out with) is that I have a real world example of the problem he is having and how I fixed it very quickly without spending money. |
#30
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There is tremendous value in getting info from a variety of sources. Some will offer suggestions that others may not. Free instruction is great if from a credible source. One on one is always the way to go if you can swing it. Maybe he can help you address some obvious issues. This will only increase your confidence when going to the next instructor. |
#32
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When I got married 35 years ago my wife commented to me how she never knew she'd be watching TV with a husband who had an itchy trigger finger.... |
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