Transitioning targets

[anonymouscuban]

Hey guys. Just want to reinforce what I'm doing is correct technique. I'm shooting iron sights. Fiber optic front. When transition from one target to another, I move my eyes to the next target and then the gun follows. Sights come up into my line of sight, I get an acceptable sight picture and I fire. Rinse and repeat. Same process I use when I draw. Eyes up at the target, bring pistol up, acquire sight picture and fire.

Again, I think this is the correct technique but want to confirm.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[SAD338]

You are doing it correctly. As soon as you've called your shot, your eyes should be moving to the next target and the gun will follow. Assuming that your shot call was good and that you've shot it the requisite number of times... whether to neutralize, in combat or competition.

[anonymouscuban]

You are doing it correctly. As soon as you've called your shot, your eyes should be moving to the next target and the gun will follow. Assuming that your shot call was good and that you've shot it the requisite number of times... whether to neutralize, in combat or competition.

Thanks. I've been drilling this in dry fire every day and I'm getting pretty good at picking up the sight picture so wanted to make sure I'm not learning a bad habit.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[RoundEye]

Yep, this is one of the things are work on in dry fire as well.

I do it with both wide and narrow transitions, and when I get an acceptable site picture, I snap my eyes, and then my gun to the next. I try to pay particular attention to focusing my eye on the target and then snapping the gun to where I am looking as fast as possible without over transitioning.

[trackcage]

Hey guys. Just want to reinforce what I'm doing is correct technique. I'm shooting iron sights. Fiber optic front. When transition from one target to another, I move my eyes to the next target and then the gun follows. Sights come up into my line of sight, I get an acceptable sight picture and I fire. Rinse and repeat. Same process I use when I draw. Eyes up at the target, bring pistol up, acquire sight picture and fire.

Again, I think this is the correct technique but want to confirm.


Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

What you're actually working towards is that the sights are perfectly aligned, exactly where you're looking, without the need to realign your sights. If you are finding that your sights are not aligned exactly where you're looking, then you need to continue to work on your index

[RoundEye]

What you're actually working towards is that the sights are perfectly aligned, exactly where you're looking, without the need to realign your sights. If you are finding that your sights are not aligned exactly where you're looking, then you need to continue to work on your index

For competition, I don't think I would use the phrase "perfectly aligned", but they have to be aligned enough. An "acceptable sight picture" is what I like to say. The "A" or Down 0 zone is pretty large, and two As or 0s, are two As or 0s no matter where they are in the scoring zone.

[trackcage]

For competition, I don't think I would use the phrase "perfectly aligned", but they have to be aligned enough. An "acceptable sight picture" is what I like to say. The "A" or Down 0 zone is pretty large, and two As or 0s, are two As or 0s no matter where they are in the scoring zone.

Agreed that while moving dynamically throughout a stage, acceptable sight picture is totally fine. But while doing stand and shoot dry fire exercises, I do believe you need to strive toward a very close, if not perfect, index. Basically saying don't cut corners in training or they may come out to bite you in a match.

But that said, the topic of "shooting the notch" is absolutely true in competitive shooting. Patrick Kelly has a great video on the topic. I'll see if I can't find it and edit my post. Stay tuned

Edit: found it. Spoiler- know how much of the front sight you need to see for a given target, get your points, and move on

[anonymouscuban]

Really helpful guys. Especially that last video.

I'm struggling most to change my mindset on what is acceptable marksmanship. The last 2 years I've spent training to get tight, accurate groups. Anything that strays even a couple of inches off target elicits nothing but disappointment and disgust in myself. LOL

Now I'm trying to work on shooting from the draw or ready position, transition between targets, etc and I am finding it so hard to not be disgusted with myself. The last trip to the range, I worked on transitioning between targets. I was using 2 letter size paper targets that each had (4) 4" bulls-eyes on them. I practice different sequence of transitions. This is at an indoor range, shooting at 12 yards.

Well, on my way out, I stopped to talked to Scotty, the range manager. Scotty was a competitive shooter so I ask him for a lot of advice. I told him how I was pretty disappointed in my shooting. Started to make excuses of how dark it is in the range and having trouble picking up my sights, which is true by the way. He stopped me real quick.

He reached down behind the counter and pulled out a standard USPSA target. He placed my paper targets over the A-zone and quickly demonstrated that everyone of my shot "terrible" shots were well withing the A-zone. I quickly realized that although I want to try to be accurate, it's all the context of the shooting.

[trackcage]

Does your range allow rapid fire?

[scotty99]

[scotty99]

[HooYah]

What you're actually working towards is that the sights are perfectly aligned, exactly where you're looking, without the need to realign your sights. If you are finding that your sights are not aligned exactly where you're looking, then you need to continue to work on your index

Within 10-15 yards, even if your front sight is at the extreme left or right limits of the rear notch, your POI will only be off by about an inch.

[IVC]

I'm struggling most to change my mindset on what is acceptable marksmanship. The last 2 years I've spent training to get tight, accurate groups. Anything that strays even a couple of inches off target elicits nothing but disappointment and disgust in myself. LOL

Shooting accurately is the prerequisite for shooting accurately fast. When you shoot accurately fast, you're trading off accuracy for speed, not for sloppiness (sloppy support hand grip, trigger pull, etc.)

That's why you should always have at least some part of your training be pure accuracy. You can vary trigger pull technique - from slow press to fast pull and try to get them to (almost) the same level of accuracy. It also helps with reaffirming the *exact* POA/POI for your particular gun.

At our local range, we have some very small steel at 25 and 50 yards, where the size of the plate is just a tad smaller than the size of the front dot (angular size, obviously). This requires both eyes open, superimposing the sight picture, excellent trigger control and correctly sighted-in gun.

[IVC]

What you're actually working towards is that the sights are perfectly aligned, exactly where you're looking, without the need to realign your sights. If you are finding that your sights are not aligned exactly where you're looking, then you need to continue to work on your index

For competition, I don't think I would use the phrase "perfectly aligned", but they have to be aligned enough. An "acceptable sight picture" is what I like to say. The "A" or Down 0 zone is pretty large, and two As or 0s, are two As or 0s no matter where they are in the scoring zone.

I would add a twist on these two statements.

Let's separate "acceptable sight picture" and "acceptable trigger pull." These are two contributing factors in "fast and accurate shooting." Even Jerry Miculek does a very slow and deliberate trigger pull when shooting his 929 at 1,000 yards. There is a difference in consistency of the trigger pull based on the speed of the pull.

The goal of dry fire is to break down *any* element of shooting technique, isolate it, measure it, figure out the best way to train to improve it, monitor improvement and finally transfer it to the live fire. Trigger pull and sight acquisition are just two of these elements. Each can be trained separately.

Acquiring *perfect* sight picture is part of the training in "accuracy mode." It answers the question "how fast can I transition to a very hard target." One can argue that it's also the "acceptable sight picture" for such target, but since it has to be perfect, we might as well call it what it is. However, getting the perfect sight picture in this case is only part of the training - we also need a perfect trigger pull so this sight picture is not disturbed.

What I'm trying to say is that it's very useful to break down technique into many individual elements and master each one. When things go wrong, you can try to confirm each element individually, then figure out the one that is causing you to miss (either to miss the target, or to miss your par times). As part of this training, acquiring a perfect sight picture is the baseline from which we can trade it for some speed gains. Just don't forget that imperfect trigger pull stacks up on top of the acceptable sight picture.

[woolymanx]