To see or not to see?

[The_Dave]

I'll be heading down to Ellijay on Sunday, and I had a thought last night which I thought merited some consideration.

The other weekend I was running some FAST drills and noticed a marked improvement in my accuracy during the drill. Whereas I usually drop one shot to the 3x5, I was reliably cleaning the drill each time without slowing down. The difference this time was that I had forgotten my glasses (for vision correction, not eye pro) and it was getting late in the day, which also didn't help for seeing the target.

The result, I think, was that I was forced to focus more closely on the front sight (everything else was literally forced out of focus by my bad vision) and I thought maybe that was the reason for the improvement in accuracy.

I'll be doing some more shooting this weekend and I'd like to explore this more thoroughly, but what do you folks think? I was planning on taking my glasses to Rogers and wearing them under my eye pro as I have been most of the time when practicing, but the accuracy gains that one time have been nagging at me. Is it worth considering having those reactive targets be out of focus somewhat during the class, or do I want my vision to be as good as it can be?

Thanks in advance,

Dave

[Failure2Stop]

I know that I can shoot precision groups at a decent pace as long as I focus on the front sight through the entire string and don't try to "sniff the target" after a shot. Shifting focus from target to front sight to target to front sight will have a negative effect on accuracy.

Lots of reasons why, but a very simply solution: focus on the front sight (see what you need to see) through the entire group.

I would recommend wearing your glasses and working on your discipline to focus on the front sight when you need to do so.

[JeffJ]

It depends, are they reading glasses? If you only need the glasses to help focus at certain distances and that distance isn't your front sight then they won't help with a hard front sight focus.

[DonovanM]

It sounds like you were compensating for your perceived lack of visual acuity by turning your vision up, pouring all of your attention into your eyesight to make up for the lack of corrective lenses and the low light. The thing is, this is how you should be shooting anyway, even under the most ideal of conditions. As you have seen (heh), your vision is the outstandingly single most important part of shooting well. It also sounds like you've developed some lazy focusing habits, and haven't practiced the visual discipline and visual patience necessary to shoot at a high level, and you broke out of that the other day. Remember how that felt, when you had to turn your vision up and suddenly were getting better hits at the same speed, and bring that same discipline to your range sessions in the future.

Trust me, this is the single hardest element of shooting to get, much less to teach and explain. It's also the most important. It's awesome that you arrived at it on your own - this is all I've been working on for the past few months. I'm inconsistent at best and my vision shuts down on a regular basis.

Here's a good drill to practice seeing what you need to see. Shoot at the berm, don't use a target. Just draw your gun and shoot as you normally would, however fast you'd like, and just watch what happens with the sights. The only thing that matters in this drill is what's happening between your front sight and the back of your head, so don't use a target because it'll just distract you. Read where your sights are when the shot breaks. Good luck!

[mscott327]

a good drill to practice seeing what you need to see. Shoot at the berm, don't use a target. Just draw your gun and shoot as you normally would, however fast you'd like, and just watch what happens with the sights. The only thing that matters in this drill is what's happening between your front sight and the back of your head, so don't use a target because it'll just distract you. Read where your sights are when the shot breaks. Good luck!

this sounds pretty good. I need to try it on my next trip to the range

[HCM]

Here's a good drill to practice seeing what you need to see. Shoot at the berm, don't use a target. Just draw your gun and shoot as you normally would, however fast you'd like, and just watch what happens with the sights. The only thing that matters in this drill is what's happening between your front sight and the back of your head, so don't use a target because it'll just distract you. Read where your sights are when the shot breaks. Good luck!

Basically a live fire version of the "wall Drill". I tried this with one of my more challenged shooters recently with good results.