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Mr_White
09-29-2016, 02:08 PM
Posting this one day early - hopefully no one minds.

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Week 184: Driving The Gun/Up Transitions

Results may be posted until October 30th, 2016.

Designed by: Gabe White
Target: Any silhouette target, including scaled targets
Range: Shooter's choice
Rounds: 0

This is one of several drills intended to work on shot calling, sight tracking, and trigger manipulation in dry fire. In this drill we're going to be working on an upward target transition, as if shifting fire from the body to the head.

At bare minimum, verify gun is unloaded, have no live ammo anywhere in the dry practice area, and keep muzzle in a safe direction. But there is more you can do to ensure safety in dry practice. Please also read Robust Dry Practice Safety Principles and Procedure following the drill description.

Target considerations: Try to arrange things so the target is at least as difficult as a full-size USPSA Metric or IDPA target at 7 yards. You can use basically any silhouette target for this, but if your available dry fire distance is less than 7 yards, I'd recommend using a scaled target. But you can do this drill if you have the bare minimum of a target representing a body/high thoracic cavity and a smaller target above it representing a head/CNS.

Drill procedure: Start aimed at the body/high thoracic cavity target. Press the trigger and dry fire the gun. Now, continuing to hold the trigger to the rear, use your support hand to cycle the slide enough that the striker is reset or hammer is recocked. Resume your two-handed grip. All that was preparation for what we are actually drilling, which is the next part: simultaneously let the trigger forward allowing it to reset as you drive the front sight to the new target spot - the head/CNS target. When you see sufficient alignment in the sight picture, press the trigger well enough for the target. Repeat many times.

That's how it is going to work with striker fired, single action, and DA/SA guns (this drill addresses shots after the first one, so even a DA/SA gun is essentially going to function as SAO for purposes of the drill.) With a true DAO, you can skip the part where you break grip and cycle the slide to get the mechanism ready to reset.

You will be interrupting your grip a lot, so make sure you reacquire your real grip on the gun each time. Focus on resetting the trigger while driving the front sight into sufficient alignment with the next target and pressing the trigger carefully enough as soon as you would hit.

Do the drill for a period of time you choose, rather than for a specific number of repetitions.

Please report when you've completed the drill, what gun you used, how much time you spent on the drill, and anything you noticed.

Training with firearms is an inherently dangerous activity. Be sure to follow all safety protocols when using firearms or practicing these drills. These drills are provided for information purposes only. Use at your own risk.

Robust Dry Practice Safety Principles and Procedure (the closer you follow this, the fewer opportunities you will have to ND)


Principles:

Allow no distractions – focus exclusively on the task at hand

Keep muzzle in a safe direction

Use correct trigger finger discipline

Verify no live ammo in gun, on person, or in the dry practice area

Use dedicated dry practice targets that are put away until you consciously choose to begin dry practice, and taken down when you consciously end dry practice

Use dedicated dry practice magazines and dummy rounds/inert training cartridges that stay in the dry practice area (if you use any magazine or cartridges)


Procedure:

Unload gun in a location other than the dry practice area

Leave live ammo, and magazines with live ammo, completely outside the dry practice area

Enter the dry practice area

Verify gun is unloaded, that any magazines do not contain live ammo, and that any cartridges present are inert/dummy cartridges

Consciously choose to begin dry practice

Put up dry practice targets

Do your dry practice

Take down dry practice targets and put them away

Consciously choose to end dry practice

Exit the dry practice area and do something unrelated for a few minutes

Return gun to location and condition of your choosing

Clusterfrack
09-29-2016, 10:07 PM
Gun: Sig P320c w/SF XC1
Target: USPSA metric 1/3 at 3 yds.
Time: 10 min

Observations: like transitions, my best and fastest hits happen when I snap my eyes to the target first. Prep trigger while seeing the upper A, sight appears, break shot. Good drill but super boring.

RevolverRob
09-30-2016, 09:46 PM
Gun: Smith and Wesson 642
Target: Obi-Bear Kenobi (teddy bear) standing in for the USPSA Metric 1/3 I left on my desk at work...
Distance: 3-yards
Time: 15 minutes

Observations: I find it difficult to not get in a hurry pressing the trigger before my sights are beginning to be aligned, on transitions of this type. With a long DA pull, I tend to roll off the trigger for the reset and then I have a tendency to stage the trigger while moving the gun and about 50% of the time this results in an early break, dropping my shots low, usually below the cranial vault and more into the facio-maxilla region. I have to consciously focus on coming off the trigger and only starting the stroke back when the front sight is starting to align, this results in a break exactly where I want it to be and a solid, but fast sight picture.

scw2
10-06-2016, 11:28 AM
Ran it this morning with a CZ 75 SP-01 and used a FAST target at 7 yards.

I've actually been running similar up transitions recently just due to work on draws, but nothing dedicated and more just some random reps between drills, or focusing on the draw to lower zone and just doing a failure to stop drill on the back end. I suspected the past week that for small transitions I do not really switch focus to the upper zone after the shots to the lower zone, and tried to focus on that today. Definitely not doing it consistently, so something I'll need to work on more, even if it means going super slow and deliberate initially. I seem to focus shift naturally on larger transitions, but small transitions I don't really do it. I'll also try the same target but at a closer distance to see if my default vision processing changes.

The second thing is sometimes I get on the trigger too fast and shoot low. Not due to bad trigger press, which sometimes does happen, but just shooting before the sights are aligned over the target sufficiently during the up transition. Something else to work more on.

hiro
10-06-2016, 11:34 AM
The second thing is sometimes I get on the trigger too fast and shoot low. Not due to bad trigger press, which sometimes does happen, but just shooting before the sights are aligned over the target sufficiently during the up transition. Something else to work more on.

which draw stroke do you use?

scw2
10-06-2016, 11:42 AM
which draw stroke do you use?

Specific to this drill, I was unclear and it's more that during the transition I fire too fast, almost anticipating where I want the sight to go and firing before it gets there or I've visually confirmed. I think it's partly a timing issue as one gets more comfortable with that specific transition, but more importantly I'm not using the sights adequately every time as an indicator to fire my next shot.

Regarding the draw, I do a modified hybrid draw that's more of an upside-down J shape, as opposed to the straight line draw some gamers use, or the harder L shape of a true pressout. When I fire too fast on the draw and miss on a small target, it's either due to bad trigger press or bad alignment which tends for me to be the front sight low. I think when it's high I see it more, and on occasion I push out too fast and the muzzle dips a bit when I jerk the gun to a stop. The latter is just not being discerning enough visually before pressing the trigger, which I guess is a similar issue as when I'm shooting too early in the up transition.