PDA

View Full Version : Rookie ?



cracker
03-09-2012, 10:02 AM
Could someone please explain to me the punch out and the press out. Would you recommend one over the other, and would you teach a new shooter one over the other. Inquiring minds want to know, thanks in advance for any info.
Cracker

bdcheung
03-09-2012, 10:07 AM
Here's a good slow-motion video demonstrating a proper press-out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCXmZD-Rym4

Others can explain the step-by-step better, but essentially I strive to get the front sight in focus as soon as possible (accomplished by drawing the pistol up close to my face as opposed to at full extension) and pressing the front sight out to the target, maintaining good sight picture and alignment the entire time. All the while, you're increasing pressure on the trigger so that the shot breaks when you're just about at full extension.

So the draw stroke is shaped more like Γ than /

Mr_White
03-09-2012, 11:35 AM
I'd refer you to this thread where the press-out, punch-out, and variations thereof are discussed in great detail:

http://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?2093-press-out-or-punch-out-AFHF-class-question

In that same thread, I drew pictures to illustrate some of the variations of the press-out and punch-out, and these pictures might start to answer your question pretty simply:

http://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?2093-press-out-or-punch-out-AFHF-class-question&p=40140&viewfull=1#post40140

cracker
03-09-2012, 11:37 AM
Thanks guys this is exactly what I was looking for.
Cracker

ford.304
03-09-2012, 12:20 PM
Question on a detail of that:

With regard to "getting the front sight in focus as quickly as possible" - do you try to have the sights aligned immediately when you bring the front sight into focus, or do you bring it slightly above the rear sights at high ready so you can find it, and then bring it back down into alignment as you press out?

I've noticed that when I try to practice my press out doing the former, that if I start slightly out of alignment low or to one side, I may not be able to see/find the front sight until my arms are nearly extended, as it is hidden behind the rear sights. Is that just a reps sort of thing to get them correctly aligned earlier, or a technique thing?

If I'm not being entirely clear... when you are just past high ready, the gun is roughly align with your eye, arms are compressed, and your eye is searching for the front sight. Is the attempted order "get close to correct sight alignment, find front sight" or "find front sight slightly high, bring it down to correct alignment as you press out"

bdcheung
03-09-2012, 12:23 PM
Question on a detail of that:

With regard to "getting the front sight in focus as quickly as possible" - do you try to have the sights aligned immediately when you bring the front sight into focus, or do you bring it slightly above the rear sights at high ready so you can find it, and then bring it back down into alignment as you press out?

I've noticed that when I try to practice my press out doing the former, that if I start slightly out of alignment low or to one side, I may not be able to see/find the front sight until my arms are nearly extended, as it is hidden behind the rear sights. Is that just a reps sort of thing to get them correctly aligned earlier, or a technique thing?

If I'm not being entirely clear... when you are just past high ready, the gun is roughly align with your eye, arms are compressed, and your eye is searching for the front sight. Is the attempted order "get close to correct sight alignment, find front sight" or "find front sight slightly high, bring it down to correct alignment as you press out"

I angle the barrel of the gun up slightly so that the front sight has little to no chance of being obscured.

Once I get the front sight in focus I'll align the rear sight through the press-out.

Disclaimer: I am pretty new to this so I could be doing it wrong.

Mr_White
03-09-2012, 01:31 PM
Question on a detail of that:

With regard to "getting the front sight in focus as quickly as possible" - do you try to have the sights aligned immediately when you bring the front sight into focus, or do you bring it slightly above the rear sights at high ready so you can find it, and then bring it back down into alignment as you press out?

I've noticed that when I try to practice my press out doing the former, that if I start slightly out of alignment low or to one side, I may not be able to see/find the front sight until my arms are nearly extended, as it is hidden behind the rear sights. Is that just a reps sort of thing to get them correctly aligned earlier, or a technique thing?

If I'm not being entirely clear... when you are just past high ready, the gun is roughly align with your eye, arms are compressed, and your eye is searching for the front sight. Is the attempted order "get close to correct sight alignment, find front sight" or "find front sight slightly high, bring it down to correct alignment as you press out"

I think you bring up an important point.

You are correctly recognizing and describing a subtle difference between a punch-out (muzzle level) and a press-out (muzzle-tilt, which is Todd’s way.)

You can see clunky pictures of both here: http://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?2093-press-out-or-punch-out-AFHF-class-question&p=40140&viewfull=1#post40140

I’m specifically referring to the second (Punch-Out Draw) and fifth (Press-Out Draw) pictures in my post.

At this point it is my opinion that the punch-out is slightly more reliant on indexing (your trained ability to put the gun in the same place each time by feel, as established by mondo amounts of correct practice) than the press-out, which is slightly less reliant on indexing and slightly more reliant on visual referencing.

When you report seeing the sights significantly misaligned as you extend the gun, you are seeing a moment of failure of the indexing element of the punch-out draw. Inconsistent grip is a likely culprit, but there are probably a million other things that could be to blame too.

Within the wide spectrum of possible drawstrokes, both the punch-out and the press-out are very similar, and both are correctly described as allowing visual control of the gun early in the presentation. They vary slightly in their relative proportions of indexing/kinesthetic control and visual control.

I think both are great ways to present the gun from the holster and fire a reliably accurate shot at the earliest opportunity.

One thing though– in the muzzle-tilt press-out, the front sight does not rise above the eye-target line and then lower down to be aligned with the rear sight. Instead, the front sight reaches the eye-target line, and as the gun is pushed toward the target, the rear sight rises to reach the eye-target line and alignment with the front sight, which has been directly in the eye-target line from the absolute beginning of the horizontal line of presentation.

If you bring the front sight higher than the true eye-target line, you are doing the sixth picture in my post (labeled Press-Out Draw WRONG.)

I’ve been playing with the muzzle-tilt press-out lately, though not too much since I haven’t been formally trained in the technique and I don’t want to inadvertently do it wrong. But in the limited experimentation I have done with it, I think that the muzzle being tilted up allows me a very brief moment of visually defining the upper limit of travel for any part of the gun. It never gets higher than that fleeting moment of the eye, front sight/muzzle, and target spot being in a straight line and then it rockets forward and levels out from there.

The speed at which I extend the gun in the horizontal line of presentation feels to me to be pivotal to when I can truly get visually locked onto (focused on) the front sight, and become precisely visually aware of the sight picture as I drive the gun out.

If I move the gun forward very quickly, I end up doing a variation of extend-stop-press because I don’t see the required precision in the sight picture for a difficult shot until the gun slows down, which is just about at full extension. If I slow the horizontal line of presentation, I can see the sight picture and refine it as I extend the gun. I see this ‘speed of horizontal extension’ issue as separate from the path and orientation of the gun as it moves from the holster to the eye-line to full extension, and that path and orientation of the gun is what most fundamentally differentiates between the press-out and the punch-out.

So there are also subtle variations within the variations. Both the punch-out and press-out seem very effective and fast. I am still exploring the small differences they may have in precision, consistency, and speed.

ford.304
03-09-2012, 02:20 PM
I remembered your drawing from that thread, but I hadn't really looked at the difference in tilt, I just noticed that in one (bad) the gun was going above the plane of the eyes, and in the other (good) it wasn't.