Shooting the dot with a target focus

[GJM]

So we know that you should shoot a red dot on a pistol with a target focus — the hard part is understanding exactly what that means, and how you can figure out whether you are doing it. On day one of a recent Stoeger class, I asked Ben how to know whether you are shooting with a true target focus. His answer was short — cover the forward lens of your optic with black tape and shoot drills. If you see the dot on your target, you are shooting with a target focus. Here is an example of that.




https://youtu.be/g559xctL3x8



Shooting with a target focus is a core skill of how Ben shoots. You look at a spot on the target and let your eyes bring the dot to the spot. As you fire a shot, you control recoil by letting your eyes guide the dot back to your aiming spot, you fire again and then your eyes move to the next aiming spot and you repeat the process.

It might be worthwhile taping over your front lens and doing a practice session or two and see what you observe.

[DMCutter]

Isn't that essentially the original Armston OEG?

[HCM]

Isn't that essentially the original Armston OEG?

Yeah, and the "Bindon aiming concept" but it's just a drill.

[DMCutter]

Over on the Sig forum people are forever kvetching about crap on their red dots from the LCI but my take has always been that you don't have to see through it unless you're shooting at something small/far away and using it like a scope is missing the point. Because, well, BAC.

[HCM]

Over on the Sig forum people are forever kvetching about crap on their red dots from the LCI but my take has always been that you don't have to see through it unless you're shooting at something small/far away and using it like a scope is missing the point. Because, well, BAC.

You can make it work, but it's not optimal.

[GJM]

Over on the Sig forum people are forever kvetching about crap on their red dots from the LCI but my take has always been that you don't have to see through it unless you're shooting at something small/far away and using it like a scope is missing the point. Because, well, BAC.

I thought shooting at something small/far away was the whole point of a red dot on a pistol!

[Eyesquared]

Ben Stoeger recommended me this in a video review he did. It has helped me and I'm going to periodically revisit this in dry fire. I will also add that I typically catch myself shifting vision to the dot when I perceive the shooting to be "hard", like a long distance partial, small piece of steel, or when I am shooting SHO/WHO. To a lesser extent I have also seen it while shooting on the move (more so on partials).

So if you try it in dry fire and go "well, I kept a perfect target focus," try some of the above and see if it holds up.

[YVK]

The idea of this is to be sure you're target focused and not pulling your eyes to your dot. I was initially confused but then I thought about eye physiology and it makes sense. I've been doing it live and dry for a couple of weeks now. I don't love that I have only my weak eye (literally, my left eye is much worse than right) to pick a spot on the target, but overall it works.

30 min ago during my dry fire practice I came up with a complimentary drill. I was practicing index on target transitions which I sometimes do alternating dot on and dot off reps. I realized that with the dot off you can only focus on the target. So this trains not only how it feels to present and transition the gun purely on proprioception clues and without the dot guidance, but it also trains how it "feels" to be 100% focused.



I typically catch myself shifting vision to the dot when I perceive the shooting to be "hard", like a long distance partial, small piece of steel


I listened to a podcast with Sailer recently where he said he was doing that last year on hard shoots. He said he was working on eliminating it this year.
My reaction was slightly different. If I won every area match that I had entered and then the Nationals, maybe pulling my eyes to the dot on hard shots wasn't something I'd be worried about...

[Eyesquared]

The idea of this is to be sure you're target focused and not pulling your eyes to your dot. I was initially confused but then I thought about eye physiology and it makes sense. I've been doing it live and dry for a couple of weeks now. I don't love that I have only my weak eye (literally, my left eye is much worse than right) to pick a spot on the target, but overall it works.

30 min ago during my dry fire practice I came up with a complimentary drill. I was practicing index on target transitions which I sometimes do alternating dot on and dot off reps. I realized that with the dot off you can only focus on the target. So this trains not only how it feels to present and transition the gun purely on proprioception clues and without the dot guidance, but it also trains how it "feels" to be 100% focused.



I listened to a podcast with Sailer recently where he said he was doing that last year on hard shoots. He said he was working on eliminating it this year.
My reaction was slightly different. If I won every area match that I had entered and then the Nationals, maybe pulling my eyes to the dot on hard shots wasn't something I'd be worried about...

I also listened to that podcast and got the impression from some of his phrasing that Christian Sailer is definitely paying attention to what Ben has been saying in this area, which I found very interesting.

I think the issue it causes when you stare at the dot is more of a transition issue, if that makes any sense. When I catch myself staring at the dot I usually have a big overtransition. If I'm not careful it manifests paradoxically in matches where I will wildly over transition onto a 15 yard tuxedo target, but I will have more precise and controlled transitions on 7 yard open targets. I think in theory someone really well drilled in target transitions could get acceptable results tracking the dot on hard shots, but I think at my level it'll be more effective to work both target focus and precise transitions simultaneously rather than focus on doing one.

On the other hand I am really hard pressed to think of any advantage to having the hard focus on the dot. As I understand it, even in the bullseye world the preferred method is to use a target focus with the RDS, therefore I think the sense of security I get from the dot focus on hard shots is really a false sense of security.

[Erick Gelhaus]

<snip> It might be worthwhile taping over your front lens and doing a practice session or two and see what you observe.

Good info, as usual, GJM.

Oddly enough, this does appear to be in the lesson plans for Gunsite's pistol mounted optics classes.

[Caballoflaco]

Just a note; for some people like me the BAC is physiologically impossible. I was born with a bad lazy eye and had a couple of surgeries to fix it as a kid, as well as having to wear an eye patch. My brain missed the developmental window to learn to see stereoscopically. If someone has never been able to see the ‘magic 3D images” that’s a good sign that the BAC won’t work for them.

When I try to shoot with an occluded optic my brain simply switches dominance to the unoccluded eye and doesn’t combine the images. It’s awesome for shooting long guns on either side. Other people will simply see an occluded optic.

[Eric_L]

I followed the advice below during my practice session today. I timed it with tape on and tape off. My times were similar. I am presuming I have a relatively good target focus. I am liking the dot more as I learn more. I run a Glock 17 MOS with ACRO.

It might be worthwhile taping over your front lens and doing a practice session or two and see what you observe.[/QUOTE]

[AMC]

Good info, as usual, GJM.

Oddly enough, this does appear to be in the lesson plans for Gunsite's pistol mounted optics classes.

It's also in the lesson plan for Sig's PMO Instructor class. It was......eye opening.

[HCM]

It's also in the lesson plan for Sig's PMO Instructor class. It was......eye opening.

I believe SIG got it from Aaron Cowan. As Ernest Langdon says the best teachers are the best thieves.

[AMC]

I believe SIG got it from Aaron Cowan. As Ernest Langdon says the best teachers are the best thieves.

Could very well be. Yeah, they were very much in the "absorb what is useful" mode. They've taken a lot from different agencies they've worked with, and instructors they've trained with. Very into the EDIP model that Mike Seeklander uses as well.

[GJM]

I believe SIG got it from Aaron Cowan. As Ernest Langdon says the best teachers are the best thieves.

Dobbs/Bolke told me that Aimpoint has been doing this for years, in their red dot carbine LE training, by closing the front black cap.

[CCT125US]

Monovision correction for the win. I realize I have been doing this for awhile. During a Hackathorn class several years ago, we shot with tape over our sights. Nothing to precisely / traditionally focus on, just an awareness of the interrupted vision.

[Erick Gelhaus]

Dobbs/Bolke told me that Aimpoint has been doing this for years, in their red dot carbine LE training, by closing the front black cap.

It was part of the material taught by Aimpoint's Mil ProStaff in the 00s. I first got it from Pat Rogers. No doubt it had been around before that.

Regardless, some acknowledge or attribute where their material came from. The good news is that with PMOs, there is a lot of cross-pollination.

[HCM]

Dobbs/Bolke told me that Aimpoint has been doing this for years, in their red dot carbine LE training, by closing the front black cap.

Occluded eye aiming is nothing new, it goes back at least to the Normark Single Point sights developed in the 1960s and used in the 1970 Son Tay POW raid.

https://soldiersystems.net/2015/11/19/sof-carbines-comparing-the-son-tay-gau-5aa-and-the-m4a1-cqbr-part-i/

Cowan is the first I’m aware of to apply it to PMO training.

[YVK]

Just a note; for some people like me the BAC is physiologically impossible. I was born with a bad lazy eye and had a couple of surgeries to fix it as a kid, as well as having to wear an eye patch. My brain missed the developmental window to learn to see stereoscopically. If someone has never been able to see the ‘magic 3D images” that’s a good sign that the BAC won’t work for them.

When I try to shoot with an occluded optic my brain simply switches dominance to the unoccluded eye and doesn’t combine the images. It’s awesome for shooting long guns on either side. Other people will simply see an occluded optic.


Have you tried it with a pistol? Only asking because when I did it many years ago with a carbine in Pat Rogers class and I was off the mark by 2 inches at 7 yards. A week ago GJM asked me to shoot some at 25 yards and my first 5 shot group was solidly inside the USPSA target hear box. My second 5 shot group was inside an upper A on all but one shot. Not sure why handgun vs rifle makes the difference for me but it does.

[HCM]

Just a note; for some people like me the BAC is physiologically impossible. I was born with a bad lazy eye and had a couple of surgeries to fix it as a kid, as well as having to wear an eye patch. My brain missed the developmental window to learn to see stereoscopically. If someone has never been able to see the ‘magic 3D images” that’s a good sign that the BAC won’t work for them.

When I try to shoot with an occluded optic my brain simply switches dominance to the unoccluded eye and doesn’t combine the images. It’s awesome for shooting long guns on either side. Other people will simply see an occluded optic.

Occluded shooting and the Bindon Aiming Concept (BAC) are actually not the same thing,

You can largely thank the USMC and the fact that Glen Bindon’s company, Trijicon was theimporter for the South African OEG occluded gunsight for the confusion:

BAC is a technique for tracking moving targets using illuminated reticle and binocular vision. It doesn’t necessarily involve occluded shooting.

[Caballoflaco]

Have you tried it with a pistol? Only asking because when I did it many years ago with a carbine in Pat Rogers class and I was off the mark by 2 inches at 7 yards. A week ago GJM asked me to shoot some at 25 yards and my first 5 shot group was solidly inside the USPSA target hear box. My second 5 shot group was inside an upper A on all but one shot. Not sure why handgun vs rifle makes the difference for me but it does.

I tried it with a handgun a couple years ago and it didn’t really work, but I’ll give it a try again soon in livefire. I’m always up for trying to learn something new.


Occluded shooting and the Bindon Aiming Concept (BAC) are actually not the same thing,

You can largely thank the USMC and the fact that Glen Bindon’s company, Trijicon was theimporter for the South African OEG occluded gunsight for the confusion:

BAC is a technique for tracking moving targets using illuminated reticle and binocular vision. It doesn’t necessarily involve occluded shooting.

Thanks for the correction. Learning has occurred.

[Bergeron]

Not to excessively derail the thread, but Ian over at Forgotten Weapons takes a SBR R5 clone with a OEG to a rifle match, and has thoughts.

R5 with OEG at Rifle Match (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk3MUG0y-5Q)

The performance exceeded expectations, but certain challenges were encountered in firing through narrow ports.

[cornstalker]

Practice with a taped lens could carry over to the streets. If you draw your pistol in a defensive scenario and the lens has more lint in it than your dryer screen, you will already know what to do. :D

[Caballoflaco]

Aaron Cowan talks about another drill/exercise he got from Will Petty for making sure you’re target focused during the draw and while shooting in this video. They will write a word or words on the target and you make sure you can read the words on the target while drawing/presenting and shooting the pistol.

If you don’t have time for the video Aaron was using one word on the target while he said Will would write song lyrics and have target spots interspersed between different words.


https://youtu.be/E6ZkD71-2tQ

[JSGlock34]

Aaron Cowan talks about another drill/exercise he got from Will Petty for making sure you’re target focused during the draw and while shooting in this video. They will write a word or words on the target and you make sure you can read the words on the target while drawing/presenting and shooting the pistol.

If you don’t have time for the video Aaron was using one word on the target while he said Will would write song lyrics and have target spots interspersed between different words.

Interesting - I've been trying to do this by using targets with writing on them and focusing on the numbers/letters.

[AzShooter]

I've been shooting a dot for almost 40 years and the first thing I learned was to concentrate on the target and when the dot hit it go ahead and fire.

I mostly shoot Steel Challenge Matches and it doesn't matter where you are on target, if the dot hits it you will gain a hit. I find that most people are trying to keep the dot steady in the center of the target. This is perfect for Bulleye shooting, even though you can't stop the dot from moving. For steel you have to be comfortable knowing that you don't need MOA, must Minute Of Target.

[Bratch]

Played with this at the range on Thursday.

Observations:

It was work to stay target focused I had to really try to get on target.

All of my shots were low, nice groups but low. Not sure if I was looking over the gun a little to see the target or if it was just something with my eyes and the occlusion.

I was shifting back hard to the dot when the trigger hit the wall. Normal shot was: target, target, press trigger, wall, blackout+bright dot, bang. I think I’m shifting for that last second fine tuning.

I’m going to try and work it dryfire and focus on the PT in the 3x5 on the FAST target.