Accuracy vs Focus

[ubervic]

I've been a pistol shooter for a little less than a solid year, after many years as a clay target shooter. I am having trouble with focus as it relates to firing on an average size paper target.

After finding that my shots fired on the average humanoid target would fly all over the place, about 2 months ago I took up firing mostly on 3x5 cards to focus my efforts. Well, the 'aim small, miss small' saying is quite true; I saw a swift increase in shot-placement accuracy. I can now fairly easily hit a 3x5 card at 20 ft. at a 90% success rate, whereas my prior accuracy rating on this standard was in the under 40% range.

But maybe I've been focused too greatly on the small 3x5 card.

I know that I can put a high percentage of rounds on a fairly small target, but I still have trouble when I move back to standard-size targets. It's as if my brain can't grasp a larger target, or my eyes have too large an area, and I find that up to 30% of my shots fly wide if I don't have an 'X' or bullseye to train on. Frustrating.

Is this common, or is this as odd as I think it is?

[fuse]

I've been a pistol shooter for a little less than a solid year, after many years as a clay target shooter. I am having trouble with focus as it relates to firing on an average size paper target.

After finding that my shots fired on the average humanoid target would fly all over the place, about 2 months ago I took up firing mostly on 3x5 cards to focus my efforts. Well, the 'aim small, miss small' saying is quite true; I saw a swift increase in shot-placement accuracy. I can now fairly easily hit a 3x5 card at 20 ft. at a 90% success rate, whereas my prior accuracy rating on this standard was in the under 40% range.

But maybe I've been focused too greatly on the small 3x5 card.

I know that I can put a high percentage of rounds on a fairly small target, but I still have trouble when I move back to standard-size targets. It's as if my brain can't grasp a larger target, or my eyes have too large an area, and I find that up to 30% of my shots fly wide if I don't have an 'X' or bullseye to train on. Frustrating.

Is this common, or is this as odd as I think it is?


I imagine its common. Probably trigger control, or some combination of the fundamentals going to shit.

I occasionally regress and do this also, usually because of trying to 'go fast'.

I see a large target, and starting jerking and slapping the trigger. since its so big. How could I miss? well, I do, and with handgun it is certainly not hard to miss, at any distance when you loose fundamentals.

Funny thing is, when I think about these fundamentals at speed, its not really that much slower. And much faster than missing.

For me it may be a mental laziness type of issue.

[Josh Runkle]

But maybe I've been focused too greatly on the small 3x5 card.

I know that I can put a high percentage of rounds on a fairly small target, but I still have trouble when I move back to standard-size targets. It's as if my brain can't grasp a larger target, or my eyes have too large an area, and I find that up to 30% of my shots fly wide if I don't have an 'X' or bullseye to train on. Frustrating.

Is this common, or is this as odd as I think it is?

The problem may not be your accuracy, it may simply be your speed.

Balance of speed and accuracy, or balance of speed and precision would dictate that if you have the ability to make precision shots, yet you are missing, you should slow down. If you have a super small group on a large target, you would speed up.

I think this is probably a case where your confidence level is very high from shooting a smaller target (but very slowly), and when you have a much larger target, your confidence level is so high, that you are shooting too quickly.

Obviously, (if we're referring to training for defensive shooting, or a sport that involves speed) when we can, we want to shoot as quickly as possible. The key part here is "when we can", and if we "cannot", and find ourselves constantly missing, the first thing we should do is begin to slow down slightly.

[Josh Runkle]

I imagine its common. Probably trigger control, or some combination of the fundamentals going to shit.

I occasionally regress and do this also, usually because of trying to 'go fast'.

I see a large target, and starting jerking and slapping the trigger. since its so big. How could I miss? well, I do, and with handgun it is certainly not hard to miss, at any distance when you loose fundamentals.

Funny thing is, when I think about these fundamentals at speed, its not really that much slower. And much faster than missing.

For me it may be a mental laziness type of issue.

Nice. I was typing while you wrote, not trying to copy you. :cool:

[ubervic]

The problem may not be your accuracy, it may simply be your speed.

...I think this is probably a case where your confidence level is very high from shooting a smaller target (but very slowly), and when you have a much larger target, your confidence level is so high, that you are shooting too quickly.

What's odd is that I have a very high confidence level while aiming on the small target, as I can drill it with speed. I run shots on the larger target no more quickly, yet the accuracy plummets like a rock in water.

It's as though I can fill a bird-size object full of lead, so to speak, and rounds land within inches of each other; yet when I fire on a human-sized paper target, the rounds land all over. Counter-intuitive...

[Simon]

It seems to me that your focus is on the entire target. When you shoot clays you focus on the entire bird, but you don't have sights on a shot gun.

With a pistol you should focus on the front sight, while looking through the rear sight at the center of your target regardless of the size of your target.

[John Ralston]

Are you picking a spot on the larger target to aim at, or is the larger target your "Bullseye"? If it is the latter, try focussing on the center of the available area and not the whole area.

***Simon beat me to it***

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

[MDS]

I used to have this problem. It went away when I started trying to aim for "stopping" shots - even if the target isn't humanoid. In the spirit of "aim small, miss small," I figure if you aim for the COM you'll hit the target, if you aim for the heart you'll hit the COM - so I aim for the left-most leaflet of the aortic valve. ;)

[gringop]

As other have said, pick your aiming point. I said point, not circle, dot, 3x5 card, but point. Find a spot, mark one if you need to, on the target and use that to focus on when you draw or transition to that target.

Your eyes, and consequently your brain, will use that when aligning your sights.

Gringop

[ubervic]

I will work on taking this good input and putting it to use next time I go to the range.

I think that around 20% of my problem is my old (shotgun) training/habit of ignoring the sights (beads) on the barrel, placing 100% sharp focus on the bird. I'd thought that I had overcome that tendency but now think that I still have a ways to go.

I'm pretty sure that 80% of my issue is not focusing on a specific 'point' to begin with. Now that I have pinpointed that issue I'm confident I can improve on that quickly.

[WDW]

Your problem is you are focusing on the target and not on the front sight. No matter how big your target is, a human, an elephant, a 3x5 card, it should never be any bigger than your front sight. Once you can acquire, maintain, and focus on a proper sight alignment and sight picture, it doesn't matter how big or small your target is, your gonna hit it.