Anticipating the shot

I have been shooting for awhile and have shot a lot of different calibers both rifle and pistol. My question is, what is the best in avoiding anticipating the shot, in “jerking” the gun?There are times I don’t do it and times I do do it. Thanks for any advice.

I can't say "best way" as I still struggle with this at times as well. Helpful to me is focusing on a clean trigger press followed by a second sight picture. It's a mental thing that helps me skip right over the "event" of the explosion and recoil. I also concentrate on trying to see my sights all of the way through a recoil pulse. A short clip of a sight tracking "movie" as Gabe White calls it.

I am sure there will be much more educated and experienced responses following shortly, but there's a couple of things that help me.

My simple answer for shooting a handgun is to learn to build the correct, strong grip and then learn to rapidly commit to your trigger manipulation.

There are much more complicated answers, too. :cool:

In my journey with learning the DA trigger on my Sig 226/229, one thing I realized was the need to work with the recoil (accept it, manage it) versus trying to stop it.
I shot a lot of single DA shots, sometimes with a very relaxed grip (hands, forearms, shoulders) and combined that with what seemed like a quick trigger press, with no concern for the recoil, and found that my accuracy was surprisingly excellent, granted that doesn’t apply to realistic shooting conditions. I guess the key was to ‘focus on the process, and not the outcome’...thanks @Mr_White

I heard Ernest Langdon say recently, in regards to anticipation/flinching...”we all do it”...so that made me feel a little better.

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Originally Posted by Jay Cunningham

rapidly commit to your trigger manipulation.

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I don't understand what you're saying here. Could you elaborate please?

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Originally Posted by BangBang

I have been shooting for awhile and have shot a lot of different calibers both rifle and pistol. My question is, what is the best in avoiding anticipating the shot, in “jerking” the gun?There are times I don’t do it and times I do do it. Thanks for any advice.

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If you are shooting a single shot, you need to train yourself to relax and let the gun recoil. Watch the sight lift. If this is hard for you, dryfire, ball-and-dummy, .22, and double ear pro may be helpful.

If you are shooting multiple shots, and of course need to bring the sight back on target, and you have anticipation issues, that's different. I've pasted a post from a different thread:

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Originally Posted by Clusterfrack

You need to use your muscles to return the gun to the target after the first shot. This should happen after the first shot is fired and before the second one. So, there's some critical timing that has to happen. That gets tricky when you try to shoot fast splits, like in the doubles drill. As you're learning to do this, sometimes the timing is wrong and you fire after you push the gun down, or you fire before the gun returns. This isn't a flinch. It's part of the learning process. As you develop your grip, stance, and relaxation, the amount of force needed gets smaller, and it starts to feel like "just letting the recoil happen".

Here's a quote from Hwansik: "Most pistols have a high bore axis. Mixing in physics, when we fire the gun, there will be an upward force created by the leverage related to the bore axis and the grip axis. If the operator doesn’t push the gun down, the gun will stop higher than the original spot after a shot."

There's some really good info about this on the PSTG, but it's behind a paywall.
https://www.practicalshootingtrainin...urement-drill/

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Originally Posted by BangBang

My question is, what is the best in avoiding anticipating the shot, in “jerking” the gun?

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I've two observations. First is that this thing never goes away, regardless of skill etc. Top guys learned how to minimize it or it happens with them at much higher difficulty tasks but I don't think you can ever graduate out of it. So just get used to idea that it will always be there to some extent.

Second is that there is really no answer to what is the best. It is a mental thing translated into a physical action, so whatever mental or physical trick works for you, that's the best. Relaxing the strong hand, using C-clamp vs U clamp, relaxing mentally, concentrating on sights or trigger press process, I personally try to use them all.

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Originally Posted by Cypher

I don't understand what you're saying here. Could you elaborate please?

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Take a look here:

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....l=1#post254303

This touches on a lot. If after reading through this you have additional questions, fire away.

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Originally Posted by Jay Cunningham

Take a look here:

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....l=1#post254303

This touches on a lot. If after reading through this you have additional questions, fire away.

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That was the second piece of advice you gave me and I have to tell you that once I quit trying to have a surprise break I quit flinching.

So thank you for that

Lots of dryfire keeps me from doing it.