Tracking Your Front Sight

Good morning everyone. I've been lurking here for some time, and have been impressed with the wealth of knowledge provided. I've been shooting for some time, and thought I was a pretty good shooter, until I started shooting USPSA matches. I became quite competent with the accuracy aspect of shooting before shooting competition, but trying to add speed while not suffering too much accuracy has proven to be challenging for me. My biggest issue that I found was my grip. While I always had the recommended thumbs forward grip, I've realized that just because it looks right, doesn't mean it is right. I've been working on my grip at home for a couple of weeks, and with the help of several articles and videos by various professionals of the industry, realized that I needed more of a vise grip, than the "squeeze as hard as I can" grip. I feel I've finally got the grip figured out to mitigate recoil.

However, I have a question I was hoping to get some opinions on. When you are shooting quickly to get those split times down, we are taught to "track your sights." However, I'm a bit confused as to what this exactly entails. Do you watch your front sight and follow it throughout the recoil process, so in other words, is your hard focus always on the front sight? Or, do you keep your hard focus on the target, and a soft focus on the front sight? In other words, you keep your eyes focused on the target, and press the trigger as the front sight falls back onto your target?

I've tried shooting both methods, and find that I shoot better when I keep my hard focus on the target instead of following the front sight throughout the entire recoil. I'd like to hear some schools of thoughts from others who have more experience than I do on this subject matter. TIA!

What distances, times and target difficulty have you tested this with ?

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Originally Posted by 1slow

What distances, times and target difficulty have you tested this with ?

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Apologies for excluding this info.

Bill Drill
Ten Yards
Hands at Side
Best time with all fist sized A's is 2.89 seconds. I'd like to get his under 2.5, and eventually closer to 2 secs. My draw was 1.32 and splits were around .30. I know both are slow, hence why I'm here trying to improve.

I just started testing this sight picture, so I don't have more stats to present.

Tracking the front sight only means to remain aware of it throughout the process of firing multiple shots, so that you know when the gun is on target (and about to be on target) and can thus proceed with triggering the next shot, and also know when the gun is not on target, so you can wait to fire until it IS back on target.

Whether you have the front sight or the target in sharp and clear visual focus is not the essential issue - that is continuous mental awareness of the front sight/the current degree of gun-target alignment.

Two big ways to do that, though some people do it other ways: sharp focus on the front sight so maximum detail can be seen in the overall sight picture, or letting the front sight be blurry, but with a very bright, high-visibility front sight that is easy to be aware of even though it is blurry.

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Originally Posted by Mr_White

Tracking the front sight only means to remain aware of it throughout the process of firing multiple shots, so that you know when the gun is on target (and about to be on target) and can thus proceed with triggering the next shot, and also know when the gun is not on target, so you can wait to fire until it IS back on target.

Whether you have the front sight or the target in sharp and clear visual focus is not the essential issue - that is continuous mental awareness of the front sight/the current degree of gun-target alignment.

Two big ways to do that, though some people do it other ways: sharp focus on the front sight so maximum detail can be seen in the overall sight picture, or letting the front sight be blurry, but with a very bright, high-visibility front sight that is easy to be aware of even though it is blurry.

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Thank you. This was the type of explanation I was looking for. I find, for me, at targets 15 yards and it, it's easier for me to keep my hard focus on the target, and a soft focus on the front sight.