Speed and Trigger Control - Epiphany

[rjohnson4405]

I had never worked on low probability targets at speed. I could hit them if I had ten full seconds to aim, but not if you put me on the timer.

Just a case of you don't know what you don't know I think.

I had practiced pure accuracy (no time limit) shooting and timed shooting (nothing smaller than 3x5 card), but never timed, accurate shooting.

I think there was a point in my shooting learning process where I should have picked this up, not right at the beginning, but not this late in the game either.

[Al T.]

Here's RL's interview:

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2...stol-shooting/

[John Hearne]

Do you personally make a "perfect" trigger pull every time or do you sacrifice a good pull for some speed sometimes?

I hadn't thought about it until you asked the question but I'd say I use three degrees of trigger control.

The highest level of control is what I use to shoot the FBI bullseye course. You literally want to feel the sear slowly working its way out of the notch in the hammer.

The lowest is what I use up close and it's all about speed. I'm not worried about reset or removing any slack - it's just constant back and forth on the trigger. I suspect that I'm relying on a very strong grip to keep the gun stable enough to maintain acceptable group despite the extra oomph on the trigger.

The one in the middle is the toughest for me. At this level, I'm working my trigger reset, taking the slack out, and not wanging on the trigger but trying to be quick about it.

It seems that shots which require a lot of trigger control are easy to figure out and we can figure out when we can wang the trigger - it's knowing when to split the difference that's hard.

I utterly agree with Todd's statement that when in doubt, use more than you think you need. In real life you need to guarantee the hit and the best way to do that is to have a bit more sights and trigger than you think you need. In competition, using too little may cost you a point or three. In real life, too little can be a clean miss on a partial target, an innocent injured, or the complete waste of time and ammo on ineffective hits.

[rjohnson4405]

Here's RL's interview:

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2...stol-shooting/

Great interview, pretty much exactly what John Hearne was talking about.

I like having things broken down explicitly like that for me.

It seems there are three categories if you could break all shots into three groups, I think I'm going to call it shooting theory (of course I'm not the first one to think of these things, quit raining on my parade):

- Get a good grip

- Crusher grip where it doesn't matter if gun is shaking as long as it's stable
- As tight as can be held without causing tremor
- Holding tight enough to maintain sight picture and not drop the gun

- Get the necessary sight picture

- No sight picture, looking over top
- Sight picture anywhere on current target (8 inch circle, 3x5 card)
- Perfect sight picture in the middle of target (bullseye)

- Make the correct trigger pull

- No trigger control
- Minimum necessary trigger control to hit target
- Extreme trigger control (pure accuracy/group size focus)