Freestyle shooting at 25 yds revisited

[Francis]

I was questioning the one at 11:00. Apparently I need someone else to score my target that knows what they're doing. I guess I've left my mark as a moron in this thread. I feel very foolish.

No need to feel that way. That's good shootin'. And everybody miscalculates now and then. @JohnO 's tip is new to me, so I learned something from this little discussion. So thank you for your post.

[Francis]

More 25 yd work today. First string had a paper size group with a miss. Here's string 2 and 3 with PRVI 124 and a drive the dot POA. I have no idea why the 3rd string group is so far right. Usually my shots are grouped to the left like that.

The line at the 12 o'clock shot in the 10 ring is a stray mark, so not part of 3rd string.

[JHC]

I was questioning the one at 11:00. Apparently I need someone else to score my target that knows what they're doing. I guess I've left my mark as a moron in this thread. I feel very foolish.

Naw I've done exactly the same thing. I just caught the mistake and got it edited before the edit clock ran out. Actually I've probably posted a mis-score a couple times. Whoa, it's a panic attack until hitting save on the Edit. Funny how we are like that.

[Matt O]

I was questioning the one at 11:00. Apparently I need someone else to score my target that knows what they're doing. I guess I've left my mark as a moron in this thread. I feel very foolish.

Don’t worry about it man. It is good shooting and you were understandably happy with your performance. We’ve all made similar unintentional errors.


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[Clobbersaurus]

I was questioning the one at 11:00. Apparently I need someone else to score my target that knows what they're doing. I guess I've left my mark as a moron in this thread. I feel very foolish.

No need man, 10 in the black is huge, and 97-3X is outstanding shooting!

[psalms144.1]

I don't know what I was thinking. I scored this wrong. 97?/3X I was so satisfied with 10 in the black I thought it was perfect.

Dave - 97 or 100 - that's WAY good shooting. I don't think I've done better more than a small handful of times in my life, and then with 1911s and tuned handloads. Great work, brother!

[ASH556]

I had an interesting experience during dry fire that led me to think that how hard I grip the gun may be compromising my trigger finger isolation. So the next time I went to the range, I put up a target with multiple bullseyes (B-8 dimensions without the X ring). I shot two 10-shot groups freestyle at 25 yards, the top one with my normal shooting grip, the bottom one with much less grip pressure in my strong hand (maybe 20-30% of normal). No change to my support hand grip. I shot both groups at the same time, alternating shots and resting in a compressed high ready between pairs, and even went AB, BA, AB, BA to make the comparison as even as possible. The bottom group is the best centerfire group I've ever shot. This was with a Walther P99 AS.

So...does this suggest I should apply less pressure with my strong hand, or that I need to learn to better isolate my trigger finger while maintaining the same pressure? I do not know to what extent the lack of "true" isolation I observed is based on anatomy (cannot be changed) vs. habitual patterns of movement (can be learned). Need to do some research.

Today was a good day for me at the range. This target marks the first time I put all ten in the black. This is not a great accomplishment for most of you guys but it is for me. I repeated it once more with ten rounds and once with the 8 rounds I had left at the end of the day. After reading @EricM post here I decided to try what he did. That was to increase my weak hand grip and slack off my strong hand grip for what I hoped would be less sight disturbance on the trigger break and it worked for me as well as it did for him. I thought "more weak hand, less strong hand" on every shot and it helped. I'm stoked!

First and foremost, good on both of you for getting out and putting the time in to work and learn something! That's the greatest thing you can do to improve skill!

That being said, I'll caution you from my own experience about the path you're going down. I made the same discovery you both did a few years ago that by relaxing my dominant hand and increasing tension with my support hand that I could shrink my groups. However, 2 things eventually happened:

1. I hit a plateau on my group size shrink
2. My ability to control the gun at speed went down the drain.

This is where I get back up on my "neutral grip" soap box seen here (among other places): https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....l=1#post586360

You can (and should) learn to develop a grip that will provide you with great precision at distance and also great presentation consistency and recoil mitigation. That is the place of grip zen. The problem is, nobody can teach it. You have to figure it out yourself with rounds on paper. @karmapolice and I have both been down this road. Both of us paid good money to stand in front of a world-renowned instructor to have him tell us, "yep, your grip looks good" only to find out later that it really wasn't.

Sight alignment has to be good, trigger press has to be good, grip has to be good. You can fudge one of the three and still get by, but when you get all 3 working together, that's when you'll really hit your stride.

[SC_Dave]

First and foremost, good on both of you for getting out and putting the time in to work and learn something! That's the greatest thing you can do to improve skill!

That being said, I'll caution you from my own experience about the path you're going down. I made the same discovery you both did a few years ago that by relaxing my dominant hand and increasing tension with my support hand that I could shrink my groups. However, 2 things eventually happened:

1. I hit a plateau on my group size shrink
2. My ability to control the gun at speed went down the drain.

This is where I get back up on my "neutral grip" soap box seen here (among other places): https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....l=1#post586360

You can (and should) learn to develop a grip that will provide you with great precision at distance and also great presentation consistency and recoil mitigation. That is the place of grip zen. The problem is, nobody can teach it. You have to figure it out yourself with rounds on paper. @karmapolice and I have both been down this road. Both of us paid good money to stand in front of a world-renowned instructor to have him tell us, "yep, your grip looks good" only to find out later that it really wasn't.

Sight alignment has to be good, trigger press has to be good, grip has to be good. You can fudge one of the three and still get by, but when you get all 3 working together, that's when you'll really hit your stride.

Thanks Ash, I'll be working on the "neutral" grip tomorrow to see how it like me.

[GLB]

Shaking off the rust with a new G19. Head shots were from the holster, draw 1 shot x10. All at 25 yards. Finally can get out without wearing ice cleats.

[HopetonBrown]

I was questioning the one at 11:00. Apparently I need someone else to score my target that knows what they're doing. I guess I've left my mark as a moron in this thread. I feel very foolish.

I keep one of these in my wallet.

https://www.doublealpha.biz/daa-ipsc-overlay-gauge