How to improve follow-up shot accuracy?

[ASH556]

So I was doing some training with a buddy that's active duty in a special ninja unit and has been to several special ninja schools, some paid for by work and some he's done on his own. He's been an avid shooter for the 13 years that I've known him seeking professional training the whole time. I said to him that I needed to work on multiple target transitions with a pistol after completely butchering a 10 yd plate rack @ our last 3gun match (15 rounds, which included a reload, for 6 plates....ugggh!)

He commented to me that until I could manage recoil well enough to put 5 rounds inside a softball @ 5 yds in under 1 second, that there was not point in introducing the multiple targets. So, I shot 5 or 6 5-shot groups. Times were in the .9's. Group size was fine L-R, but with vertical stringing that edged the group out to being more the size of a Nalgene bottle (7-8" tall x 3-4" wide). I talked to him about what I was doing, trying to track the sights, etc and he says he believes it's more a grip and trigger issue. I talked to another shooter (rimfire steel world champion) and he suggested relaxing the elbows more to act as shock absorbers and keep the pistol flatter vs creating the pivot point on the backstrap/beaver tail area that's induced with firmer arms.

Is this just a "try it and see" sort of thing or are there some proven methods? What techniques, for instance, are applied when killing a Bill Drill (same skillset I'd imagine)? I'd imagine that using a .22lr to practice this would be a waste of time because there's not as much recoil to manage. Is this true or false? I guess I'm looking for a more useful alternative to just burning through 1,000 rounds of 9mm hoping to get it right.

Thanks!

[okie john]

So I was doing some training with a buddy that's active duty in a special ninja unit and has been to several special ninja schools, some paid for by work and some he's done on his own. He's been an avid shooter for the 13 years that I've known him seeking professional training the whole time. I said to him that I needed to work on multiple target transitions with a pistol after completely butchering a 10 yd plate rack @ our last 3gun match (15 rounds, which included a reload, for 6 plates....ugggh!)

He commented to me that until I could manage recoil well enough to put 5 rounds inside a softball @ 5 yds in under 1 second, that there was not point in introducing the multiple targets. So, I shot 5 or 6 5-shot groups. Times were in the .9's. Group size was fine L-R, but with vertical stringing that edged the group out to being more the size of a Nalgene bottle (7-8" tall x 3-4" wide). I talked to him about what I was doing, trying to track the sights, etc and he says he believes it's more a grip and trigger issue. I talked to another shooter (rimfire steel world champion) and he suggested relaxing the elbows more to act as shock absorbers and keep the pistol flatter vs creating the pivot point on the backstrap/beaver tail area that's induced with firmer arms.

Is this just a "try it and see" sort of thing or are there some proven methods? What techniques, for instance, are applied when killing a Bill Drill (same skillset I'd imagine)? I'd imagine that using a .22lr to practice this would be a waste of time because there's not as much recoil to manage. Is this true or false? I guess I'm looking for a more useful alternative to just burning through 1,000 rounds of 9mm hoping to get it right.

Thanks!

Your ninja buddy is probably in superb physical condition with a lot of upper body strength and grip strength. He may be taking that for granted, and those things do a lot to help you control handgun recoil.

After training with Pat McNamara a few years ago, I took a hard look at everything I was doing and realized that I needed to lose a lot of weight and spend a lot more time in the gym. It took a long time and a lot of sweat, but those things worked wonders. In fact, I'd recommend an all-around strength training program for anyone looking to improve handgun skills--long before making any mods to the gun.

Most people can handle recoil for a few dozen rounds, but not for the long sessions that it takes to get good. They start to get tired and they anticipate recoil, so they flinch and throw shots. To get ahead of that, you'll want to tune up your entire body, with focus on your core and on every muscle from your spine to your fingertips, including hands and fingers. You don't need a gym for pushups, chin-ups, and sit-ups, and you can improvise farmer's walks, curls, flys, etc. in the typical suburban garage. If you have access to a gym, then you'll probably see faster results overall. I had a lot of luck using a cable machine to strengthen the specific muscles that help control recoil. You can also build strength in each arm/hand individually without having to blast thousands of rounds downrange.


Okie John

[EricM]

My take is I'd be more concerned about spending 15 rounds on a plate rack than taking X seconds to clear it. I've read your 25 yard thread, so I have no doubt if someone gave you 6 rounds and no time limit you could clear the rack every time. So to me it's a matter of not pulling the trigger unless you have a good sight picture. That way you'll get your hits now, and as your recoil management improves (if it's even that much of a problem to start with) you'll automatically get faster. If I miss a plate, I have caught myself just pulling the trigger again without correcting my sight picture, and/or shifting focus to the target, looking at the plate that didn't fall which doesn't help even if I do try to refine my sight picture.

Mr_White posted a useful tip in my training journal: "Using paper targets to simulate steel can work really well. You really want to call the shot based on sight picture, but with actual steel it can be challenging to not call the shot by hearing the ding. Paper arranged to simulate steel gets rid of that issue." I haven't had a chance to do that yet in live fire, but I did recently spend quite a bit of time dry firing a paper plate rack in my basement with my SIRT and found it very beneficial when it came time to shoot the real thing in a match last weekend. I shot the plates better than I ever had before, though there was still one out of eight runs where I just got stupid, let my focus slip, and ended up leaving two plates standing (10 rounds, no reload). The other seven runs though I was pretty proud of given my prior history with plate racks.

[GJM]

For someone who can shoot small groups at 25 yards, the issue isn't the ability to align the sights and work the trigger. The issue is aligning the sights and working the trigger under time pressure, knowing how much aligning and working you need to do. It is the same problem each of us, shooting with time pressure, struggles with.

I think rules of thumb, like your buddy proposed, are the polar opposite of figuring out exactly what YOU need to do with your skill set, experience, body, etc.

[Mr_White]

I would try to get more visual and mental awareness of what the sights are doing as you are firing. If you were seeing vertical stringing, but not horizontal, your grip is probably fine and is confining the gun's movement to the vertical axis. High shots are usually being impatient with the sight picture and not waiting for the front sight to get level with the rear sight, or conceivably heeling the gun with your strong hand or pulling up with your support hand. Low shots are coarseness in the trigger press, or muscling the gun (overdriving it out of recoil) or maybe sympathetic flexing in your strong hand fingers.

I'd concentrate on vision/shot calling/sight tracking, and trigger press. If you pay visual and mental attention to the sights in motion, you will know when you are firing high or low shots, because you will see it happening, and can probably then figure out exactly why you are doing it. Plus you need a quality trigger press at speed to fire good shots in accordance with the speed the sights are moving.

For a plate rack, you need to move the gun to the target, stop the gun on target, shoot a hit, move the gun to the next target, stop the gun, shoot a hit, etc. Lots of misses on a plate rack are probably going to come down to core fundamentals - either not getting the gun aligned with the target (awareness or impatience issue) or disturbing the gun while you pull the trigger (bad press, anticipation, adding motion, etc.)

[41magfan]

In addition to all the good stuff you’ve already been given, you might also try this; it helps me establish a rhythm for the transitions involved in shooting the plate rack.

In a fashion similar to shooting a Bill Drill 2; on the start signal engage just 1 plate. At the next start signal, shoot 2 plates, on the next signal shoot 3 plates, etc. Keep adding a plate until you’ve engaged the whole bank. If you miss at any point, start over.

I have the luxury of four banks of plates so I just shuffle a little bit instead of having to constantly reset plates, but irrespective of the distraction I find it worth the effort.

[ASH556]

This is all a lot of very good info, thanks guys! I'm working to digest it. I feel frustrated at the place I'm in right now where if I slow down a little I get hits no problem, but when I try to push for speed it falls apart. I guess you overcome that by pushing until the wheels fall off and then taking one step back. Eventually the threshold moves forward, right?

[ASH556]

If I miss a plate, I have caught myself just pulling the trigger again without correcting my sight picture, and/or shifting focus to the target, looking at the plate that didn't fall which doesn't help even if I do try to refine my sight picture.

This is definitely a factor. I remember looking at the plate and being like "WTF, fall down." Well, duh, you need to be looking at your sights, dummy, not the plate.

[Surf]

I would try to get more visual and mental awareness of what the sights are doing as you are firing. If you were seeing vertical stringing, but not horizontal, your grip is probably fine and is confining the gun's movement to the vertical axis. High shots are usually being impatient with the sight picture and not waiting for the front sight to get level with the rear sight, or conceivably heeling the gun with your strong hand or pulling up with your support hand. Low shots are coarseness in the trigger press, or muscling the gun (overdriving it out of recoil) or maybe sympathetic flexing in your strong hand fingers.

I'd concentrate on vision/shot calling/sight tracking, and trigger press. If you pay visual and mental attention to the sights in motion, you will know when you are firing high or low shots, because you will see it happening, and can probably then figure out exactly why you are doing it. Plus you need a quality trigger press at speed to fire good shots in accordance with the speed the sights are moving.

For a plate rack, you need to move the gun to the target, stop the gun on target, shoot a hit, move the gun to the next target, stop the gun, shoot a hit, etc. Lots of misses on a plate rack are probably going to come down to core fundamentals - either not getting the gun aligned with the target (awareness or impatience issue) or disturbing the gun while you pull the trigger (bad press, anticipation, adding motion, etc.)

There is good info here and Mr. White expresses my feelings on this topic very well. Vision and sight tracking is a big component. As mentioned vertical only stringing says that your grip is solid and the weapon does not have horizontal tracking to deal with. Now you need to get the vertical issue worked out. Hard front sight focus and shooting in a cadence or rhythm helps to train the eye to see what the sights are doing in relation to what issue you are having that is the cause of the stringing. For many it is just not enough focus on the sight and too much target focus mixed into it, or as Mr. White explains there are other reasons.

Getting that worked out will help. Next you need to really work on training yourself on your vision and target transitions. Meaning that once the sight picture is acquired and the trigger is pulled, you need to get yourself to start your eyes and vision to track to the next target while you use the weapons recoil to aid in moving or "bouncing" the weapon to the next target. This is a bit counterintuitive to the whole concept of follow through which is often very much ingrained in many bullseye or precision shooters. You will have eyes on the next target as the weapon recoils and moves into your line of sight. This helps in being more accurate where the weapon stops as opposed to bringing the eyes and weapon at about the same time, which is where guys who use a lot of follow through have problems.

So again sight tracking is key, but eye movement and using the weapons recoil to move the weapon from target to target will also help once you get into increasing your speeds when the hits are there. Of course you need the hits first.

This cadence drill has been something we have been using for many many years. Seems that some people are recently within the last couple years are discovering this and there is some controversy over using it, or more so why it is being used and the fixes are a debate. But if you use the drill as a purpose driven drill to work on certain aspects of your shooting like sight tracking and trigger control it works wonders. Some use a vertical and horizontal axis, but by doing it as a simple variation of a one hole drill it does the same thing as you will see horizontal or vertical deviation in one drill.

The next progression to the cadence drill is to set up something like a dot drill or multiple circles or and go back and forth. I generally start with 2 targets with 5 inch circles and one inch center and set them up on the same target backer about 18" apart and I work on tracking the sights from target to target and "bouncing" the weapon. Now I am training the eyes to ignore follow through and get to the next target during the recoil phase. I use the momentum of recoil to initiate the target to target movement of the weapon. I like to go back and forth as many people often train just going in one direction left to right or right to left only. Once I get the eyes working well laterally I add more targets. I will also go up and down, so on the repair target in the video below I would transition back and forth between the upper box and center circle. I don't have a video on this target transition drill but it is simple enough in concept, but be strict with the eyes movement first and bringing the weapon into the line of sight on the target. Simple enough concepts that we probably already know but often get sloppy about, so drills designed to reinforce these skills are a good reminder for us.

[EricM]

This is definitely a factor. I remember looking at the plate and being like "WTF, fall down." Well, duh, you need to be looking at your sights, dummy, not the plate.

Exactly what runs through my mind when that happens, though I tend to include more profanity.

While my ability to call my shots at speed slowly matures, I've been thinking about how in the meantime to best handle a plate that doesn't go down. Ideally of course, you don't miss...the next best thing is knowing you missed without listening for the ding or watching the plate...perhaps the next best thing after that is realizing you didn't hear the ding while your sights are settling on the next plate, at which point you make sure you're focused on the front sight and have a good enough sight picture so you don't compound the problem by missing this one too, and you make a mental note to go back at the end to pick up the initial miss. When things are going well, the front sight lifts on one plate and comes back down on the next, so it seems like it interrupts your rhythm more to go back and correct the mistake immediately. I hadn't really made a plan in advance of how to handle this, but looking back things worked out when doing what I just described and it felt like my transition at the end to the missed plate was barely different from the rest. Thoughts from the more experienced shooters?