Week 171: Press Six Hundred

[scw2]

Continuing to work this drill. I think one thing that I've notice that carried over into live fire is just getting better hits at distance. 25+ yards now seems much easier. I think it's a function of using the 1" target in dry fire, watching sights more carefully in dry fire, and more SHO trigger manipulation to really isolate that skill. Will continue to work this, but not sure whether I'll get any more insights beyond just improving more.

The biggest unknown to me is whether this is helping or will help with shot calling. Tried a bit today and really struggled shooting at targets from 25 yards away, but on 2" dots at 3 yards at a slower pace I could track it pretty well. I think I'm just more relaxed at closer distances, and more "focused" at longer distances, which ends up causing me to blink more when I shoot...

[Mr_White]

The biggest unknown to me is whether this is helping or will help with shot calling

I think it can help with shot calling, as long as your judgment of the dry fire shot quality is sound. That's something that you do have to develop in live fire though. The basic judgment I find myself making in dry fire is "doubt" or "no doubt" about the quality of the hit. If there is any doubt about the quality of the shot, then there is no doubt - it was not good enough.

[Mickey]

Equipment used: Glock 34

I did this drill over three days here are my observations over this period.

Day 1
Things that I noticed I still duck my head Down during Dry Fire. This "turtling" was putting a pretty good strain in my neck. It served as a reminder to bring the pistol up to my line of sight, not duck down to the sights. I noticed that the more I focused on the front sight the steadier my sights were. Meaning if I was more target focused the sights appeared to be more shaky. When I focused on the front sight the small shakes went away and only the wobble of the front sights remained.

Day 2
A lot less fatiguing than the 1" target, I probably did quite a few more than required. Still caught myself trying to "Turtle" to the sights, but I caught that pretty early into practice. I noticed that I had a better trigger press during SHO if I sank my finger further onto the trigger. I will have to test that out during live fire.

Day3
Tonight was the 2" circle target, so not as fatiguing as the 1" square. I can tell this drill came along at the right time for me I needed to get a lot of SHO, WHO dry fire in.I tried to to turtle tonight and raised the sights up to my eyes. It still seems strange to bring the pistol up, I feel like someone trying to shoot with bifocals. I tried to keep my trigger finger almost to the top of the trigger. I seemed to have more consistent results with my finger there.
I will see if it makes a difference in live fire.

[GMSweet]

First time DotW poster!

Equipment used: Sig P320C

Observations: I tried something different for myself; I used a metronome to see where the wheels came off. I started freestyle at 60bpm; 1 good press per second. Yup, slow is smooth...and slow. This was easy to maintain and helped develop a rhythm. I stepped it up to 120bpm to get .50 splits into my groove. This showed my a bit of steering from my support side thumb. I worked on isolating my thumb so it was laying against the slide and not pressing the muzzle from side to side. I also used this speed to exaggerate what happens with too much or too little trigger finger. Next it was on to 240bpm for simulated .25 splits. Not enough strong side palm behind the gun. I would have had a lot of low-left shots on target. I re-grouped and re-gripped but by this time, my forearms were getting tired. I have no idea how many trigger presses I had in at this time.

Strong hand only results were okay'ish at 60bpm followed by more movement than I wanted at 120bpm.

Weak hand only were, well, weak.

I'll be returning to this drill, what's the popular word around here? Oh yeah. Soon!