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Thread: Front Sight Focus Shift Timing

  1. #1

    Front Sight Focus Shift Timing

    At what point in the extension do you shift focus from the target to the front sight post?

    This has been an issue plaguing me recently. Too early of a shift and I find I am hunting for the target toward the end of extension (particularly for small/distant targets). Too late of a shift (occasionally) I find the sights misaligned. I’ve recalled several good shooters mention they pick up the front sight as soon as they can, but this seems to be slowing me down. What am I doing wrong?

    How do you do it? Does it change for different pistols (i.e. a DA where you are taking up slack through the extension vs. a 1911)? Does it change based on target size? Distance?


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  2. #2
    Site Supporter EricM's Avatar
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    This is something I dug into a few years ago, and your comment about "too early of a shift and I find I am hunting for the target toward the end of extension" makes me think that you might be doing something I was doing initially: moving your eye to look at the front sight, then bringing your eye and the sights onto the target spot. Instead, try fixing your vision on the target spot and bringing the sights to your eye. You can shift your plane of focus to where the front sight will be before it gets there without looking away from the spot on the target you want to hit. I put up an illustration toward the end of Mr_White's epic Vision thread to make sure I was being clear when I posed the question there. While I never mastered full independence of convergence and accommodation as discussed in that thread, learning to stay on the target spot was a major milestone for me.

    Regarding target size and distance, there's been some discussion here recently about when front sight focus is really needed, with some very skilled shooters staying target focused much more than might have been expected a few years ago. At least in part this seems to be from folks doing a lot of target-focused red dot shooting, then going back to irons and finding success while staying target focused. The environment, your vision, type of sights, etc. all play a role in whether target focus is sufficient.

  3. #3
    I pick a spot on the target where my vision is focused and as I bring the the gun to that spot I pick up a fuzzy front (fiber optic/hi vis front really shines here) in my peripheral. Visual focus is still the target. As the fuzzy front gets closer or is almost directly at the aiming spot visual focus can start to shift to the front sight.

    For easy targets the visual focus may never shift to the front sight as it is unnecessary. As the target engagement becomes more difficult the visual shift becomes more important.

    The real difference in a easy target presentation vs difficult target transition is the time needed to shift visual focus to the front and the longer time needed for trigger manipulation. The mechanics of the draw do not change.

    As your skills improve less visual sight focus and faster trigger manipulation become possible. You can still align and aim non-focused sights.

  4. #4
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    Never.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gio View Post
    Never.
    Do you stay target focused with iron sights as well as with a dot?

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Le Français View Post
    Do you stay target focused with iron sights as well as with a dot?
    Yes, 100%

  7. #7
    Site Supporter JSGlock34's Avatar
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    Back when I was a 'press-out' practitioner, I would use a slightly muzzle high ready position so I could keep the front sight in my field of view, and would transition to the front sight as soon as I started my extension. Using a high-vis/HD style front sight helped with this immensely.

    One advantage of the press out as a training technique (especially at the beginner to intermediate level) is that it doesn't require a highly developed index, as you are correcting the sight alignment throughout the process of extending the pistol. I found it works very well with DA/SA guns in particular (pretty sure it evolved from shooting such pistols), and I've seen Todd Green and Ernest Langdon use this technique at a very high level and speed.

    Nevertheless, I moved from the press out to an index based draw some time ago, though I've yet to crack the code on consistent target focused shooting. Personally, I think a target focused technique requires an exceptionally developed index to execute, and a strong index - in my experience - requires a ton of practice and repetitions to develop. Being familiar with @Gio's dry fire routine (and work ethic)...well, there's a huge amount of work behind that target focused technique.
    "When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man."

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gio View Post
    Yes, 100%
    May I ask if you started using iron sights that way after you started using dots, or if you did/would use iron sights that way even if you hadn’t started/weren’t using dots?

  9. #9

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Le Français View Post
    May I ask if you started using iron sights that way after you started using dots, or if you did/would use iron sights that way even if you hadn’t started/weren’t using dots?
    I have been shooting pure target focus for 2-3 years now with irons, long before i started seriously training with an rds gun, but I actually started out shooting target focus with decent success when I first learned how to shoot a pistol, then had an LE academy drill “front sight focus” into my head to break me of it. When I really got into competitive shooting I realized how much slower I was with front sight focus, so I started gravitating back toward a target focus and realized I can shoot just as accurately but much faster at any practical handgun distance.
    Last edited by Gio; 08-18-2020 at 07:55 PM.

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