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Thread: Mantis question

  1. #1

    Mantis question

    I've been practicing with the Mantis X for a few weeks now, and I am not a good enough shooter (well, dry firer) to be sure how to evaluate something. It appears to me that when I complete the trigger press promptly at the end of the presentation (more or less the way I understand Ernest Langdon to teach it), the Mantis invariably gives me a lowish shot rating. But I very often see these as excellent shots. So I'm wondering if the Mantis is picking up on the remnants of the presentation motion and reading that as motion caused by the trigger press and correspondingly dropping my score. Does that question make sense?

    I am sure that the answer is at least in part to go out and check this in live fire, to get a sense for whether the shots seeming good to me is borne out by the targets. But of course live fire these days is a depressingly expensive activity and I was really hoping the Mantis would decrease, temporarily, my need to dry fire. So I'm hoping someone here has been through this and is willing to help a hack out. Thanks!
    O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason.

  2. #2
    Member GearFondler's Avatar
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    I haven't used the Mantis so I can't answer your question. What I can say is I've watched YT vids of the Mantis in action and the shots with "good" pulls vs "bad" pulls did not seem to correlate with shot placement. The shooter was putting rounds more or less on target regardless of how the Mantis scored the trigger pull. So maybe there's some minutia there that I don't understand or maybe I just don't know what I don't know. All I can say is I was left wondering how much it could really help me.

  3. #3
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    Try the compressed surprise break but start the drill already pointing at your target. The moment you hear the beep, pull the trigger as fast as you can.

    If the scores you are seeing are roughly the same as the ones you're concerned about, then that means it's your trigger pull.

    If the scores are dramatically better, then it's possible that the Mantis is picking up the remnants of your presentation.

    I used the MantisX in the beginning of my shooting journey and worked on only two things: (1) trigger press given unlimited time and (2) surprise trigger break.

    My 100 shot averages were 95+/90+ respectively. After that, I felt I got all that I needed from the product and gave it away.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Glock26 View Post
    Try the compressed surprise break but start the drill already pointing at your target. The moment you hear the beep, pull the trigger as fast as you can.

    If the scores you are seeing are roughly the same as the ones you're concerned about, then that means it's your trigger pull.

    If the scores are dramatically better, then it's possible that the Mantis is picking up the remnants of your presentation.
    Thanks! I will definitely pay more attention to that comparison.

    I used the MantisX in the beginning of my shooting journey and worked on only two things: (1) trigger press given unlimited time and (2) surprise trigger break.

    My 100 shot averages were 95+/90+ respectively. After that, I felt I got all that I needed from the product and gave it away.
    I'm doing mostly those two things, but also working with the hostage drills because I have just made the switch to appendix carry and I need to do a lot of work on the draw. I will say that so far I have found the Mantis quite helpful because I evidently have ingrained a habit of allowing my trigger wrist to break downwards during the trigger press. Not a huge amount, but enough so that I regularly drop shots out of the IDPA A zone when shooting at 10 yards at speed. This was mystifying to me until the Mantis kept telling me I was breaking my wrist downwards. I didn't believe it for awhile. I suspect that this plays a role in the problems I described in the OP, but I'm not sure. I'm not super good at observing my sight movement and such, partly I think because my old person vision causes me some difficulty.
    O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Moylan View Post
    Thanks! I will definitely pay more attention to that comparison.


    I'm doing mostly those two things, but also working with the hostage drills because I have just made the switch to appendix carry and I need to do a lot of work on the draw. I will say that so far I have found the Mantis quite helpful because I evidently have ingrained a habit of allowing my trigger wrist to break downwards during the trigger press. Not a huge amount, but enough so that I regularly drop shots out of the IDPA A zone when shooting at 10 yards at speed. This was mystifying to me until the Mantis kept telling me I was breaking my wrist downwards. I didn't believe it for awhile. I suspect that this plays a role in the problems I described in the OP, but I'm not sure. I'm not super good at observing my sight movement and such, partly I think because my old person vision causes me some difficulty.
    Video yourself in slow motion mode on your phone’s camera to verify what the mantis is saying. Seeing is believing.

    This video by Chuck Pressburg will help with the wrist break issue aka pre-ignition push aka the flinches.



    Re: the Mantis - it is basically an accelerometer which attaches to your gun and talks to your phone via blue tooth. As G26 mentioned it’s good for certain things, particularly trigger control and accuracy but it needs to be balanced with dry timer training or it can make you slow.

  6. #6
    Deadeye Dick Clusterfrack's Avatar
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    Mantis question

    @Moylan, what @HCM said is a very good suggestion. In my experience, pre-ignition push “pushing down on the gun” is by far the most common reason people don’t hit what they are aiming at. If the impact is more than a few inches off target, this is the likely answer.

    Edit: I bet it’s not happening at the wrist. Arms, shoulders, and even body are more common ways to push the gun.
    Last edited by Clusterfrack; 02-15-2021 at 04:22 PM.
    "You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
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  7. #7
    Thanks to you both. The problem on paper amounts to shots on IDPA targets being very close down 1's at ten yards, so it is a matter of about 4 to 5 inches below point of aim at that distance, and it is only the first DA shot that goes wide, though not every time. The single action shots pretty much go where they're supposed to until I speed up too much.

    I have been thinking this was principally a trigger control issue but this wrist breaking thing now appears the much more likely culprit. In dry fire, I can usually see the sight move on the trigger presses where the Mantis calls me out on it, now that I'm looking for it, but it doesn't move very much. Like, really not very much. Possibly 1/4 of the way down the notch or something like that? Maybe? Hard to quantify based on what I see. Funny--I have not fired a live round for about a month, but I've dry fired a lot. This "anticipation" must be really wired in there. I'm watching the Pressburg video next. Thanks again!
    O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason.

  8. #8
    Deadeye Dick Clusterfrack's Avatar
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    DA push: I see this a lot. Experience trains the brain to return the gun after it fires. This leads to timing the firing cycle and predicting when a return is needed. That’s not a problem—until it is. People push down on the gun as a result of mis-timing when a shot is difficult, or different in some way that changes timing. As in a draw or DA press.

    It takes practice to not do that, and I have never seen any decent shooter regardless of skill totally eliminate it.
    "You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
    Shabbat shalom, motherf***ers! --Mordechai Jefferson Carver

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Clusterfrack View Post

    It takes practice to not do that, and I have never seen any decent shooter regardless of skill totally eliminate it.
    There is a video of Ben Stoeger on PSTG practicing doubles at various distances. On that video he is pushing speed at the relatively long distance and is experiencing the pre-ignition push a lot. So it does not go away completely even at his level and needs to be addressed constantly.

  10. #10
    Deadeye Dick Clusterfrack's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cheby View Post
    There is a video of Ben Stoeger on PSTG practicing doubles at various distances. On that video he is pushing speed at the relatively long distance and is experiencing the pre-ignition push a lot. So it does not go away completely even at his level and needs to be addressed constantly.
    Yes, I saw that. One of the most important skills is knowing why a shot went off target. Was it bad aim, looking at the wrong spot? Or a bad trigger press? Pushing down on the gun? Unstable? If it's a mystery, that makes it hard to fix. There's often the assumption that the trigger press is the culprit, and I think it's usually low on the list.
    "You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
    Shabbat shalom, motherf***ers! --Mordechai Jefferson Carver

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