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Thread: Precise looking vs precise aiming

  1. #1
    Deadeye Dick Clusterfrack's Avatar
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    Precise looking vs precise aiming

    One thing has made the biggest difference in my shooting this year and I want to share it here and discuss.

    Some definitions so we are all on the same page:
    • Aiming: Aligning the front and rear sights (or dot) with the target, and maintaining that alignment until the gun has fired.
    • Looking: visual perception of where you want the bullet to go.
    • Target focus: looking with eyes focused on the target, while at the same time seeing the sights (or dot).
    • Front sight focus: looking with eyes focused on the front sight, while at the same time seeing the target.


    On PSTG and elsewhere, there has been a lot of discussion about how and why to use target focus with iron sights (also obviously with RDS). Front sight focus requires looking at and focusing on the target, shifting the focal plane back to the front sight, and then breaking the shot. This is slower than target focus because there is no focal plane shift.

    I have been shooting target focus with irons for the past year, and it's taken a while to trust it --especially at distance.

    My biggest recent improvement in shooting has come from improving my precision of looking at the intended POI. It's just like "aim small / miss small" in rifle shooting. For me it requires a ton of mental focus to create an appropriately small "sub-target" on a much larger target (e.g. image below).

    My focus has shifted (so to speak) from primarily confirming the alignment of the sights, to primarily looking precisely at where I want the bullets to go. I'm looking forward to discussing this. Maybe it's something you've been doing for a long time?



    Red dot added to represent where I am looking. Hits: 2A, AC to the upper A zone at match pace.
    Last edited by Clusterfrack; 04-28-2021 at 10:36 AM.
    "You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
    Shabbat shalom, motherf***ers! --Mordechai Jefferson Carver

  2. #2
    Regarding target focus I had something come to mind recently. With the now-common training method of taping up the front of a red dot, that really tests whether your eyes are converging at the optic. If you see the dot on the tape and no target you converged your eyes when you didn't mean to. In theory you could have your eyes converge at the target but have your visual focus set at a difference distance although with a dot there's no reason to do that.

    I thought that was interesting because people used to discuss the difference between convergence and accommodation (eye focus at a given distance) with irons here and at the time the consensus was to converge at the target and accommodate at the front sight. At the time that seemed reasonable to me, while total target focus also seems perfectly reasonable. Any thoughts on why total target focus (convergence+accommodation at the target) gives better results?
    Last edited by Eyesquared; 04-28-2021 at 11:44 AM.

  3. #3
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    As I’m adding in iron revolver work, I’m treating it exactly like I do my dot gun.

    If we shoot irons like we shoot dots... why train on irons?

  4. #4
    Deadeye Dick Clusterfrack's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Eyesquared View Post
    Regarding target focus I had something come to mind recently. With the now-common training method of taping up the front of a red dot, that really tests whether your eyes are converging at the optic. If you see the dot on the tape and no target you converged your eyes when you didn't mean to. In theory you could have your eyes converge at the target but have your visual focus set at a difference distance although with a dot there's no reason to do that.

    I thought that was interesting because people used to discuss the difference between convergence and accommodation (eye focus at a given distance) with irons here and at the time the consensus was to converge at the target and accommodate at the front sight. At the time that seemed reasonable to me, while total target focus also seems perfectly reasonable. Any thoughts on why total target focus (convergence+accommodation at the target) gives better results?
    Great question! I'll take a shot at an answer based on my experience. Here are some definitions:
    • Convergence is where the lines perpendicular to the optical center of each lens intersect.
    • Accommodation is where the plane of focus is.

    See @Mr_white's excellent thread on this topic.

    Looking at a precise in-focus point on the target maximizes eye-hand coordination.

    Let's flip the question: why do we need to shift focus back to the front and rear sights? We do that to confirm or adjust alignment. However, if we adjust alignment, we may alter the POI from where we were looking at the target. And it is slower.

    On the other hand, if the front and rear sights are misaligned, we will not hit the spot we are looking at. I have found that a well-developed index, combined with a somewhat blurry picture of the front and rear sights is sufficient for confirming A-zone shots out to 25-30 yds. Beyond that, I have to do multiple cycles of looking precisely at the target, shifting focus back to the sights, aligning them, confirming alignment with the intended POI, etc. The time difference for me is significant: ~1.5-1.7s for pure target focus vs. >>2s for carefully aimed sight focus. And the split times are even more different.
    Last edited by Clusterfrack; 04-28-2021 at 12:19 PM.
    "You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
    Shabbat shalom, motherf***ers! --Mordechai Jefferson Carver

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Clusterfrack View Post
    Maybe it's something you've been doing for a long time?
    This is something I did involuntarily for a long time, because it felt like I was sliding back into the way I was taught, point shooting (yeah). I couldn't understand how people were getting fsf that quickly. I felt like I was getting lazy and getting lucky and I shouldn't trust it. Finally decided that hits are hits.

    As far as trusting it at distance I've noticed that different light conditions/target colors seem to matter more than the actual distance. I think that's probably highly personal and vision dependent. Having someone place a target at an unknown distance/location then turning and running the drill with two known targets and an unknown target has helped me the most.

  6. #6
    Deadeye Dick Clusterfrack's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MickAK View Post
    This is something I did involuntarily for a long time, because it felt like I was sliding back into the way I was taught, point shooting (yeah). I couldn't understand how people were getting fsf that quickly. I felt like I was getting lazy and getting lucky and I shouldn't trust it. Finally decided that hits are hits.

    As far as trusting it at distance I've noticed that different light conditions/target colors seem to matter more than the actual distance. I think that's probably highly personal and vision dependent. Having someone place a target at an unknown distance/location then turning and running the drill with two known targets and an unknown target has helped me the most.
    That's a great insight--because it is possible to be lazy and lucky, and we should not shoot like that.

    Personally, I have to DO something in order to trust, and thinking really hard about a tiny spot on the target is helping me with that.

    I wonder if your observation about lighting has to do with what you can see on the target?
    "You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
    Shabbat shalom, motherf***ers! --Mordechai Jefferson Carver

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Clusterfrack View Post
    I wonder if your observation about lighting has to do with what you can see on the target?
    I think so. I make a little mental PING! noise when I have my spot picked out and focused then break the trigger right after that. If I struggle to focus on my spot I either rush it and miss or have to drop the gun slightly and refocus.

  8. #8
    Yes, Stoeger has been talking about looking at the exact spot regardless of target size for the longesttime. Easier said than done, been working on this for some time too.
    Doesn't read posts longer than two paragraphs.

  9. #9

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by MickAK View Post
    This is something I did involuntarily for a long time, because it felt like I was sliding back into the way I was taught, point shooting (yeah). I couldn't understand how people were getting fsf that quickly. I felt like I was getting lazy and getting lucky and I shouldn't trust it. Finally decided that hits are hits.

    As far as trusting it at distance I've noticed that different light conditions/target colors seem to matter more than the actual distance. I think that's probably highly personal and vision dependent. Having someone place a target at an unknown distance/location then turning and running the drill with two known targets and an unknown target has helped me the most.
    I have similar experience and results. I too was focused on and trained with point shooting for a number of years using various techniques from Jim Cirillo, Mike Rayburn, Lou Chiodo and Chuck Klein. I trained with all but Chuck Klein but used his technique with good results. All of the hard target focus was done at shorter ranges (8 yards or so) and farther than that I moved toward more and more sights focus. In my evolutionary training development I moved toward trying to have a front sight focus on closer targets and never could get the speed of hits I could with target focus even if accuracy was slightly better speed was always down. I found Brian Enos's idea of "See what you need to see" and mostly stopped worrying about where my focus was. This was really confirmed when I took the World Class pistols skills with Robert Vogel and he had us run a course with a swinging popper at approx 12-15 yards. I was the only one to get the 2 hits. We ran it twice with the same results. The thing was that I remember my focus was on the target in the spot I wanted to hit but it was farther than I practiced with target focus ever before. It just clicked since then but only at distances within 10-12 yards. After that I have to move towards more front sight focus or the accuracy of A zone hits is not consistent.

    Beyond 10-15 yards with target focus is amazing to me and if there is a way to learn to do it with speed and consistency I am open to hearing it. I'm curious as much as the target color,lighting effects along with possibly sights size and brightness or maybe contrast to the target have to do with it. MickAK what sights are you using with what targets?

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