Theoretically if you're grip is at the level of a high level shooter your shots would be pretty much next to each other or touching when firing back to back shots with 1 sight picture. Firing double is a diagnostics tool essentially. But in a real world scenario or a scenario where you're shooting multiple rounds during a stage or drill you'd want to see the sight picture for every shot.Originally Posted by Danko
I would say that is the classic definition of a hammer pair. A lot of people by me like to call it a double tap. Of course most of those same people also miss wildly with the second shot. By miss I don't necessarily miss the whole target but rather they miss hitting the original spot they were aiming at by a good amount. (Though sometimes they do miss the whole target) I am sure you have seen the threads on shooting doubles as Clusterfrack mentioned, to me, that is as close as you can get to a hammer pair or double tap but doing it in a manner that you will, maybe eventually, reliably hit with your second shot.
Are you shooting target focused or front sight focused?
What are your split times on your 'controlled pairs'?
I think you might be putting the cart before the horse a bit.
I wouldn't stress the terminology too much. Focus on what you're trying to do. Pistol shooting is a very tactile, vision, and reflex based skill compared to something like long range rifle shooting which is easier to develop a more standard set of terminology or methods for.
Focus on the problem you're trying to solve and the skills you need to solve that problem. They're closer problems and messier problems and that leads to a pretty wide range of description, but the problems remain the same.
Cluster, thank you for your help. I never heard the terms reactive or predictive related to shooting. The Stoeger video made it clear to me. I get it, I got it. I haven't really done any type of experimental, fast shooting. Most of my shooting involves marksmanship at various distances and shooting controlled, reactive pairs. I now have the knowledge to advance my skills. I'm fairly sure my hands are ready too, but they'll likely need a little tuning. Awesome!!!
MVS Hammer
MVS, thank you for your input. I finally got a handle on how to shoot a hammer pair thanks to you, Clusterfrack and Ben Stoeger. I now have the knowledge needed to advance my shooting. I expect my hands are ready too, but they may require a little tweaking.
Tell people beware, I'm a tad more dangerous.
Anytime, dude. Glad PF could help.
It's possible to burn a lot of ammo chasing fast splits, and there's a lot more you can get out of it. I shoot a few mags of doubles pretty much every practice, and what I'm paying attention to is whether the bullets are both where I want them to be (e.g. A zone at the distance your level of skill allows), and whether the sights are tracking vertically. It's a great grip diagnostic exercise.
“There is no growth in the comfort zone.”--Jocko Willink
"You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
This is why I like DB’s take on “assessment speed”. Too many terms have crept out of military basic manuals, and that’s some true lowest common denominator stuff.
Not arguing, by any means, just clarifying…
I was a bit surprised to read this. For close targets in a match I know I’ve fired “hammers” with reasonably positive results, and I can imagine relatively close range police or other self-defense scenarios in which that technique could be beneficial. I do understand the concept of shooting at the speed of assessment, which might be more like 0.3. My own fastest splits are not that fast. 0.22 is pretty typical for me and even with a Ruger 22/45 the best I can do is about .20. I’m just starting to get back into organized competitive shooting (USPSA) so I’m looking forward to playing with this some.
I just personally have a rule for myself where I will see a sight picture for every shot, I have to justify every shot and have to be able to stop shooting when suspect is down. I have never personally worried about splits.
I don't think my mindset is by any means the best way or the only way, it's just my personal philosophy because I don't want to shoot where suspect was when he's now dropped and now I have rounds go into never never land.
Clusterfrack, I'm all amped up to finally understand how to shoot hammers. Now I'll introduce better terminology. I agree firing controlled pairs can be considered and called reactive shooting because the shooter doesn't react to fire the second shot until he sees his front sight return to where it was when he fired the first. However, the term predictive has no place in the hammer sequence, and maybe has no place in shooting terminology. When we make a prediction, we are essentially taking a guess. I don't want to guess where my shots go, they have to hit really close to my POI. I think a better, and more accurate term is proactive; we proactively make the decision to fire the second shot before we even fired the first. Reactive and proactive, both denote action, and both terms have the word act in them to make them easy to remember. Com'on, credit me on this simple observation. Have a sweet weekend!
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