I'm finally at the point where I'm watching my front sight track up and down in the rear notch and I'm trying to perfect this so that I get a perfect second sight picture with as little muzzle flip as possible and as quickly as possible. There seems to be quite a few ways of doing this, some harder than others. So here's a few questions for the masters and grand masters. 60/40 grip or 70/30 or 80/20 ? Thumbs against frame or not ? Lock one wrist or both or neither ? Lock one elbow or both or neither ? Is one arm extended further out than the other or not ? Pull back, push forward, both, or neither ? Press palms together or not ? I'm trying to find the simplest most easily repeatable way to do this after the buzzer goes.
sight tracking
- Thread starter hal1955
- Start date
hal1955 said:
This is a really big set of questions, and to answer it properly would take pages of text. For now, here's the Readers Digest version:
Grip pressure should just be what it is. Use only that which is required to hold the gun; it's that simple. There is no need to try and focus on 60/40 or 70/30 or whatever. As soon as you start shooting under a timer that will all go out the window anyway, and besides; how do you know from day to day what is 60% and what is 49%? It's impossible to do it the same way twice in a row so why bother?
Thumbs should rest alongside the frame but should not push against it. They should point at the target, The strong side thumb should be high and on top of the safety if it is a 1911 style gun, and the base knuckle (nearest the wrist) of the weak side thumb should fit into the crook of the second joint of the shooting hand thumb. There should be no air spaces or gaps between the hands at this point. The strong side hand will clasp with pressure from front to back and the weak side hand from side to side, giving a clamshell type of "all around" pressure on the gun. Don't over squeeze and try to control recoil, because you won't be able to. Just use enough pressure to hold the gun firmly when it fires so that it doesn't shift in your hand, and let your technique do the rest.
The weak side wrist should cam down to around 45 degrees and the index finger of this hand should be butted firmly up against the underside of the trigger guard. If you open your finders at this point they should point down at the floor in front of you. The strong side wrist should have no X axis rotation (horizontal axis perpendicular to your sight line ) on it, and slight Y (Vertical axis) axis rotation of course in order to bring the gun into the center of the body. This gives an eccentric off-set to the wrists which provides a mechanical leverage advantage against the rotational forces of recoil..
Elbows are not locked. Push them out to locked position and then just let them relax into their natural position, and that is the elbow position you would use when shooting. It's the same natural angle you get when your arm hangs relaxed at your side. This gives some shock absorption for recoil. Your elbows will also angle outwards and down roughly at the 45 degree-ish angle. If you were to imagine an invisible line bisecting the elbow joints at right angles, that line would intersect pretty much in the center of your dominant eye.
Your weak side hand will wrap around the strong side hand, placing it in FRONT of it. This is not something you have to do consciously; it just is. To compensate for this, you will have the weak side foot slightly forward to bring the axis of the gun back to the center line of the body.
Don't push/pull or press your hands together, as none of this is repeatable. Just hold the gun in the firing position, and track it in recoil with your vision. Call every shot you make and be patient enough to let your vision be your speedometer. Recoil is what it is, and the best you can hope for is to make the path the gun takes through it's arc as mechanically repeatable as possible.
Stand with a relaxed yet aggressive forward bias. You should have your weight on the balls of the feet so that you have the feeling that you could slide a piece of paper under your heels without snagging it. The entire upper body is locked as one unit and this whole construct moves as one when you index from target to target. So this means you flex your knees to move your upper body mass. Think of it as a tank turret with your legs being the movable base.
That's all I have time for right now. Does this help?
Wow! That's really well written, yet given the volume of info, conscise and complete. I like it. There's so much information in there that one should read it, practice it, and come back to it fairly regularly to double check that this is indeed what you are doing.
-ivan-
-ivan-
Thanks for the tip Rob. I tried it today and it works. I did 100 rounds at 12m and shot 85 A's and the rest C's . I had no timer but the splits were about .4 to .5 sec. but the beautiful part about it was that it's a lot less " work " than the other ways I was trying and it feels like its more easily repeatable . I'm going to try it again tomorrow. Thanks again. H
