The Call to Follow-through

The following concerns shooting an iron-sighted pistol accurately. Please bear with me as I repeat myself.

The Hard Part

Aiming is not the hard part. Releasing the shot without disturbing your hold is (the hard part). After establishing correct intention, your body will aim your pistol without effort.

The Third Fundamental

Hold the gun in alignment with the target until the bullet has left the barrel.

Sight Picture

Sight picture consists of two components—1) sight alignment, which is ONLY the alignment of the sights in relation to your eye; and 2), sight picture, which is the relationship of sight alignment to the target.

The "Call" to Follow-through

You improve follow-through by becoming aware of what you see, or "remember" seeing, as the bullet is leaving the barrel. It's not different from "calling the shot" (with utmost precision).

Will yourself to "hold" your attention on the sights until they lift in recoil. Look right at them—ignore the target. You will remember where your sight alignment was on the target without conscious effort. (Think about what that last sentence implies.) If you are actively observing the sights' alignment and your eyes remain open DURING the firing of the shot, you should remember the last exact relationship you saw before the sights lifted in recoil. When you compare what you remember with where the shot actually went, you will awaken to the secret of successful shooting.

If you do not have intimate knowledge of the Third Fundamental, you must consciously train yourself to remember "the call." After "training to remember," the call will occur simultaneously with the firing of the shot. If you can maintain this state, you will shoot without doubt.

The Problem

The pistol is the most difficult firearm to shoot accurately offhand. The reason for this becomes apparent if we investigate the phenomena of "the hold." The hold has two components. First, let’s call the gun's movement in the hands only—"the wobble." The movement of the wobble on the target, which originates from our arms, produces the hold. This all to observable visual input distracts us from what is paramount, the aforementioned third fundamental of shooting—releasing the shot without disturbing your established hold on the target. A trick I learned from a silhouette shooter might help: Imagine your pistol is in a machine-rest even though you are holding it offhand. Now imagine the target is moving (in the same pattern/manner as your hold). Now, what can you do to hit the target?

Knowing this, it’s best to begin by shooting from a bench rest or other supported position. Sandbag your pistol so it’s rock solid. Aim into the backstop (do not use a target, or spot to aim at) and then consciously direct ALL your attention to building the pressure on the trigger until the gun fires as a surprise. It can help to use the "one to ten scale," this time use your sights and the trigger as your two components. Become familiar with the feeling of firing the gun with all your attention on your trigger/finger, while simply observing the sights lift in recoil. Then place a target at 25 yds and repeat the above procedure with the following addition: Use this "order" to fire the shot—1) Align your sights in the center of the target. 2) Shift all your attention to your previous feeling of your finger building pressure on the trigger until the shot breaks. During step #2, you are still seeing the sights; however, you are no longer "trying to aim." At this point, your concern is not in trying to shoot a particular spot; you are simply looking with the intention of remembering where the sights were aligned at the moment the shot fires.

Again, begin by shooting into the backstop with no intention of hitting anything in particular. This will allow you to focus all your attention on what is important—"releasing" the shot without disturbing the gun’s hold. Relax your attention into the gun, look at the sights without staring, and then shift all your attention to the feeling of your finger on the trigger. With great determination and purpose, increase pressure on the trigger until the gun fires—"FEEL" the shot off. At the moment the gun lifts, recall the sight alignment—again, this is what you must see. After mastering this, when you put a target behind your sights, you simply recall the last relationship of the "sight picture" (sight alignment plus their relationship to the target) at the instant the gun lifts in recoil.

Only after you’ve mastered "benchrest calling," should you begin shooting offhand.

Now to shoot a "good shot" (one that actually goes where you intended it), you must combine the feeling of releasing a perfect shot with the feeling of "willing the gun still" as you build pressure on the trigger. Eventually, with training, this becomes ONE FEELING.

More:

Accurate calling of your shots is the most essential ingredient to successful shooting. Set up an IPSC target a 25 yds. Using 3/4" white tape, tape the target into four quadrants and tape a two-inch "X" or cross in the center of each quadrant. Shooting slow-fire, shoot one shot at each X, offhand. After establishing your hold in each respective quadrant, tell yourself to LOOK RIGHT AT THE SIGHTS ("1 Sights/9 Trigger"), and without "trying to aim the shot," create a perfect release by feeling your finger build pressure on the trigger until the gun fires. Your only goal is to know exactly where the shot hit the target. Just use the "X" to assist in remembering where the sights were when the shot broke—don’t try to hit the X! Check the target and see where each shot landed on the target in relationship to where you thought it went. (It also helps if you know what size group your gun will shoot off the bench at this distance.) Even if it takes forever, keep practicing this until you immediately know, as you fire a shot, where it hit the target. If you have a spotting scope or binoculars, you can look at the target after each shot to get more immediate feedback. Through the relationship of: where you thought the shot went by "reading the sights," and where it actually went—you will learn to know as the shot fires, exactly where it went.

For many years I ended each practice session by shooting slow-fire groups at a nine-inch white paper plate at 25 yards. I’d take all the time I felt I needed to shoot the smallest five shot group possible. I’d shoot five to ten groups each session and keep the smallest group as my "record." This is a great exercise to ingrain all the above.

Imagine how much easier calling the shot would be if you were shooting a scoped pistol. All you would have to remember is where the dot or crosshairs were when the shot broke. With iron sights, you must get this information by "reading" the relationship of sight alignment and sight picture at the moment the shot fires.

To summarize, train to call your shots by accepting your hold, looking only at your sights, and then as the shot fires, remember where the alignment was on the target.

Once reading the sights is firmly ingrained, practice to preserve this most important of all fundamental while increasing your shooting speed. Project your attention into your hands and sights as you shoot. When you master this, everything else will vanish—even "you."

Brian Enos
USPSA #: A387