Add to that the importance of grip tension, and we have created for ourselves a bunch of variables that make it very difficult to be accurate. Trigger control — consider that a full-size Sig P weighs Now, the first shot with P is double action. The trigger pull on that first shot is roughly 7. The subsequent single action trigger pull is about 4. That means the trigger pull is four times the weight of the gun for the first shot. Your challenge: exert enough pressure on the trigger to fire the gun while not moving the sights from perfect alignment with the target.
The dreaded flinch — a lot happens when we fire a handgun, especially a semi-automatic. First, we have significant muzzle blast because of the short barrel. This comes in the form of muzzle flash and noise. Next, we have the recoil. Simple physics dictates that the gun moves back and up.
It pounds the palms and the web between the thumb and forefinger. The slide moves to the rear and ejects the empty case which flies to the side in our peripheral vision. With all of this going on at the end of our arms, right in front of our face, the natural tendency is to flinch or anticipate what is about to happen. To shoot a handgun accurately, there are a lot of things that have to be done properly in order to get those shots to hit the sighted target.
Most of our shooting is done from a standing position. The standing position gives us the ability to absorb recoil and to pivot and move to engage multiple targets. That is, with the strong side foot back a bit and the knees slightly bent. The shooter should be leaning forward just a bit at the hips. Ever wonder how you should hold a handgun for maximum accuracy? A consistent grip is critical with a handgun. We cannot stop recoil, but if our grip is correct, we can get the sights back on target very quickly without having to completely reset our grip and arm position with every shot.
With a semiautomatic handgun our strong hand grips the gun as high as possible. We want as much coverage of the grip as we can with our hand and fingers. Our thumb is going to rest along the side of the slide and will naturally point toward our target. Our support hand will then cant forward so the thumb is parallel to the ground and pointing forward. The meaty part of our hand contacts the grip between the fingertips and palm of the strong hand and wraps around the front of the grip over our strong hand fingers.
Now we squeeze, HARD! We can now push the gun straight out toward our target and begin the next step. It is physically impossible to see the target, front sight and rear sight in focus simultaneously. If one is in focus, the other two will be fuzzy. The sights on most handguns will consist of either a squared or rounded-top front sight, occasionally with a dot on it.
The rear sight on most defensive handguns will be a square notch. Some will have a white outline, some will have a dot on each side of the notch. The proper sight alignment will have the front sight centered in the rear notch with the same amount of light showing on both sides of the front sight. The top of the front sight and the top of the rear sight should be aligned so they are leveled or, if your sights have dots, all the dots are lined up horizontally.
Once you have proper sight alignment, we are going to align our sights to our target. Do you place your front sight in the middle of the target, at the bottom of the target, at the top to cover-up the entire target, or where? Different handguns come from the factory with a sight picture manufactured into the gun; this is also called the hold. There are three common holds;. Guns which are sighted in for a combat hold typically require the shooter to place the front sight over where you intend to make an impact.
Your point of aim will be right over your point of impact. Other handguns have a six o'clock hold where the front sight is placed at the bottom of the bullseye. Your sight picture will really depend on your handgun manufacturer. It can get confusing and become a problem to deal with your various guns and their manufactured sight pictures.
Our breathing and heartbeat play a big role in our shooting accuracy. If you have ever watched position rifle shooters, you will notice they have a heavy leather jacket and a heavy glove on their support hand. All that padding is to muffle and quiet the effect of their beating hearts on their sight alignment and ultimately the shot they take.
For example. If you align your sights on a target and just breath, you will see that with each inhale and exhale your gun rises and falls as your chest expands and contracts. When shooting slowly for maximum accuracy and precision, you ideally want to breathe normally as you bring your sights into final alignment. Inhale normally. Exhale normally. If you try to hold your breath you begin to shake and then rush to get the shot off. Ideally, your shot will break right at the bottom of your exhale.
We also need to breathe so we are consistently oxygenating our eyes so our vision stays sharp and our front sight focus is as crisp as possible. No matter what we do prior to sending our shot downrange, if our trigger squeeze is not perfect every time, our shots will not go where we want them to go. Our trigger finger has to move straight back with as little pressure to the sides of the trigger as possible. If our grip is correct and we have a firm hold on the gun, we should be imparting as little side-to-side and up-and-down pressure as possible on the grip as our trigger finger starts coming back.
In general, you want to use the center of the pad between your fingertip and first knuckle joint to press the trigger. Too far out on the tip and you tend to push the trigger away. Too far into the crease and you tend to curl the trigger toward your hand. Both result in misses and inconsistent shots. However, please note that your finger placement on your trigger may differ from others as everyone has a different sized hand and guns vary in size, too.
As part of the follow-through process and preparing for the next shot, we have the trigger reset. The reset on most semiautomatic handguns will be a much shorter distance than releasing the trigger all the way to the forward-most position. The reset can be felt as you release the trigger forward after you take your shot. This means less movement of the trigger finger and less likelihood of the trigger squeeze moving the sights out of alignment.
But your shot process is not yet over. Think about the shot you just made. Keep the trigger depressed and see where your sights naturally settle after recoil. Are they lined up on the target? Did you have to reset your grip? At the moment of the shot going off, could you tell an observer where the bullet would impact on the target? All of these things are a part of your proper follow through.
As your speed increases, these things begin to happen very quickly, but they all have to happen, or accuracy begins to diminish. When it comes to training with your handgun, you really have two options available to build your skills:. Both are valuable, and both will allow you to build your handgun proficiency and attain the accuracy you are striving for.
Dry fire exercises are those that are done with your handgun with no ammunition. You can practice your draw stroke, sight alignment and trigger squeeze all without firing a shot. You can practice in your garage or basement or office. Keep in mind that you are still handling a gun and as such, you should always treat that gun as if it were loaded. For all dry fire exercises, unload your handgun and all the magazines you will be using for your training session.
Then, remove all the live ammo from the room you are training in. Live fire exercises are those done with real ammo, on the range, sending rounds to the chosen target. Now you get a chance to see how your dry fire practice is paying off. The real goal is to manipulate the handgun with live fire in the exact same manner as you did in your dry fire practice. Your draw, presentation, trigger squeeze should all be the same. Except now you have all that commotion at the end of your arms; muzzle blast, recoil, ejecting brass, etc.
If you are executing all the basic fundamentals correctly, you should see improvement in your accuracy on every trip to the range. These rules are necessary if you want to be effective in your training. By always adhering to the basic safety rules, we ensure that our shooting time is safe and enjoyable for ourselves and those around us. As mentioned earlier, trigger control is the key to accurate handgun shooting and this exercise serves to examine your trigger squeeze.
Take a piece of paper and draw 10 dots with a Sharpie about the size of a pencil eraser. Now, tape your paper to the wall or on a target stand. Stand so that when you press your gun out toward the target your muzzle is about one inch from the target. With bigger dots, you can do this same drill as a live fire exercise. Use a bigger piece of paper or the back of a target, place the target 3 yards away and concentrate on minimal sight movement as you take up the slack and press through to send the shot.
As in the previous drill, we will use the same page with ten dots on it. Any front sight movement in this portion of our shooting sequence means we will be slower getting back on target and making follow up shots. When we master trigger take up and reset, then we allow ourselves to start from true accuracy, instead of having to make up for it as we manipulate the trigger.
To continue honing our trigger squeeze, we can move to another dry-fire exercise that will reveal our ability to squeeze and reset smoothly and without movement. You can also reverse this process and rack your slide while the trigger is pinned to the rear and then practice your trigger release to reset while keeping the case balanced on the front sight.
As the name suggests, the goal of this live-fire drill is to have every shot go through one hole. Caylen Wojcik, the owner of Kalinski Consulting and Training , has his students begin at three yards with a one-inch dot to aim at.
You can then shoot the exercise from five yards with a two-inch dot, then seven yards with a three-inch dot. This is a slow, deliberate drill designed to make you concentrate on aiming at the exact same spot, every time and executing a perfect trigger squeeze, sending every shot through the same hole.
This drill can be followed after the One Ragged Hole drill. Here we use two full-size silhouette targets. Start off with a good portion of the assailant target exposed to the side of your loved one. Take a marker and write the name of your loved one on the front target to induce some stress into the situation. As your scores begin to increase you can reduce the size of the assailant target that is visible, increase the range or reduce the time interval or all three.
That translates to a greater chance of user error in the aiming process. Although some may pull the trigger to the left or the right, the most important aspect of pulling a trigger is using more than just the tip of the finger to pull.
If you are unable to pull the trigger accurately, your grip will pull the shot one way or the other. Essentially, you can steady the gun before firing without affecting the trigger.
With a pistol, the pressure applied from your finger can directly affect the movement of the firearm. This may negatively affect your shot. Hold the gun and check on how you are standing when you go to fire it. Proper alignment of your body is key here with the correct shooting stance looking like a boxer or fighter. Keep your pelvis at a degree angle with your left leg to the rear. This will help balance your body and how you hold the gun. Never squeeze hard. The isometric tension of push and pull between the two hands will hold the firearm in place.
Keep your forearm in line with the gun, to properly absorb the recoil.
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