Monday, November 26, 2012

Low and Right

About my standard flaw.  Low and right.  Even when I totally surprise myself with the trigger pull it's still low and right.  With guns that other people hit center or left or high with for their grouping.

So, if I am legitimately not flinching or pushing or what have you, what am I doing.

Dunno.  Maybe I am am still pushing?  Maybe the push of my trigger finger is that direction.  Maybe the tendon and the base of that finger is wiggling and in contact with the grip panel.  Beats me.  Maybe some very careful hand and finger placement is worth testing.  I've done that before, but I was less good before.

I'd love to figure out what it is.  On m best day I get all shots into a tuna can as long as you put the 10 O'Clock of the can on the point of the bullseye.

So what is my goal here?  I'd like to be good enough that a bowling pin match is a possibility.  That would be fun and a level of competence I'd like to have for other applications.   Faster and bowling pin accurate with competition pressure.   Wish they had more bowling pin potential places around here.

But most of my professional training, (and training from other tyros) has consisted of "you gotta flinch.  don't flinch." and stops at that.  Very helpful.  I did learn about that little tendon thing.  I've also gotten from pro trainers, "you are accurate enough, lets make you faster." Which is a thing, too, I value.  It'd just be nice to take a zombie target to the range, shoot 7 magazine at it, and have a big ragged hole in the face and nowhere else.

8 comments:

Geodkyt said...

http://pistol-training.com/archives/292

You are likely tightening your grip just as you are squeezing teh trigger. Presuming you are right handed -- lefties reverse the chart (which, presuming your trigger squeeze is OK, would be tightening the fingers, primarily at the tips, while squeezing the trigger.)

Since your fingers tend to work together, doing what the finger next to them does, this is actually quite common. The other fingers are trying to "pull the trigger" along with your index finger.

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

Lefty.

Anonymous said...

Do you see the sights move down and to the right as you press the trigger? have you tried snap caps/dummy rounds to see how much you're flinching? Letting the RO take a couple shots to ensure your sight are correct. . .Failing all those, double action revolver and practice practice practice

Ritchie said...

"Lefty."
AHA! Fixed sights are normally set up for right handers. Even with a 2-handed grip, the mass of the gripping hand is on the right side of the piece, and compensation is built in. On the reverse, both comp and hand position work against you. In both cases, the center of mass of the whole mess is off the certerline. To verify, shoot 1 handed on each side. Just for a bit of a lark, see if you can arrange a big thick lead grip panel on the left side only.

Ritchie said...

Or maybe that should be on the RH side. I'm a recovering lefty myself, so I'm only sometimes in my right mind.

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

What an interesting theory Ritchie. I'd never heard that before.

ANother test... find a REALLY good lefty shooter to see if it fails them.

Geodkyt said...

Shoot groups one handed, on each side.

Look at your groups using the diagnostic target I posted (reverse it for left handed fire). Years of effort went into developing those targets by the bullseye shooters looking to shoot the Nationals clean.

Admittedly, two handed shooting styles can confuse the issue, as you are dealing with the issues of each hand, combined -- so the various vectors from one hand might cancel out some of the issues from the other.

pax said...

You're shooting low and right because you are a lefty with a flinch. Righties with a flinch shoot low and left.

Here's my prescription for fixing it: http://www.corneredcat.com/article/the-shooting-basics/how-to-cure-a-flinch/

Best I can give you over the web. In person, I would do the exemplar drill with you to demonstrate what a proper, smooth trigger press feels like. Kinesthetic knowledge is *very* hard to convey with the written word.

Hope this helps, anyway.