Dot drill and training accuracy.

[CrashDodson]

I am lost as how to interpret my live fire training. This last weekend I did the dot drill (Stoeger/Garcia version) and I would land 4-5 of 6 in each dot. With one shot low/low-left. I have no idea how to take that information and correct the problem, other than shooting slower. At 7 yards I can dump a mag as fast as I can pull the trigger and hit all A’s but the dot drill is of course more difficult. If you’re having difficulty grouping shots at speed but can shoot slow groups all day would you point to weak grip? I can’t see the point of just repeating the drill over and over without an understanding of how to correct the problem. I have a hard time calling my shots at speed so perhaps it’s some sort of shot calling drill I need to be doing.

When your draw is slow you can practice your draw, muscle memory…same with reloads. But with shooting accurately at speed I am not sure how to interpret the result I see and try to improve.

[Nimitz]

Classic trigger control issue ... Your weak hand grip may be a contributing factor but it's your trigger control you need to work on. I would start out the drill only shooting maybe 2 or 3 shots per dot and see if you can go 6/6 within the 5 sec time limit. Once you can do that on command you can add one more shots & repeat. Don't add to the number of shots/dot until you can consistently put all the shots you are taking into all 6 circles. As a reference point, being able to execute the dot drill at 6/6 for all 6 dots consistently is GM level shooting for sure ....

And yes, if you were able to call your shots you'd know that you were jerking the trigger without having to visually score the target since you'd see that your sights were off the target a the instant you broke the shot but being able to call your shots will not fix trigger control issues

Edited January 5, 2016 by Nimitz

[CrashDodson]

Thanks for the reply. Do you have any tips on how to train to track the sights the entire shot? My brain is not seeing the gun rise and fall.

[Chris iliff]

Ok, I'll go enos on you.......

Aim at the ground, berm, whatever,......pull the trigger as fast as you can six times.

I mean fast...get a good grip and rip it 6 shots. BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG.

NOW, PUT ALL YOUR FOCUS ON THE FRONT SIGHT AND WATCH IT. REMEMBER WE ARE NOT AIMIMG, WE ARE SIMPLY POINTING AT GROUND AND RIPPING OFF THE SHOTS.

OUR PURPOSE IS PURELY TO LEARN TO SEE THE SIGHT AND FIGURE OUT WHY WE ARE NOT.

This is a simple drill that will allow you to start finding the sight. It's not gonna happen any other way.

Tips......

As you are doing this, pay attention to your face and eyes. Got some twitches and blinks I bet......now get rid of them. Notice them then get rid of them during the exercise. FECK sakes it's your muscles in your head, control them.

Then once you start seeing the sights and recognize what it takes to keep those eyes open start doing Bill Drills. From holster six shots in the A zone at seven yards, hands surrender, .........2 seconds or less for master class.

Remember,....it's a fecking explosion 2 or three feet in front of your face, it might take some time, but you'll get it. Also, once you have it, you'll need to redo the exercise as needed. Some of the best shooters make this a regular check to ensure they don't develop a blink or flinch. So, no big deal if you have to redo every once in awhile.

Edited January 5, 2016 by Chris iliff

[motosapiens]

Thanks for the reply. Do you have any tips on how to train to track the sights the entire shot? My brain is not seeing the gun rise and fall.

this is something i struggled with for a while, but I have been making great progress lately. one of the keys for me was to start trying to score my runs from the sights, before looking at the targets, and then see how close i got. Literally every single string I would try to figure out the hits before I looked at the targets. I stopped (temporarily) paying attention to time, and only cared about knowing where the shots went. Pretty quickly I was able to start at least picking out the shots where I didn't know where they went (blink/flinch), and as I stayed with it i got better at seeing where i was sending the occasional flyer.

it is good for the ego to run the trigger as fast as you can at 7 yds and have all the shots go into the a-zone, but at this distance, you really only need to see the front sight, and rear sight alignment (unless it's grossly misaligned) doesn't matter much. I think you may find it more helpful to do bill drills at 10 or 15 yards, where you have to start making sure the sight alignment is acceptable along with the front sight position over the target.

I also find it very helpful to do shooting-while-moving drills, there just seems to be more need to focus on the sight and be aware of what it's doing when the gun goes off (as opposed to when I start pulling the trigger). Anderson's 24 alphas drill is kind of a handy drill/test. I've done it starting at 13 yards and moving up to 10 yards the last couple weeks and hit 21 alphas (and 3 close charlies that I saw) yesterday, so I'm going to move back to 15 yards and 12 yards until I can hit over 20 A's (and know where the shots are going), and keep moving back as my skills and shot-calling improve.

You may also find it helpful to just fire a magazine or two into the berm, without the distraction of the target. If i'm feeling particularly blinky, 6 or 10 shots into the berm at a moderate pace is often enough to get me tuned back into the sights and wanting to see them enough to avoid blinking.

IMHO, learning to call your shots is the most important skill to learn if you want to get good.

Edited January 5, 2016 by motosapiens

[justpaul]

Run the dot drill with the dummy round drill and that may help you figure out what is going on

If you have 6 mags load them all up with 6 rounds and put a dummy round in 2 or 3 of them at different round counts.

Then mix them up in your bag

Also do you know if it's the first shot? Another drill you can do is only shoot one shot into each dot

Reholster the gun after each shot

Most people miss on their first shots and there last shot

[Chris iliff]

Thanks for the reply. Do you have any tips on how to train to track the sights the entire shot? My brain is not seeing the gun rise and fall.

IMHO, learning to call your shots is the most important skill to learn if you want to get good.

Everything Moto said is spot on,.....I quote the most important thing in all the post above.

If we can't SEE the sights we will never achieve much past C/B class. Here is another little drill that is a bit slower but can help also.....

Put a target at 20-25 yards. Far enough away that you can't see the holes. Now shoot it twice. Now draw where the hits landed on a target right next to you. Walk down and see if what you recorded is what happened. If not, keep working it.

[motosapiens]

fwiw, i do a variety of things with the dots. Usually i start off in slow fire, and just try to put all 6 in there, no matter how long it takes (usually 10-15 seconds). then I do 10 shots on one dot where i just draw and fire shots, trying to do it as quickly as I can get two shots in. Then I do one where I try to get 6 in as fast as I can see them (currently in the 5.8 second range, sometimes with 1 flier, but if I call it as a bad shot I still consider it success). Then I step up to 5 yards and do 1 or 2 strings in slow fire weak hand only. Then a couple more standard freestyle 6 shots as fast as I can see.

It's kinda nice in the winter when it's 8 degrees because I don't have to tape anything so I can just shoot, and then get in the car and turn the heater on to reload magazines.

[Hi-Power Jack]

Thanks for the reply.

IMHO, learning to call your shots is the most important skill to learn if you want to get good.

+1. I'm still working on it.

[MilkMyDuds]

Dot drill tries to attract your eyes to the dot and holes because they are very close. That's why I always screw up with dot drill whenever my eyes start to focus at the dot/ holes instead of the sight, even I can do the 25 yards equivalent consistantly. Ine important aspect of the dot drill is a test of discipline for sure.

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[CrashDodson]

Thank you for all the ideas and information. Good stuff! Today if I hard sight focus I would end up seeing a ton of dots. Still working on the eyes to only blur the target. I can do it slowly but at any speed is not happening yet. I like the berm idea and I will try that.

I've seen the video of the guy doing the shot calling drill with the long distance target. That will be good as soon as I can figure out how to see the sights the whole time. Guess I need to invest in some sort of high speed camera to watch my eyes and my trigger control.

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[38supPat]

It's not trigger control, if it was the other 5 wouldn't be there. It's anticipation that's causing that low left shot.

Try this take a dot, any dot, using a delayed beep on the timer, start the timer, take a sight picture on the dot and prep the trigger. When the beep sounds pull the trigger immediately, shot should break around .20. If you have poor trigger control the shots will be everywhere, if your trigger control is fine (you'll be pulling the trigger as quickly as you possibly can) then all your shots will be on the dot. If you hesitate and then pull you will throw the shot because you will not be reacting to the beep but to your own perceived idea of when the gun should go off and you will get a preignition push from anticipating the recoil.

Try it

[Chris iliff]

It's not trigger control, if it was the other 5 wouldn't be there. It's anticipation that's causing that low left shot.

Try this take a dot, any dot, using a delayed beep on the timer, start the timer, take a sight picture on the dot and prep the trigger. When the beep sounds pull the trigger immediately, shot should break around .20. If you have poor trigger control the shots will be everywhere, if your trigger control is fine (you'll be pulling the trigger as quickly as you possibly can) then all your shots will be on the dot. If you hesitate and then pull you will throw the shot because you will not be reacting to the beep but to your own perceived idea of when the gun should go off and you will get a preignition push from anticipating the recoil.

Try it

Man, we need a like button, good stuff for anyone^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[FTDMFR]

t's not trigger control, if it was the other 5 wouldn't be there. It's anticipation that's causing that low left shot.

Try this take a dot, any dot, using a delayed beep on the timer, start the timer, take a sight picture on the dot and prep the trigger. When the beep sounds pull the trigger immediately, shot should break around .20. If you have poor trigger control the shots will be everywhere, if your trigger control is fine (you'll be pulling the trigger as quickly as you possibly can) then all your shots will be on the dot. If you hesitate and then pull you will throw the shot because you will not be reacting to the beep but to your own perceived idea of when the gun should go off and you will get a preignition push from anticipating the recoil.

Try it

One thing I would suggest when doing this drill is to NOT prep the trigger, to better simulate how the trigger is pressed when shooting at speed.

I did this drill for like a year and a half with the trigger fully prepped. It helped my group size in slow fire tremendously, but my rapid fire accuracy was still a lot behind.

When I stopped prepping the trigger for the drill, my rapid fire accuracy improved quite a bit.

Edited January 5, 2016 by FTDMFR

[CrashDodson]

Anyone used a video camera to try and catch if your blinking or not? Looking around it seems like a camera with enough FPS to catch that is very expensive.

[Nimitz]

Just ask a friend to shoot with you once and have them observe you while you do some shooting .... You'll find out instantly if this is part of your problem and it shouldn't cost you more then lunch ....

[38supPat]

Anyone used a video camera to try and catch if your blinking or not? Looking around it seems like a camera with enough FPS to catch that is very expensive.

Have you seen your muzzle flash? If not you are probably blInking.

[CrashDodson]

I went to the range today and I did the berm deal. I felt like I was not blinking. I even did a hold my eyes wide open retard face to make sure. I ran through two mags doing this, I am not sure what I am getting out of that. I worked on a front site focus the whole time. It seems like I can see the sight before the press and maybe at the top of the recoil movement, then again after the return. The movement of the gun I don't see.

I didn't have a timer today so I just ran the dot torture drill, the traditional one. When shooting weak (left) hand only I would tend to shoot low right. When I would have a shot that was a few inches out of the dot in my head I was saying "WTF?" because I did not see that when I pulled the trigger. Im wondering if my *thumb rest [generic]* is causing some of my low shots. I rarely miss high.

Edited January 7, 2016 by CrashDodson

[motosapiens]

Anyone used a video camera to try and catch if your blinking or not? Looking around it seems like a camera with enough FPS to catch that is very expensive.

Have you seen your muzzle flash? If not you are probably blInking.

yeah, what he said.

[CrashDodson]

Anyone used a video camera to try and catch if your blinking or not? Looking around it seems like a camera with enough FPS to catch that is very expensive.

Have you seen your muzzle flash? If not you are probably blInking.

yeah, what he said.

I guess I cant say I have. I RO our local matches and I never see anyone's muzzle flash and I watch their gun pretty close...Never tried shooting close to dark.

Edited January 7, 2016 by CrashDodson

[CrashDodson]

Guess I need to go back to the range and duct tape my eyes open and see what happens. This is frustrating.

[CrashDodson]

I was watching some slow motion video online...not super slow mo but slowed down to see someone blink and I dont see a "flash" in the video. If its not caught on slow motion video im not sure how Im going to see it.

I wonder if doubling up on ear pro might help reduce this flinch I seem to have acquired.

[Nimitz]

Anyone used a video camera to try and catch if your blinking or not? Looking around it seems like a camera with enough FPS to catch that is very expensive.

Have you seen your muzzle flash? If not you are probably blInking.

yeah, what he said.

If you see your brass eject that's a good indicator too ...

[CrashDodson]

Anyone used a video camera to try and catch if your blinking or not? Looking around it seems like a camera with enough FPS to catch that is very expensive.

Have you seen your muzzle flash? If not you are probably blInking.

yeah, what he said.

If you see your brass eject that's a good indicator too ...

Im not seeing that either. Evidently Im a puss and scared of my gun

[Nimitz]

Ear plugs and electronic muffs are used by a lot of shooters to combat this ....