shooting fast

[RickyH]

How do I stop trigger freeze?

[G-ManBart]

What division are you shooting?

For most people it seems to happen when they simply try to shoot faster, i.e. move their trigger finger faster than their eyes are seeing the sights. I have seen a case where a friend started shooting Open and he'd get trigger freeze because he was shifting his eye focus from the target to the dot in between shots. He'd seen the dot, but no target and it was just totally freezing his brain so he couldn't press the trigger. A little dry fire with the front of the lens covered seemed to cure it pretty quickly and he made Master in a couple of months! R,

[Flyin40]

How do I stop trigger freeze?

Relax. Tension is the main cause, especially in close, fast senarios. On those quick, close targets is really easy to have a grip like a vise when really trying to go through the array. The harder you grip with your strong hand the more tension you create in that hand. That tension also affects your trigger

finger. Proper grip should take care of it.

Flyin

[RickyH]

Open. it is on close targets.

Edited June 28, 2010 by RickyH

[SA Friday]

How do I stop trigger freeze?

Relax. Tension is the main cause, especially in close, fast senarios. On those quick, close targets is really easy to have a grip like a vise when really trying to go through the array. The harder you grip with your strong hand the more tension you create in that hand. That tension also affects your trigger

finger. Proper grip should take care of it.

Flyin

This.

If you get the opportunity, take a class with Ron Avery. He covers this issue very well.

[G-ManBart]

Open. it is on close targets.

That is exactly where my buddy had the issue. I shot some video of him at the Double Tap a couple of years ago and saw exactly where it was happening. Now, that's not to say it's definitely the issue you're dealing with, but eye focus shifting is a definite possibility. Try covering the front of the scope and do some really fast transitions and see what happens. If you're staring at the dot and can't really see the target, that's it. R,

[calishootr]

trying to 'hammer' close/fast targets is a bugaboo we all go thru, the main culprit is like what was mentioned earlier, increased tension, instead of a 'normal' grip you now tensed up your shooting hand and by doing that, you can still do gross motor skills, like moving the gun around, but, with all the tension in the forarm and hand, you now have lostthe fine motor skill ability like movingthe finger enuffto letthe gun reset forthat 2nd and 3rd shot etc...staying relaxed is the key here...

[Aristotle]

Tension... "...you can't go fast with the parking brake applied." - Max Michel

For most people, you can even see it in their face. There was something Max talked about in his class, about an Olympic runner when he runs. If you watch their face, it's totally relaxed. You don't see him gritting his teeth, or straining his face like he's doing a dead lift. He is totally relaxed, everywhere in his body. It's like a total body numbness, a calm of confidence. And you just do, what you need to do.

[cyburg]

I get in every once in a while whaen I practice drawing and fireing. I think I am pulling the trigger about the same time as the saftey is dropped. Genneraly in the .68 time frame

[Flexmoney]

More on tension...

On close targets, people tend to turn down their vision...a bunch.

Vision lets you KNOW what is going on. Knowing reduces tension.

See more...be less tense.

Also, people will want to just flat out hose those close targets. That is a mistake. Those targets are often so close and easy that they can be considered a source of FREE ALPHAS. Going super fast on these targets, dropping points and looking cool isn't going to help your hit factor much. Getting the easy Alphas will. Remember... your hit factor is for the whole stage. It involves a lot more than shooting. All the other stuff will eat up time and bring the hit factor down. Collect those points when you can...especially the easy points!

[moverfive]

While the "you" factor is probably the largest component - but there is also the gun component. So many times a trigger job is setup with light trigger return pressure and part of that reason is to keep the overall trigger pull weight as low as possible. Combining that with a lot of movement in the trigger (over and under-travel), the gun could easily be a component folks have with trigger jams.

I cannot tell you have many folks have come up to me saying they are trigger-jamming and when I take their gun the to safety area, make a few quick tweaks on the sear spring, and ensure that the screw in the trigger itself is set correctly will all usually alleviate, if not eliminate in some cases, their trigger jamming.

So you might want to have someone take a look at your gun to see if some improvements/tweaks could be made to help you in this area. However, "you" are probably the largest component of this trigger jamming, just don't forget that the gun could be a material component as well.

[jkatz44]

More on tension...

On close targets, people tend to turn down their vision...a bunch.

Vision lets you KNOW what is going on. Knowing reduces tension.

See more...be less tense.

Also, people will want to just flat out hose those close targets. That is a mistake. Those targets are often so close and easy that they can be considered a source of FREE ALPHAS. Going super fast on these targets, dropping points and looking cool isn't going to help your hit factor much. Getting the easy Alphas will. Remember... your hit factor is for the whole stage. It involves a lot more than shooting. All the other stuff will eat up time and bring the hit factor down. Collect those points when you can...especially the easy points!

Flex you brought up a good point. Watching this video of Max Michel.......

At the 15 second mark, there were 3 targets, probably only 4-5 yards away. You can see that he didn't shoot amazingly fast splits on them. But, I bet he got all alphas.

Now watch a video of Shane shoot it. He tries to shoot it fast and gets trigger freeze.

[CHA-LEE]

Any time we forcibly "Try" to do anything it usually ends up being worse than just letting it happen naturally. When you "Try" to shoot fast it builds tension and more tension usually means gripping harder which greatly reduces your ability to move your trigger finger quickly. Contrary to what most people think shooting faster is done by moving your finger at the same speed but in less distance, not faster. If you use a normal finger speed movement while pulling your finger back just far enough to drop the hammer then forward just enough to reset the sear you will be able to shoot super fast without trying to physically row your finger fast. Any time your finger mashes backwards more than what is needed to drop the hammer (10lb finger pressure on a 2lb trigger) or comes forward off the trigger during the reset is pure wasted movement. Wasted movement = wasted time. The next time you go to the range to practice, try simply to keep your finger on the trigger in both pull and reset while shooting multiple rounds in sequence. Don't try to go fast just move your finger at a normal speed. You will be shocked at how much faster you can shoot by limiting your wasted finger movement while physically moving your finger at the same speed.

As stated by others, having your equipment tuned to you is also important. If your trigger is too far forward in the trigger guard and it requires a lot of finger movement to pull and reset then you will be a lot more susceptible to trigger freeze because your finger will not move back far enough to reset the trigger when you shoot tense.

For me where the trigger resides within the trigger guard, how far it needs to pull to break and how far it needs to return for rest is very important. If all aspects of the trigger movement are not tuned to how my finger naturally lays and moves on the trigger then I will have trouble with producing a clean trigger pull or having a fast reset. This physical position and movement of the trigger is far more important than the actual trigger pull weight, at least it is to me.

[juan]

I took a class with Robbie.

most people practice there trigger pull, thats only 1/2 the equation.

practice the press and release for each shot, there is speed to be gained comming of the trigger to.

on close fast tgts come completely off the trigger, practice your trigger jerk.

since then my trigger freeze has all but disapeard.

[benos]

How do I stop trigger freeze?

Stop trying to go fast.

be

[Corey]

I shot the classifier "Can You Count", closeup hoser classifier. of course I tried to crank them out and had a bbaaaaad trigger freeze. 2nd string i tried to relax and shoot the shots and turned in a much better string time.

As Brian and others have said, when you TRY you cant DO.

[benos]

I shot the classifier "Can You Count", closeup hoser classifier. of course I tried to crank them out and had a bbaaaaad trigger freeze. 2nd string i tried to relax and shoot the shots and turned in a much better string time.

As Brian and others have said, when you TRY you cant DO.

On really close targets, to prevent locking up, I shot best, in a match, if I cut back mentally to about 50% output.

be