Watching the Front Sight Lift

[Wik]

I will start this out by saying I am fairly new to USPSA shooting. With the help of the wonderful advice and depth of knowledge of this forum I have excelled from what would likely be a low D shooter to now what would be a mid to high C shooter. I have shot roughly 7 USPSA events so far, all club level with only 3 stages. I am not a current USPSA member, but I've been using classifier calc to calculate my stage percentages, which are normally 45-50%. I've read through a lot of the threads on this forum and try to read all topics started by Mr. Enos himself and they've been a game changer for me. I am 20 years old, have only 3 years of pistol shooting under my belt at about 2,500 rounds per year.

Now I would like to consult the breadth of knowledge on this site with an issue I've been having lately. I've been working hard to call my shots. I've done unaimed firing into the berm to track my front sight, but I just cannot follow it. When the gun recoils the gun seems to lift up slightly and blocks my vision of the front sight. I know this is 100% shooter technique and not an equipment issue, but for reference I am using a Glock 34 with a fiber optic front sight, grip tape grips, and 142 PF factory ammunition (American Eagle 124 gr @ ~1150 fps). I want to be able to master sight tracking with factory loads before I go to lighter recoiling rounds so I will be well versed in it when I go to 130 pf.

I am sure that my two high thumbs grip is correct (studied and studied and studied TJ's, Sevigny's, etc. grips and made it muscle memory through practice). But, I am unsure of my arm position. It feels as if my arms are too stiff and they don't move under recoil, so all of it is transferred to my mostly locked wrists. Or maybe the recoil is pushing my arm up at the elbow instead of straight back. Maybe it is me not correctly watching the sights under recoil. I am looking for some general tips and some insight on this issue as I think it's paramount to calling shots and shooting quickly and precisely. The last 3 USPSA club events I have shot around 45%-50%, and before that there was pretty steep progress, so the plateau the last 3 weeks is sort of discouraging. I really want to be an A shooter and like anyone a master and maybe some day a grand master. But I need to walk before I run, right? Fundamentals and muscle memory are extremely important to me, so if there is any training I can do for this, I'd love to hear that as well.

So please, can those of you much more knowledgable than I give some insight on front sight tracking and how to watch the front sight lift?

Thank you so much,

Wik

Edited July 27, 2010 by Wik

[Wik]

Also, I plan on buying BE's book as soon as I can as I've heard he covers this in there very well, but I'd like something to practice in the mean time and maybe this will help someone else. I live in Northern Minnesota and Northern ND, so I only have a few months of above zero weather a year. In the off season I would really like to dry fire, dry fire, dry fire, and train for the spring. Is there any type of dry fire practice I can do to help me out with this specific issue? I'm a cheap college student, so dry firing is also very cost effective for me, and due to classes I don't have too terribly much time to be reading books other than my text books (UGH!).

Edited July 27, 2010 by Wik

[Seth]

Find and take a class as fast as humanly possible. You will waste thousands of rounds committing bad habits to muscle memory. If you're serious about the game, no better money can be spent.

Find the students for a class and entice a pro to come and teach. Get 8 guys together and call TJ or Tomasie... Bragg or Cheely. Stoeger....

Get trained now.

Edited July 27, 2010 by Seth

[Bigpops]

May sound silly...are you keeping your eyes open during the shot? Are you sure?

[kfd147]

Find and take a class as fast as humanly possible. You will waste thousands of rounds committing bad habits to muscle memory. If you're serious about the game, no better money can be spent.

Find the students for a class and entice a pro to come and teach. Get 8 guys together and call TJ or Tomasie... Bragg or Cheely. Stoeger....

Get trained now

+1

Or at the least buy the first three volumes of Matt Burkett's DVD's or Magpul Dynamics Pistol DVD and watch them when it is cold outside (or like here in Texas too hot). This will help you get rid of some of those bad habits and get on the right track.

Jason

[Jman]

Here is a link. And a great place to start. http://www.brianenos.com/pages/words.html Just past half way down begins a section called Fundamentals & Technique. This is at the core of what we do.

[Field]

lol

"I hate myself."

A good one by myself, on national TV.

(Ask Jim Scouten about that one.)

Edited July 27, 2010 by Field

[caspian guy]

For the dryfire part of sight tracking a blowback style airsoft gun can work (you can modify the slide stop on most of them so they don't lock back so you can practice without even having to deal with the pellets).

[Wik]

May sound silly...are you keeping your eyes open during the shot? Are you sure?

I am 99% sure. I double plug and when others are shooting I never blink. Actually had my old man who I shoot with regularly watch me shoot and he said I wasn't blinking. Maybe I should set up a camera or something so I can actually see what I'm doing.

A class probably isn't feasible. I'd love to do Ben Stoegers, but I will be in ND for school when he has his, so it would be a 14 hour round trip drive, $175 in gas, I think it was $250 for the class, plus another $175 in ammo. I'm a college student and can't afford $600 nor can I afford the time away from school. Next summer will be the earliest possible time I could do it.

Edited July 28, 2010 by Wik

[Field]

A class probably isn't feasible. I'd love to do Ben Stoegers, but I will be in ND for school when he has his, so it would be a 14 hour round trip drive, $175 in gas, I think it was $250 for the class, plus another $175 in ammo. I'm a college student and can't afford $600 nor can I afford the time away from school.

im sure doing a class with a proffessional like Ben would be really beneficial but i wouldnt sweat it too hard like your definitely not gonna be a failure in ipsc if you dont take a class from someone good.

theres a heap of stuff on the internet you dont necessarily have to talk with people in person, you can teach yourself fairly well.

just look at Bens website even: http://benstoeger.com/

theres alot of good stuff on there and you dont have to drive anywhere to get that information

depends on how you like to learn also i guess.

Edited July 27, 2010 by Field

[Wik]

I've been to Ben's website a few times and I've practiced with his dry fire drills. I can read my sights and call my shots 100% of the time with my AA .22 lr conversion kit. I think it's a recoil control issue more than anything.. I have shot several times staring down my sights at my front post, and when the shot breaks it jumps up too fast for me to follow. As soon as it drops back down I can find it again.

The more I read through this thread the more I believe this is something that only I can figure out and there are so many different factors that there isn't any way you all can tell me what may be going wrong. I guess I'll video tape me shooting and try to find a program where I can slow motion it and see what exactly I'm doing.

[benos]

Wik,

If you are sure you are not blinking, and it sounds like you are, you might be trying to hard (caring too much) to see the front sight lift.

Trying to see something can prevent you from seeing it.

Go to the range, and tell yourself that you no longer care about seeing the front sight lift.

Aim at the bern, at nothing in particular, and cast a gentle gaze down over the top of the slide, and ask yourself, I wonder what I will see when I begin pulling the trigger - bang, bang, bang - ?

Remember - you have no idea what you might see! A monster could appear for all you know. Or an angel.

I was coaching a shooter one time, and before she fired I said, When you are done with this string I want you to tell me something you saw that you've never seen before. The I said to keep that in mind for every string. She said that was the best thing anyone had ever told her. I totally ad-libbed it in the moment, but I've been repeating it ever since.

be

[Singlestack]

I was coaching a shooter one time, and before she fired I said, When you are done with this string I want you to tell me something you saw that you've never seen before. The I said to keep that in mind for every string. She said that was the best thing anyone had ever told her. I totally ad-libbed it in the moment, but I've been repeating it ever since.

be

Boy, that made me wonder if I could do that!

[Wik]

Wik,

If you are sure you are not blinking, and it sounds like you are, you might be trying to hard (caring too much) to see the front sight lift.

Trying to see something can prevent you from seeing it.

Go to the range, and tell yourself that you no longer care about seeing the front sight lift.

Aim at the bern, at nothing in particular, and cast a gentle gaze down over the top of the slide, and ask yourself, I wonder what I will see when I begin pulling the trigger - bang, bang, bang - ?

Remember - you have no idea what you might see! A monster could appear for all you know. Or an angel.

I was coaching a shooter one time, and before she fired I said, When you are done with this string I want you to tell me something you saw that you've never seen before. The I said to keep that in mind for every string. She said that was the best thing anyone had ever told her. I totally ad-libbed it in the moment, but I've been repeating it ever since.

be

Awesome, thanks Brian. I have one picture of me about a month ago shooting and the gun is halfway through the recoil cycle with the slide at almost its furthest point back and my eyes are wide open. It's with my CZ and not my G34, though. I really don't think I'm blinking.

To call your shots, is it necessary to watch your front sight throughout the entire recoil cycle, or can I call it when the shot breaks, focus on where the sight is going to drop back down to and take the next shot as the sight comes back into my vision? This is sort of how I currently do it, but I don't have enough practice to know how well it's working. When I'm shooting matches I get into a zone and I know what I'm doing in the moment, but when it's all said and done I sit back and ask, "What just happened?". I do however perform better in competition than in practice, oddly enough.

I will keep practicing and I'll try to get to the range asap to try out your advice. Also-I just bought your book.

Edited July 28, 2010 by Wik

[benos]

Wik,

It's pretty much impossible, when firing an aimed shot, to see the front sight throughout it's entire movement. It goes WAY higher than you see it. But that doesn't matter because you only need to see the front sight at the moment it begins it's upward travel to call the shot.

Then if you didn't hack at the trigger too hard, and your grip and upper body position are dead-nuts neutral, the sight will naturally return to right where it left from. And you'll see it retuning into the notch for about the same distance of travel as you saw it when it lifted.

It's like you just see it bobbing up and down out there.

That's all you need to see.

If you want to see how high the front sight really goes, hold your gun lower, about out at chest level, and trigger a few shots at the backstop.

be

P.S. Thanks for the book order!

[Sam]

Wik, I want to encourage you to be very tenacious about this. It used to be very difficult for me to see the sight lift. And I was a fairly advanced shooter at that time.

Just know that the sight is there, and that your eyes do see it. The difficulty sometimes lies in realizing the amazing extent to which the eyes are capable of seeing, and in decoding that visual information in real time.

In my personal view, this is very closely related to "follow through", which I once thought of as something I did after the shoot was fired. Now, "follow through" means, for me, to "continue seeing" as the shot fires.

Stick with it and don't expect to see anything.

-Sam

[Wik]

Wik, I want to encourage you to be very tenacious about this. It used to be very difficult for me to see the sight lift. And I was a fairly advanced shooter at that time.

Just know that the sight is there, and that your eyes do see it. The difficulty sometimes lies in realizing the amazing extent to which the eyes are capable of seeing, and in decoding that visual information in real time.

In my personal view, this is very closely related to "follow through", which I once thought of as something I did after the shoot was fired. Now, "follow through" means, for me, to "continue seeing" as the shot fires.

Stick with it and don't expect to see anything.

-Sam

Thanks Sam and Brian for more great posts. I was under the impression that you watched the front sight throughout the entire recoil cycle. I really need to get to the range and practice now.

Brian, you explained exactly what I was seeing the last few times I've been trying to track my sight. I would watch it lift right after the shot broke, but would quickly lose it as if the gun lifted and blocked my line of vision to my front sight.

Edited July 29, 2010 by Wik

[abrush]

I would like to suggest that this thread be made "sticky" or a FAQ, or something like that. I finished Brian's book, and went out to shoot and immediately started wondering what I should be seeing in terms of "sights lift". This thread was the first hit of a Google search for "Enos sights lift", and I think it tells all.

In case there will be an update to the book, this level of detail on seeing the sights lift would be my #1 vote for clarifying an otherwise top-notch guide to exploration.

[Corey]

Check out the video in This Thread. One of the best ways I've seen it explained.

[benos]

I would like to suggest that this thread be made "sticky" or a FAQ, or something like that. I finished Brian's book, and went out to shoot and immediately started wondering what I should be seeing in terms of "sights lift". This thread was the first hit of a Google search for "Enos sights lift", and I think it tells all.

In case there will be an update to the book, this level of detail on seeing the sights lift would be my #1 vote for clarifying an otherwise top-notch guide to exploration.

I renamed the currently pinned, FAQ's thread, and added this thread's link to it.

be

[Chris iliff]

For the dryfire part of sight tracking a blowback style airsoft gun can work (you can modify the slide stop on most of them so they don't lock back so you can practice without even having to deal with the pellets).

At a Manny class I learned that Manny does this with his Airsoft. No pellets just pulls the trigger and watches the front site lift!! Plus he sells Airsoft and backs the product.

[Steve Anderson]

Man, Brian knocked that one out of the park.

Only thing I could humbly add is this: When you're seeing it optimally it will look a lot like a bouncing ball sing along on TV. the front sight rises and falls very smoothly and predictably, and you'll actually be waiting for it to return correctly.

Since you're just 20, have you ever seen a song on TV with the lyrics on the screen and a bouncing ball going to each word of the song?

Also, it sounds like your learning style is very analytical. This can lead to a constant state of "what am I doing wrong?" A better question might be, "what am I doing?"

[MarkCO]

Also, it sounds like your learning style is very analytical. This can lead to a constant state of "what am I doing wrong?" A better question might be, "what am I doing?"

If you look up "Paralysis by Analysis" in an Encyclopedia, my picture is there. Grat adivce from Steve there

You now have the technical portion, but you will save yourself frustration, time and money by getting some good video coaching if an in person class is not feasible.

[ktm300]

For the dryfire part of sight tracking a blowback style airsoft gun can work (you can modify the slide stop on most of them so they don't lock back so you can practice without even having to deal with the pellets).

At a Manny class I learned that Manny does this with his Airsoft. No pellets just pulls the trigger and watches the front site lift!! Plus he sells Airsoft and backs the product.

I did a Manny class last weekend and got to see the airsoft thing first hand. It goes slow enough so you can see the sight lift with no problem. I can see where it would help a lot on getting the transition timing correct. Sights lift, move your eyes to the next target, let the gun catch up. I tend to want to move my eyes before the sight lifts. It tends to turn an A into a D or a Miss?

[benos]

Also, it sounds like your learning style is very analytical. This can lead to a constant state of "what am I doing wrong?" A better question might be, "what am I doing?"

Excellent!

Or what am I seeing?!