Sac Law Man Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 Good advice guys, I see your point.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lugnut Posted January 7, 2011 Author Share Posted January 7, 2011 Right, I understand the drill, and it'll teach you trigger control, but totally prevent you from learning how to shoot the gun fast. If you're not driving the gun, post-ignition, you're going to be slow. I like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dwight Stearns Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 If one doesn't blink and consciously sees the sights lift, the person will also see the front sight dip immediately before ignition and recognise that pre-ignition push. (I hate the word flinch) The mind is an amazing computer and will try to correct the pre-ignition push (If it sees it) by delaying the subconscious muscle contraction the mind uses to compensate for recoil. The pre-ignition push becomes a post-ignition push. Absolutely! I get to work with this on a regular basis (unfortunately). If I see someone has a pre-ignition push, or what looks that way, I'll trick them. I'll say "here, shoot my gun" and hand them my Glock with an Advantage Arms .22LR conversion kit on it. I tell them "it's got some milder ammo in it that will help me see what's happening". The very first shot is almost always "oh, now I see what's been happening"....as soon as they see it, they can fix it. I'll let them get all comfy, then have them go back to their gun...when they pre-ignition push, they'll stop and say (often turning to smile) "okay, I saw that one". Bingo...we have a winner Exactly.... one can only correct what they can see and recognise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoyGlock Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 If one doesn't blink and consciously sees the sights lift, the person will also see the front sight dip immediately before ignition and recognise that pre-ignition push. (I hate the word flinch) The mind is an amazing computer and will try to correct the pre-ignition push (If it sees it) by delaying the subconscious muscle contraction the mind uses to compensate for recoil. The pre-ignition push becomes a post-ignition push. Absolutely! I get to work with this on a regular basis (unfortunately). If I see someone has a pre-ignition push, or what looks that way, I'll trick them. I'll say "here, shoot my gun" and hand them my Glock with an Advantage Arms .22LR conversion kit on it. I tell them "it's got some milder ammo in it that will help me see what's happening". The very first shot is almost always "oh, now I see what's been happening"....as soon as they see it, they can fix it. I'll let them get all comfy, then have them go back to their gun...when they pre-ignition push, they'll stop and say (often turning to smile) "okay, I saw that one". Bingo...we have a winner Exactly.... one can only correct what they can see and recognise. agree, but isnt this most visible also in ball n dummy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-ManBart Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 If one doesn't blink and consciously sees the sights lift, the person will also see the front sight dip immediately before ignition and recognise that pre-ignition push. (I hate the word flinch) The mind is an amazing computer and will try to correct the pre-ignition push (If it sees it) by delaying the subconscious muscle contraction the mind uses to compensate for recoil. The pre-ignition push becomes a post-ignition push. Absolutely! I get to work with this on a regular basis (unfortunately). If I see someone has a pre-ignition push, or what looks that way, I'll trick them. I'll say "here, shoot my gun" and hand them my Glock with an Advantage Arms .22LR conversion kit on it. I tell them "it's got some milder ammo in it that will help me see what's happening". The very first shot is almost always "oh, now I see what's been happening"....as soon as they see it, they can fix it. I'll let them get all comfy, then have them go back to their gun...when they pre-ignition push, they'll stop and say (often turning to smile) "okay, I saw that one". Bingo...we have a winner Exactly.... one can only correct what they can see and recognise. agree, but isnt this most visible also in ball n dummy? No, not really. It's often extremely hard (or impossible) to tell the difference between a pre and post-ignition push with a ball/dummy drill...we're talking only a couple of thousandths of a second difference between the two. If someone slips a dummy round in my mag, I'm going to nearly fall over when I get to it...how do you tell whether it was pre or post-ignition? There are a whole lot of things going on here, and they all sort of blend together...so this isn't easy to put to words. Something we need to keep in mind is that our body wants to stay in balance, and it's an unconscious process. When we put a gun in our hands, know it's going to push us, then take a couple of shots, and actually feel that push, our brain programs a response that's equal, and opposite...all without us thinking about it. Trying to shoot so our body simply lets the gun push us, without any kind of response, is difficult. You can do it for something like slow fire, with seconds in between shots, but not if you're going to snap off a .25 split. With slow fire, we know we have seconds for our body to get back to a stable position, so we just let it push us. If we know we're going to shoot again, very quickly, we can't let it just push us all over the place...we have to compensate. I've actually seen a LOT of struggling shooters who do okay when they do a ball/dummy drill. They know the dummy rounds are there, so they fight the urge to push back on the gun. You'll watch, the striker will drop (Glock) or hammer will fall, no bang, sights barely wiggle...super. As soon as you take away the dummy rounds, and have them speed up from slow, deliberate fire, the push comes back, and they're totally confused. When I say speed up, the fastest thing we do at work is two shots in 3 seconds at 15yds from the high ready (muzzle depressed just below the target)....that's pretty slow to USPSA/IDPA shooters, but very fast for most everybody else. To give you an idea of how bad this can be, I often see these same people hit one to two feet below the target (at 15yds)....that's a pretty significant push. We know that to shoot fast, you're going to be driving the gun, your body is going to be opposing the force of each shot, to keep itself balanced...so, you're going to push on the gun. What we need to do, is show the shooter that they can push on the gun, just do it after ignition...you're no longer fighting the natural urge to resist the bump from the gun. Handing them the gun with .22 ammo in it, they'll do their huge push before the shot breaks, and since it's so mild, they don't lose that in the noise and recoil. I'll have them shoot multiple shots at speed so they get the visual of the gun going off, the front sight lifting off the target etc...then it's a matter of recreating that mental image with the harder kicking gun. They've finally seen what it should look like while shooting fast, and that makes it way more likely that we can recreate it with their normal gun, which is almost an entirely new topic. R, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dwight Stearns Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 When I have watched other instructors using the ball and dummy drill (known some places as the screw your buddy drill). Students that "succeed" with the dummy will display muzzle jump in the 45 degree angle range when the gun hits a live round. Not conducive to rapid fire. In my opinion it just doesn't work for teaching high speed shooting. G-man, I like the idea of the body wanting to stay in ballance. I'll probably steal it and use it down the road. (I'll gime you credit for it though.) Dwight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ss+P Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 In my opinion you all got ahead of the game a little bit. If he is a new shooter are you trying to teach him how to shoot a gun accuratley or for speed. The two are completly different. If he is new to shooting, ball and dummy would be a good way to go, but before you do that have him dryfire either on the range or at home. The important thing to tell him would be to: first learn to shoot the gun accuratly, then focus on building his speed. second: for accuracy have him work on pressing the trigger straight to the rear by applying even pressure over the trigger all the way to the rear. this may help if his rounds are impacting left (assuming he is right handed) third:make sure he understands sight alignment and keeps sight alignment all the way through the trigger press. any one of us can say we see the sights all the way through the press, the difference is did you see sight alignment through the press. once you start building speed, did we see good enough sight alingment to get A's. If he is blinking when he shoots try this drill, i believe it is from Burkett. Have him shoot a magaizine as fast as he can, eventually if he is blinking he will press the trigger faster than he can blink and he will start to see his sights pre ignition. I think that is how he explains the drill. not 100% though. IMO teach him to shoot the gun accuratley then build his speed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ss+P Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 forgot something. The drill to have him shoot accuratly would be put a 1" piece of tape on a target at 3 yards and tell him to shoot a group. have him shoot it one round at a time until he gets it. then start adding rounds. 2 at a time then 3 and so on. As he gets better at it move the target further away. If he is having problems with this tell him to change his thought process to trigger control instead of sight alignment(SA). The consious mind will only think about one thing at a time, right now if he is thinking about SA he is probably getting the NOW shot(the sights are aligned and i want the gun to go off NOW and he jerks the trigger). Have him aim in and then start repeating build pressure over and over until the gun goes off. If he understands SA he subconsious mind will watch the sights and he will soon learn that even if the sights arn't perfeclty aligned the round will go very close to where he wants them to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M1911 Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 A while back I was trying to help a new shooter with a vicious flinch. I had him shoot a .22 Buckmark with a red dot sight, and he nailed the center of the target. He picked up his Ruger GP100 loaded with bunny fart .38 Spcls and his shots were all over the place, mostly low. I tried the ball and dummy drill with him, and he recognized the flinch, but couldn't stop it. I had him dry fire the GP100, no flinch. Load it, big flinch. I had him hold the gun on target and had me pull the trigger -- shots on target. But try as I might, I couldn't figure out how to stop him from flinching with the GP100. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lugnut Posted January 25, 2011 Author Share Posted January 25, 2011 A while back I was trying to help a new shooter with a vicious flinch. I had him shoot a .22 Buckmark with a red dot sight, and he nailed the center of the target. He picked up his Ruger GP100 loaded with bunny fart .38 Spcls and his shots were all over the place, mostly low. I tried the ball and dummy drill with him, and he recognized the flinch, but couldn't stop it. I had him dry fire the GP100, no flinch. Load it, big flinch. I had him hold the gun on target and had me pull the trigger -- shots on target. But try as I might, I couldn't figure out how to stop him from flinching with the GP100. I think part of eliminating the flinch is just trigger time and work. It's not normal to stand at arms length with something sounding like a loud explosion in front of your face all while trying to keep your eyes open!!! There is a reason your eyes want to close. Shit- go indoors and stand 5 feet from an open gun without muffs... hell it's might as well be an explosion!!! J/K I wouldn't recommend doing that for real! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 If one doesn't blink and consciously sees the sights lift, the person will also see the front sight dip immediately before ignition and recognise that pre-ignition push. (I hate the word flinch) The mind is an amazing computer and will try to correct the pre-ignition push (If it sees it) by delaying the subconscious muscle contraction the mind uses to compensate for recoil. The pre-ignition push becomes a post-ignition push. Absolutely! I get to work with this on a regular basis (unfortunately). If I see someone has a pre-ignition push, or what looks that way, I'll trick them. I'll say "here, shoot my gun" and hand them my Glock with an Advantage Arms .22LR conversion kit on it. I tell them "it's got some milder ammo in it that will help me see what's happening". The very first shot is almost always "oh, now I see what's been happening"....as soon as they see it, they can fix it. I'll let them get all comfy, then have them go back to their gun...when they pre-ignition push, they'll stop and say (often turning to smile) "okay, I saw that one". Bingo...we have a winner Great stuff! be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlosa Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 A while back I was trying to help a new shooter with a vicious flinch. I had him shoot a .22 Buckmark with a red dot sight, and he nailed the center of the target. He picked up his Ruger GP100 loaded with bunny fart .38 Spcls and his shots were all over the place, mostly low. I tried the ball and dummy drill with him, and he recognized the flinch, but couldn't stop it. I had him dry fire the GP100, no flinch. Load it, big flinch. I had him hold the gun on target and had me pull the trigger -- shots on target. But try as I might, I couldn't figure out how to stop him from flinching with the GP100. It's funny that you mention this.. i think a loaded gun has a different physiological effect on some people... i remember when i first started shooting, i was doing lots and lots of dry fire, not once disturbing the sights (even did the silly coin thing).. then going to the range loading the gun setting up to shoot and my trigger feeling 10 times heavier than during dry fire practice the trigger was not actually heavier... but knowing that the gun would go "bang" definitely had an effect on me, which lead to MASSIVE anticipation and pre-ignition push (along with the illusion of my trigger being heavier than usual).. i can honestly say that during this stage of my development dry fire was a total waste of time seance my bad trigger control was directly connected to my fear of the gun firing, and disconnecting the to was not addressing the problem. I think that what helped me the most was shooting entire mags into a berm 5 yards away as fast as i could. it's not as effective with 8 round magazines but if you're shooting 10 or more, you eventually (4 to 5 rounds in to the magazine) stop flinching and become some what desensitized with the noise and recoil of the gun, living you free to watch what the gun is doing, this is when i first noticed i wasn't blinking, which in my experience is much easier to notice than when you are blinking... this method is not perfect... in my case it lead to shooting better at fast to medium speed (when my focus is on the front sight) but insane amount of anticipation when i slowed down and put my focus mostly on the trigger... I'm getting to a point now where the two are starting to blend the "feel of of a good trigger pull" and my focus on the front sight, but i struggle to maintain this focus on every shot of a range session, I'm guessing this will just take lots of practice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Scientist Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 (edited) From a newcomer learning perspective, I agree with the above poster. I have a "fear" of guns. I am so dang nervous that I have zero comfort level. Handguns to the younger generation are just "bad" especially those of us who grew up from about 1970 on even those of us in firearm friendly combines like Wisconsin where everyone had a rifle or shotgun. This leads to a lot of bad habits because of fear. It is absolutly irrational, but that doesn't mean it doesn't go away! What I found is, eventually I can get into that "zone" many talk about in sports where the fear goes away and it is just me and the target. The problem is I get so nervous, that it often takes me a bit to get into the "zone", some times a few shots, sometimes its a whole stage or more. I'm worried about the range officer, my poor score, my poor skills, screwing up, etc, etc... When I finally shut everything out, I found I can actually shoot. So for us new guys much of it is gaining that comfort level with your firearm so that we aren't intimidated by a 2 lb piece of metal and polymer. Once you start to relax, then one can start to make adjustments. I know we all hate to reinforce bad habits, but the worst habit of all is fear for many new people to the shooting community. Edited January 26, 2011 by Crazy Scientist Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Straight Shooter Posted February 18, 2011 Share Posted February 18, 2011 One more thing that would help: I tell new shooters it's OK to have the aim slightly off the target but good sight picture is always maintained so they won't rush and jerk the shot when the sight picture and aim are right. Overcoming the fear of powerful rounds needs different approaches mentioned by others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mra8541 Posted February 18, 2011 Share Posted February 18, 2011 I think you're good on your advice. Lots of dry fire practice will help and just having him being focused on his problem will keep him aware of what he's doing. A flinch is an atisipation, so practice and patients... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
recovering19A Posted February 18, 2011 Share Posted February 18, 2011 I had a bad flinch I had to overcome before I got better with a pistol. I was able to work through it by doing A LOT of dry firing, and then using a .22 rimfire pistol. It took a long time and a lot of effort for me to get it under control but I finally did it. +1 Almost everyone could benefit from .22 practice - cheapest live-fire you can get, and not nearly the "event" that larger calibers can be. For me personally, dummy rounds did help a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lrf Posted February 18, 2011 Share Posted February 18, 2011 I used a little desensitization therapy to get rid of my flinch. If there is an indoor range with gun rental nearby rent a 44 mag and that will make your 9mm seem pale in comparison. It also might damage your hearing a little. Only put a couple live ones in the cylinder. This worked for me, might not work for everybody. I also overcame my fear of flying by taking flying lessons. Or just shoot shoot and shoot till the bang is just a normal thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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