Seeing the sights...

[raz-0]

Apologies up front for being verbose, but I'm trying to explaina visual thing and there's jsut no way to be terse about it.

Ok, so you are supposed to watch your front sight, and you are supposed to see it move. But what should you be focusing on when it moves, and how much of the movement, if any, should your eye be tracking?

I've been trying to get out and practice more, which has mostly been group shooting at the indoor range when I can fit it in, and dry fire at home. While shooting for groups, I have been concentrating on seeing the sights move in order to improve at calling my shots.

What it all comes down to is I can go about seeing/watching the front sights in two ways, both have problems, and I'm not certain which way is the right way.

In an attempt to make something visual described in words more clearly, I'm using the word fovea to mean the sharp detailed area of critical vision that gets focused on the fovea of the eye and focus to mean what distance the eyes are focused at. Also, specifically in my case, the path the front sight takes when shooting is roughly similar to the shape of a cylinder and slide warp speed hammer pointed at about 1 o'clock.

way 1)

keep the fovea centered on the area of the front sight, with eye focus at the plane of the front sight. during the shot and recoil, the fovea and focus stay in the same positon (i.e. where you want the sights to return to). the path of motion of the sights is not concentrated on, but picked up at the edge of the fovea for part of it and then in more periferal vision out to the point it changes direction until it returns back to where I can see more detail.

way 2) track the sights with the fovea, keeping the eye's focus at the plane of the front sight. The sight is in focus and the motion is kept within the fovea for the duration of it's travel durign recoil.

For simplicity's sake, I'll start with way 2. It seems to have little up side unless I get perfect mechanical repitition, in which case the follow up shot can be a tad faster. But most of the time, returning to a good sight picture is sloppy with this method. It's main usefulness seems to be in diagnosing anything bad I might be doing while shooting in practice.

Way 1, seems to result in more consistant sight picture shot to shot, but seems fairly minimal on informational feedback. REturning to a good sight picture, however, is much more consistant.

Now normally, I would say way 1 is what works and is the way to go. The only problem is when I am calling shots successfully with way 2, I know I called them right. When I call them with way 1, it's hard to tell if I'm "peeking" looking for blurry holes where the front sight was.

So far, I generally have felt I built up two useful skills for practice, but still need to get better at one (or neither of them if I need ot be doing a thrid thing) for actual performance. I'm definitely at the point where improving is work and breaking new ground, and I'd like to put the effort into good habits rather than poor ones.

so what exactly are you supposed to see? Using brians book as a guide, 1 has the benefit of better performance and going with the whole visual guidance thing. However, it doesn't have the quite the feel of seeing everything I'm needing to see that 2 has more of. Is 1 showing me all I need to see, and if not, what the heck am I supposed to be looking for?

[Loves2Shoot]

In my opinion you are complicating things.

1. You don't "need" to watch the sights as they move, you only need to know where it was when it jumps out of the notch, because that is what tells you where the bullet went. If you are focused you will see the sights in the rise fall but that doesn't need to be a focus point.

2. Focus on where you want the bullet to go and the sights will follow with your intent to shoot the target, watch it jump, on to the next shot. That's it.

[short_round]

I think "see sights lift" is more consistent with your way 1. With your way 2 you will run into the danger of "periscoping" where you will look for the next targets through the sights rather than seeing the next target and bringing the gun there during the field course. Kind of like tunnel vision. This is slow.

The time you are using for "peeking" during way 1 will be used for finding the next target during your transitions when you are engaging multiple target arrays.

[raz-0]

Thanks for the responses (and taking the time to read my long winded explanation ).

It's nice to see my gut reaction seems to make sense. (i.e. way 1 is better). Now I just need to figure out how to practice it without training bad behaviors while group shooting as I suspect that the "peeking" might turn into a habit of visoually double checking my calls if I keep up with what I have been doing.

[LPatterson]

If you have a .22 with the same type of sight as your primary gun it will help with peeking because of the smaller hole. I use a tip that I was given to use alternating black and white pasters top and bottom of the "A" zone on at least 2 targets. Pick a color pattern (black-white-white-black etc) and fire 1 round when you have a sight picture. When the gun fires move to the next paster and repeat DO NOT LOOK FOR A HOLE. When you are done then look at the holes and they will tell tell you what your sight picture really was when the shot broke.

[SiG Lady]

I rather liked the way short_round summed it up......

[Flexmoney]

Don't settle for way 1..or way 2...or way 74...

The goal is to know where the shot went, by reading the sights.

Peeking at the holes is not good. It may be one of the worst habits to get into. (Hard to break once you start)

[raz-0]

Oh I won't settle into way 1 or way 2 or way X. They are just tools to go into the toolbox for the old subconscious to whip out as it needs them. The question is how useful it is and thus how much practice to give it. Also, to see if anyone had any suggestions about facets of the process that should be integrated before the tool gets well developed.

Integrating even small transitions into my group shooting to avoid peeking is probably the way to go, I just have to figure out a way to do it that works well with the resources I have at my disposal.

[Eye Cutter]

i do it this way, as taught in ron avery's practical shooting videos and it has helped me understand the visual concepts of seeing your sights lift and return to where they started. it might seem slow but it speeds up when you get the hang of it.

acquire the target, align the sights to the target, pause to focus on the front sight and break the shot. then repeat the cycle

[benos]

Don't settle for way 1..or way 2...or way 74...

The goal is to know where the shot went, by reading the sights.

Peeking at the holes is not good. It may be one of the worst habits to get into. (Hard to break once you start)

Bingo! Perfect.

And although it can take a long time to accept the truth of that, it's a good thing to start working on it right away.

Integrating even small transitions into my group shooting to avoid peeking is probably the way to go, I just have to figure out a way to do it that works well with the resources I have at my disposal.

You might cut through the "small transitions" if you try this: Shoot 5-shot groups at a distance where you can easily see the bullet holes. Spend some time with it. Try every visual technique you can think of. Then, consciously execute this sequence: "Bag in the gun (with a perfect grip)" aligned near your aiming point. Then, while looking at the target, align the sights as perfectly as you can. Then look back to the sights, and align them perfectly. Then look back to the target, double checking your aiming point. Then shift your focus back to the front sight and forget everything else. Really stare right at the front sight. It should look razor sharp, like a building silhouetted against the skyline. Look right at it until the shot breaks. Call the shot/release. Then look at the target to see where it went.

If you work with this a bit, you'll realize that even if the target is close enough to see the holes, it's better to look right at the sight as the last thing you do.

be