Trigger control, pulling, dry-fire, POA, etc

[bountyhunter]

After reading through various threads, the webpage of TGO and BE (plus some others) I have not found any answers....

Please help me get back to basics and a level from where I can improve...

In my case, I was not able to obtain decent trigger control until I drove all doubt out of the mind... a lot harder than it sounds. In bullseye, trigger pull is ruined because people "hit" the trigger as the dot crosses target center, causing a larger POI error than the dot movement would if a smooth pull had been used. For me, it took many hundreds of rounds fired using "shot mapping" where I shoot five and visualize where they went to make my mind KNOW that if the pull is smooth and the gun is in a certain area, the shot will be in the ten ring. The odd thing is, if I stand there and look at the bullseye target at 25 yards and start thinking about how small a 3" ring actually is and how hard it is to put all 30 into it, I can talk myself right out of doing it. So, you have to completely convince the mind that trigger pull requires 100% of the focus and block the targeting information from your brain once you commit to pull. Shot two perfect scores last week so it actually works.

Speed shooting league is a lot harder and perfect scores a lot more difficult to come by. But, the mechanics are similar: align on target until the sights are in the acceptable area and then ignore them and focus 100% on a smooth pull. When sights return to the proper area, repeat. For me, the speed shooting is much harder simply because all the actions are compressed in time and there are more things to break your concentration (like reloads). But if you can maintain complete focus during the critical interval (sight/ignore/pull), you will shoot consistently. My worst distraction is that I see the hits on target because I have both eyes open and even though the gun recoils up, I can still see the target... and if I hosed one off line, it pisses me off. That's another distraction you have to focus out.