Sight does not lift and settle straight up and down

[Nemesis Lead]

The topic pretty much says it all.

When shooting (I am right handed) the pistol tends to lift and settle to the left (weak side)--probably in the D-zone or right outside. After each shot, I wrestle the front sight back over to the right and trigger another shot near the A-zone. My arms also seem to lift a bit and I wrestle the gun back down too.

My most common USPSA target is an Alpha (first shot) and a Charlie (second shot) just to the left of the Alpha zone. I see this over and over. I am good at seeing the sights and rarely Mike during a match.

The big issue is that getting 2 Alphas slows my splits significantly. At 15 yards, I am usually shooting this Alpha-Charlie combo with a .32 split (I see the shot breaking and hitting the C-zone). Wrestling even more with the gun, lining the sights up, and shooting an Alpha slows my splits to .40 or so.

Any thoughts on diagnosing the cause of this issue and solutions would be greatly appreciated.

[mlmiller1]

Just an idea but try this, turn your elbows out more, less pointing downwards. See what happens. You might like it. Also, be sure your thumbs run down the side of the slide, pointed at the target.

MLM

[Sin-ster]

What you describe COULD be a two-part problem.

If the sights do not return to alignment every time, and are favoring the left, it's most likely a deficiency in your support hand grip. Make sure you're up high on the gun, wrist canted hard forward so that your thumb aligns with the slide, and you are covering all of the available gripping surface with the meat of that palm. Apply pressure laterally with that hand, driving the meaty portion behind the thumb into the gun and sort of "pinching" in with the fingers. Think about trying to crush a can perfectly flat, as opposed to squeezing it down into a smaller cylinder-- if that makes sense.

As to the arms moving, and possibly settling to the left after your first shot... This is something near and dear to my heart and I'm working on it as we speak.

Check your stance first and foremost and make sure your natural POA is correct. This is less important than one might think-- after all, we can't possibly square up to every target in an array. But it's a good baseline and will teach you where your HIPS need to be in order to facilitate consistent recoil management. We steer the gun with our legs, not our arms-- and trying to do the latter will DEFINITELY result in issues.

Next, verify that the tension in your arms is consistent. In my case, the left arm can go a little lax and allows the gun to drift to the left in recoil. The right arm can tense up and push the gun left in recoil. Or they can both act up a little bit and cause the same thing. This can be corrected somewhat in dry fire-- ensure even and proper tension EVERY TIME YOU PICK UP THE PISTOL. Pay specific attention to it in live fire, including just shooting into the backstop/berm without a target present. I've stolen and created several drills to both diagnose and address this issue, if you need more detail.

Get behind the gun a bit more. This is going to be different for everyone based on physique and body type, so you'll have to figure it out on your own. Suffice it to say that low and wide is going to provide more stability than high and narrow, in regards to your stance. So long as you can still explode out of a position, I personally believe that you can't overdo this one. The more movement you can reduce of the gun/your arms during recoil, the more consistent the return will be to your intended POA/POI. At 6' and 160 pounds, I wind up with a pretty aggressive stance when I'm really driving the gun-- but having long legs makes it easy to burst out of that stance when I need to move. In my case, I took my old pre-pitch infield/about to steal a base stance from baseball and tweaked it some. Wrestlers, football players, volleyball players, goalkeepers-- a lot of people with past athletic experience already have a good base for this, so try to relate it to your past experiences.

Edited September 20, 2012 by Sin-ster

[benos]

Nemisis,

What you described is the result of a non-nuetral grip.

be

[Nemesis Lead]

Gentlemen,

Thank you for the good advice. I went to the range today and turned my elbows out a bit and also played with the grip tension on each hand. Some tweaks caused the gun to track more up and down and for the sight to come closer to coming back into the notch. I was on a public range and could not time my splits, but I think this will be an improvement.

The still unaddressed issue is that my arms tend to rise up between each shot. The front sight returns to the notch and my sight picture is just above the head of the target. I then drive the gun back down and trigger another shot. I don't think that is normal. Thoughts on what I might be doing wrong?

[HoMiE]

Are your arms rising or is your wrist bending the pistol up and back. Generally if you cam your supportwrist forward, point your thumbs at target, the gun will drive straight back not up.

[Nemesis Lead]

I think it is both--my arms are rising and I am getting muzzle flip that leaves my wrists naturally returning to an aimpoint that is just above the target.

The issue may be with how I cam my left wrist and how it is gripping / camming. I thought I understood this (I hold my gun just like the guy in the video), but maybe not. Is the left wrist locked (mine is not)?

[HoMiE]

I think it is both--my arms are rising and I am getting muzzle flip that leaves my wrists naturally returning to an aimpoint that is just above the target.

The issue may be with how I cam my left wrist and how it is gripping / camming. I thought I understood this (I hold my gun just like the guy in the video), but maybe not. Is the left wrist locked (mine is not)?

Yes, i can my left wrist and lock it so it doesn't move up/back. You have to keep constant tension on it to keep it cammed forward. It isn't simply cam forward and let it rock back.

[Sin-ster]

If your sights aren't settling all the way back down in the notch, I've found it to be a matter of relaxing and then tensing up again in the process of recoil. This is one way to fight the gun-- which you don't want to do. (If you were simply staying tense and then fighting the gun, it's much more common for the front sight to dip below the rear as opposed to what you're reporting.)

Yes, your support wrist should be locked. And it should stay that way throughout the firing cycle, every time.

As to your arms lifting and settling back down high of your intended POA-- that's a two part problem. Again, you are probably relaxing and then tensing up again-- wrestling with the gun. If you were purely relaxed, it would lift really high but settle right back down.

The excessive arm lift itself is a matter of stance. That one will be hard to diagnose specifically without a photo or video. I'm guessing you're probably being rocked back by the recoil as well.

Mentally, there are two ways to approach it...

Brian would say to will the sights to return to perfect alignment, and the gun to return to your intended index. (When I tried that approach, I ended up fighting the gun.)

I would say will the sights to STAY aligned, and the gun to STAY indexed. (For me, that amounted to consistent and even pressure/tension throughout the firing cycle and actually allowed the gun to return, as opposed to actively fighting it into place.)

In reality the goal is the same, but I guess my head and body is wired differently than the Ghost Dog's.

[mlmiller1]

If your arms are not going back where you want, I agree with sin-ster that it is a stance issue. Try sticking your butte out a little bit. This will cant your upper body forward some, controlling the way the recoil pushes you back. It gives you a very aggressive stance which happens to work out well as you add in movement to the shooting skills you are building.

[Nemesis Lead]

I think we have it. I don't lock my support hand wrist and have to try that. I had no idea that others were doing that!

My stance is fairly aggressive. I lean forward, have a wide base, and stay fairly low.

Thanks for all your help!

[grapemeister]

For what it's worth, I don't agree that it's a stance issue. It shouldn't matter if you're standing on one foot, leaning around a corner, or standing on your head. Let the sights return to the point they started. See the front sight lift out of the notch, and see it return to the same spot. Believe me, this is something I have also struggled with, and I still am to a certain degree. I find that I'm more successful when I have a firm nuetral grip, and I don't lose sight of the very small spot that I'm aiming at. Like anything else, it takes lots of practice, but you have to start slow, and build up speed over time, and at various distances.

[Sin-ster]

For what it's worth, I don't agree that it's a stance issue. It shouldn't matter if you're standing on one foot, leaning around a corner, or standing on your head. Let the sights return to the point they started. See the front sight lift out of the notch, and see it return to the same spot. Believe me, this is something I have also struggled with, and I still am to a certain degree. I find that I'm more successful when I have a firm nuetral grip, and I don't lose sight of the very small spot that I'm aiming at. Like anything else, it takes lots of practice, but you have to start slow, and build up speed over time, and at various distances.

Agreed-- the sights not settling has nothing to do with stance. I'd attribute that to grip.

The gun itself, as well as the arms going wonky, is 100% stance in my experience. And I don't mean your perfect "in the box" stance-- I mean in general.

Note that I include varying arm tensions as part of the "stance"-- I guess we could call it body positioning to be a bit more specific?

I'm curious what you mean by "don't lose sight of the very small spot I'm aiming at"-- could you clarify that a bit?

[grapemeister]

For what it's worth, I don't agree that it's a stance issue. It shouldn't matter if you're standing on one foot, leaning around a corner, or standing on your head. Let the sights return to the point they started. See the front sight lift out of the notch, and see it return to the same spot. Believe me, this is something I have also struggled with, and I still am to a certain degree. I find that I'm more successful when I have a firm nuetral grip, and I don't lose sight of the very small spot that I'm aiming at. Like anything else, it takes lots of practice, but you have to start slow, and build up speed over time, and at various distances.

Agreed-- the sights not settling has nothing to do with stance. I'd attribute that to grip.

The gun itself, as well as the arms going wonky, is 100% stance in my experience. And I don't mean your perfect "in the box" stance-- I mean in general.

Note that I include varying arm tensions as part of the "stance"-- I guess we could call it body positioning to be a bit more specific?

I'm curious what you mean by "don't lose sight of the very small spot I'm aiming at"-- could you clarify that a bit?

I may be guilty of over generalizing and assuming what other shooters may be doing wrong, but I know what gets me in trouble is letting myself be distracted by the whole firing cycle, and what the sight is doing after it leaves the notch when my focus should continue to be on the spot I want to shoot. In other words, instead of seeing the target twice, we should see the target once as the gun in firing twice....if that makes any since. Same fundamentals ( grip, sight picture, trigger pull, etc.) it takes for a successful well aimed shot, but doing it twice at speed. Just assuming, but I think some shooters maybe be starting off with a well aimed 1st shot but the second is more or less at brown.

[Sin-ster]

For what it's worth, I don't agree that it's a stance issue. It shouldn't matter if you're standing on one foot, leaning around a corner, or standing on your head. Let the sights return to the point they started. See the front sight lift out of the notch, and see it return to the same spot. Believe me, this is something I have also struggled with, and I still am to a certain degree. I find that I'm more successful when I have a firm nuetral grip, and I don't lose sight of the very small spot that I'm aiming at. Like anything else, it takes lots of practice, but you have to start slow, and build up speed over time, and at various distances.

Agreed-- the sights not settling has nothing to do with stance. I'd attribute that to grip.

The gun itself, as well as the arms going wonky, is 100% stance in my experience. And I don't mean your perfect "in the box" stance-- I mean in general.

Note that I include varying arm tensions as part of the "stance"-- I guess we could call it body positioning to be a bit more specific?

I'm curious what you mean by "don't lose sight of the very small spot I'm aiming at"-- could you clarify that a bit?

I may be guilty of over generalizing and assuming what other shooters may be doing wrong, but I know what gets me in trouble is letting myself be distracted by the whole firing cycle, and what the sight is doing after it leaves the notch when my focus should continue to be on the spot I want to shoot. In other words, instead of seeing the target twice, we should see the target once as the gun in firing twice....if that makes any since. Same fundamentals ( grip, sight picture, trigger pull, etc.) it takes for a successful well aimed shot, but doing it twice at speed. Just assuming, but I think some shooters maybe be starting off with a well aimed 1st shot but the second is more or less at brown.

I think it makes sense to me-- and if so, it's something I've just had to remind myself of quite recently!

You don't literally mean seeing that spot twice, but seeing it once and then focusing on it for the second shot, yes?

I've got a couple of theories on this process, so it's near and dear to my heart right now!

[grapemeister]

As a B class shooter with only a few years experience in practical shooting, I'm certainly no expert. But, maybe some of my observations, wether right or wrong, will at least give others a different way of looking at things.

Going back to the original posters question; it may be a target and sight focus issue or a combinations of things, I don't know, but it sounds more like a grip issue. I found that the front sight tracked and settled back into the notch more conistently and naturally when I found a comfortable nuetral grip, and started gripping the gun harder. This is a recent discovery for me, and I'm not exactly where I want to be yet, but it feels better, and the sights are tracking better than they were. Sights tracking better = less distraction, and more consistant focus on the target I'm aiming at....I think. Does that make since?

[Sin-ster]

Consistant focus on your target meaning awareness of your index upon it, I think is what you mean...

That definitely makes sense.

[GmanCdp]

great things here...

[JCH]

Just an idea but try this, turn your elbows out more, less pointing downwards. See what happens. You might like it. Also, be sure your thumbs run down the side of the slide, pointed at the target. MLM

hmmm...I need to try this. I think my elbows point almost straight down while firing and I'm having trouble handling recoil.

[HardChrome]

You may be steering the gun with your thumbs.

[Sac Law Man]

This was huge for me.. Once I worked on keeping my support hand thumb off the gun, the gun lifted and returned during recoil so quick and effortlessly. I think any time we come in contact with the gun, forward and above the trigger guard, we are going to negatively affect the guns ability to recoil and return.. An exaggeration would be (I'll use a revolver for simplicity sake) if we held onto the barrel with our support hand while we fired. There is no way the gun would rise and return during recoil.. the same thing happens when the support hand thumb comes in contact with the frame.

Edited April 17, 2015 by Sac Law Man

[GunBugBit]

This was huge for me.. Once I worked on keeping my support hand thumb off the gun, the gun lifted and returned during recoil so quick and effortlessly...

Same for me. It makes a very big positive difference.

[justpaul]

Great post Jay. I have the exact same problem

[Nemesis Lead]

Hey Paul,

This post is almost 3 years old. As you know (if you are who I think you are ), I have since made Master Class.

This thread helped. Also moving to a CZ from a Glock helped. The gun just fits my hand better and let me get more support hand pressure on the gun. With the Glock, my hands had to conform to the (flat) grip. With the CZ, the grip has swells that conforms to my hand a bit better. The heavy frame and light slide of the CZ probably helped too.

[Nemesis Lead]

Incidentally, I think I may have accidentally met Sin-ster (Bo) who posted some sage advice above at the 2014 USPSA Nationals. Only about 50% sure of this.