Fuzzy front sight

[Dwight Stearns]

Jeff you have me looking at some things that I have been aware of but not thought of for a while. There are two kinds of involuntary body movement that effect shooting. Beside wobble there is tremor. Wobble comes from our core muscles and effect the sight picture where tremor occurs in the hands and forearms and effects sight alignment. Both are uncontrollable for the most part and usually trying to stop the movement makes things worse but tremor is the most detrimental since it effects sight alignment. This doesn't change the discussion. Just an observation.

Dwight

[Whoops!]

What is everyone USPSA classification I am unclassified. I have not joined USPSA yet.

You all are totally dodging the OP's question

I'm C class and proud of it . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL0gM2ADaUQ

The only miss was the one on the second steel, unfortunately my follow-up shot on it was screwed up because I transitioned back to the steel before shooting the next target in my mind. L10, major. P16-40 with stock trigger and no magwell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKMyHif_kXM

On this one, I forgot my stage plan halfway through . . . it's terribly obvious. I actually don't think I had a stage plan, I missed the walkthrough here.

Edited December 9, 2013 by Whoops!

[Dwight Stearns]

Not classified in USPSA. I'm mostly a steel shooter with a little success over the years. I was classified years ago when I shot a classifier match before a single stack championship. I'm getting old and fat so I prefer the stand and shoot matches.

Dwight

[Supermoto]

What is everyone USPSA classification I am unclassified. I have not joined USPSA yet.

91.7

[Onepocket]

What is that Master? Open? Limited?

[Supermoto]

What is that Master? Open? Limited?

Yep, For both, my % is lower in open though

[Onepocket]

How long did it take in limited?

[Supermoto]

How long did it take in limited?

I started in L-10 in 2006. Some one handed me an Open gun around april 06, Shot L10 that year as a B, my goal was to make A in L-10 before going open. A Buddy said it would be more fun to make A in L-10 by making M in Open. He was right. It was a lot more fun that way. All my focus was on Open until Sept this year. I had a year or so screwing around with a iron sights in 2011. Sept of this year I stopped focusing Open and went to L10/Limited, beginning of Nov I made master and hope to make GM next month

[Onepocket]

Congrats!!! That's awesome. I wish I could afford open it looks like a blast. I shot steel challenge with a delta point on a 22/45 for about three years never lost a match in the state for the last two and a half years. I have sub 2 sec times on three stages And really like the wide open feeling from shooting optics. Now I'm shooting a 34 in limited minor and that is tough but I'm going to do it for two years until I get a 35. Learning the gaming aspect of USPSA is the hardest thing for me at the moment.

[Jshuberg]

I haven't competed USPSA and don't have a classification.

I noticed something when I went out to the range this weekend - since we've been discussing this I decided to run a 3" target out 25 yards for some fun, and couldn't see it well enough to keep from drifting away with a hard sight focus. I used to be able to see it well enough, so perhaps my new prescription or eyes just don't work for small targets like this anymore. A silhouette target works fine, it's big enough to be observable, but that little 3 inch target just dissolved into the background with a front sight focus.

So, I did have to send my focus forward a little until the target reappeared, resulting in the front sight being slightly blurry, which really bummed me out. I also tried to focusing on the target to try what you guys were talking about, but that was a complete catastrophe and I was all over the place. I still don't understand how that works.

[Onepocket]

Has anyone on here tried/practice point shooting from the draw. At what distance can you be accurate. How good could some one get with practice.??? I have a little and I think most people would be surprised how accurate you can be.

[Jshuberg]

It's not a bad thing to practice from time to time, it develops your skills, but doesn't lend itself to shooting in competition.

If you're training at all for defense, you should anticipate that if you find yourself needing to use your weapon you are most likely already significantly disadvantaged. You may be suffering an inability to see well enough to use your sights, either from the adrenaline dump or possibly an injury to the head. In this situation, if your life is on the line, your going to point and shoot. Having practiced this will only help you out in this situation.

The other thing it does is really help with procedural memory (aka muscle memory). There is absolutely nothing wrong with aiming primarily with procedural memory, or even relying on it. Point shooting helps to develop this skill. When shooting fast splits, you're not typically taking the time to aim for every shot, you're relying on procedural memory to get you back on target. The difference between point shooting and aiming with procedural memory is that with point shooting you don't use your sights at all. When relying on procedural memory, the shooter still uses their sights to call their shots so they know if they hit the target, or need to take another shot. When point shooting, it's basically fire and forget since there's no real way to tell if you hit the target other than looking at the target for holes, or in the case of a real situation waiting to see how the bad guy reacts. This is obviously much slower and much more error prone, and potentially more dangerous.

If a person is having difficulty bringing the sights up perfectly aligned by feel, or returning the gun back to aligned after a shot breaks, doing some point shooting training might help with this. It forces a person to aim without a visual aid, which is a very good skill to have. I'd limit this to being a training aid though, to help develop or reinforce procedural memory, as well as to simply try it so that if you ever find yourself in a worst case scenario, the first time you try it isn't when your life depends on it. Under normal circumstances, use your sights to call your shots even if you can consistently aim well without them.

Edited December 9, 2013 by Jshuberg

[Whoops!]

I feel bad posting what I did here. If you shoot C class, you don't need to be that fast to be competitive. I changed the above post to reflect that. In reality, I've won C-class at every major match I've attended as an unclassified shooter. I just blew a classifier match. If you can shoot as fast as the videos above, you'll probably win at least B class at nationals, even in open division if you omit the reloads and you're getting all your hits.

Edited December 9, 2013 by Whoops!

[toothguy]

Has anyone on here tried/practice point shooting from the draw. At what distance can you be accurate. How good could some one get with practice.??? I have a little and I think most people would be surprised how accurate you can be.

You will get better hits more consistently if you see your sights for every shot.

[Jukez]

Quote from Eric Grauffel on Target focus over Sight focus... he goes further into detail but basically uses target focus unless he has no Dot or F/O if it is true iron sights then he uses sight focus.... basically said something along the lies that he uses fiber optic like a red dot.. But then again not all of us are Eric Grauffel?

This came off the IPSC Global Village Forums:

Eric Grauffel, on 14 Jan 2009 - 7:48 PM, said:

Like I do, then you have a good point.

It is not an easy question, but I'll try to answer it the best I can.
Yes I am an open shooter but about 40% of the ammos I burn per year are done in Standard/limited.

First, for me there is no half focus on sight or target, either you focus on one or the other one.
For me the focus must be on the target, otherwise as you mention it will be hard to call your shots.
Now it comes, Do I shoot both eyes open, or one eye closed. The first answer would be: " your call, it's a shooter preference", knowing than when you reach a certain distance, most of the shooters will close 1 eye.

Now, what I personnly do:
in between 0 to 15 meters, I shoot both eyes open.
Over 15 meters, I close one eye.

If I have a tight shot with a PT under 15 meters, I will also close one eye.

Hope this helps

Edited December 10, 2013 by Jukez

[Onepocket]

I think this is the what I will be doing. I do this now except I never close an eye for targets at a distance. Thanks for the article.

[Solidgun]

As my eyesights are getting worse, I think I need to figure out the targets and distance they need to have my non-dominant eye closed. Targets are getting farther and smaller at local matches and I think this is something that I need to establish.

[Dwight Stearns]

I haven't competed USPSA and don't have a classification.

I noticed something when I went out to the range this weekend - since we've been discussing this I decided to run a 3" target out 25 yards for some fun, and couldn't see it well enough to keep from drifting away with a hard sight focus. I used to be able to see it well enough, so perhaps my new prescription or eyes just don't work for small targets like this anymore. A silhouette target works fine, it's big enough to be observable, but that little 3 inch target just dissolved into the background with a front sight focus.

So, I did have to send my focus forward a little until the target reappeared, resulting in the front sight being slightly blurry, which really bummed me out. I also tried to focusing on the target to try what you guys were talking about, but that was a complete catastrophe and I was all over the place. I still don't understand how that works.

I started using the target focus about 25 years ago. That was back when I still could shoot two eyed and focus on the front sight if I wanted to. Due to some other concerns I chose not to. Now at age 57 I have extreme difficulty doing the two eyed front sight focus. What I found back 20 some years ago is the front sight needs to be fairly narrow with a standard rear sight notch. Fiber optic helps greatly. In my 1911's I use a Caspian .070 front sight with a .040 green fiber optic. My Glocks all carry the smallest width Dawson front sight available. I believe they also have .040 fiber. Same with the M&P.

If you have the chance, give that set-up a try. Might work.... might not.

Dwight