Seeing front sight lift and then settle back into rear notch

[Tubguy]

I'm a C class Limited shooting for 15 months now.

I still do not see the front sight lift and settle back into rear notch while shooting a match. I'm getting around 80 to 90 percent of the available points. I just hate walking with the RO and seeing a mike or even worse a no shoot.

My plan is to see the sights lift and settle or call your shot but as of right now it eludes me when the buzzer goes off. I am not trying to go fast as a plan or my self talk.

What drills can I do in dry fire or even live fire to help with me seeing the sights lift/settle before I break the next shot.

What should I be thinking about when I step into the box. My focus is not going fast when I step into the box. I just want to see/call my shots in the match environment.

Thanks

[Cy Soto]

Burkett Timing Drills followed by Bill Drills. Shoot these until you find yourself surrounded by a pile of empty brass on the ground.

Edited August 8, 2014 by Cy Soto

[Dwight Stearns]

Do you blink when you fire?

[Tubguy]

I'm not sure if I blink. I'm going to set up a camera on my face when I shoot. I'm thinking that it's a possibility. Currently I double plug when I shoot now. Got any ideas if I blink

[ron169]

Take a brick off 22 ammo and a pile of your normal ammo. Load up as many 22s as you can and mag dump them into the berm... You should shout faster than you can blink, and you will see what it's like to see the sights. Keep going, take one pair of ear protection off and just use one type, go some more, then switch to your normal gun and repeat doubled up on ear pro. Then when you feel comfortable, take off one pair. Be prepared to burn through a lot of ammo to rid the flinch

[Dwight Stearns]

I'm not sure if I blink. I'm going to set up a camera on my face when I shoot. I'm thinking that it's a possibility. Currently I double plug when I shoot now. Got any ideas if I blink

Next time you shoot, shove your tongue up into the roof of your mouth as hard as you can. As you are doing this, shoot into a backstop without actually shooting at anything. You will start seeing things like the sights lifting and brass ejecting. I know it sounds crazy but it works.

Edited August 9, 2014 by Dwight Stearns

[Tubguy]

I will defiantly will try this and report back!

[CSStreett]

Shoot a few Bill Drills into the back stop before you begin your normal live fire routine. No target, just right into the berm. Shoot it fast enough that you don't have time to blink. With no target to focus on, the only thing left to look at is your sights.

[Jshuberg]

Don't try to track your sight. Don't try to follow it. I think the term "tracking your sight" is a poor phrase, as it tends to imply that you're actually doing something. All you need to do is observe your sight, don't try to follow it. Tracking your sight needs to be an entirely passive activity performed by the subconscious. All you're doing is watching it. When you try to track it, your conscious mind takes control but is too slow to be able to track the front sight very well, especially during rapid fire. You need to observe the front sight without any action or intent. You want your conscious mind to pass the visual information you're seeing to your subconscious without alteration. Simply watch the front sight. If you lose it, don't sweat it, just keep watching it. Eventually you'll realize that you are able to perceive the sight lift and dance around a little on its way back down.

There is a condition called chronostasis, where the mind tends to drop small rapid movements from our stream of consciousness. It's an optimization to declutter our perecption of reality. Unfortunately this works against tracking the front sight, since we're specifically trying to track a small rapid motion. What I've found helps with countering this effect is to "zoom in" with your mind on the front sight. If should occupy a significant percentage of your perceived visual field. If you have a fiber optic or dot on the front sight, you should perceive it to be the size of a soccer ball. When you "zoom in" with your mind like this, the movement of the sight is no longer a small rapid transition, it becomes a large rapid transition, and your mind will be much less likely to drop it's movement from your stream of consciousness.

If you work on these things and are still having troubles, another thing you can try during dry fire is to exaggerate the movement of the front sight. Simulate muzzle flip in slow motion, and move your hands up in space after squeezing the trigger. You want around a foot of slow motion muzzle flip. When you do this, hold your eyes tightly to the front sight, and actually move your eyes to keep the sight centered in your vision (don't move your head). Try to "zoom in" on the front sight as much as possible as well. What this does is to emphasize to the subconscious mind that the motion of the front sight *is* important. Think about it this way, your subconscious doesn't know what you're thinking. It learns by observation, and unless you do something to explicitely point out that the motion of the front sight is important, it may have a difficult time figuring that out. Most shooters try to minimize the movement of the front sight to the smallest amount possible, so the mind will also try to minimize your observation of it's movement as well. Doing this slow motion exercise, where you exaggerate the muzzle flip and move your eyes to stay centered on the front sight will teach your subconscious that while you might want to minimize the movement of the sight with your hands, that you still want to be able to see the movement of the sight, and it will respond by *not* dropping its motion from your stream of consciousness.

Unfortunately, for some people (like myself) the chronostasis effect is very strong, and the ability to overcome it using these techniques is perishable. For some people, this isn't something that you learn once and it sticks with you. You may find that you need to do the above exercise somewhat regularily in your training in order to maintain the ability to observe the movement of the front sight through recoil. Other people may find that once they teach their subconscious that the movement of the front sight is important, it does stick with them the rest of their life.

For those that have a hard time with this, allowing a little bit of muzzle flip (.5" or so) will help you to perceive when the ability to track the front sight begins falling off so that you can revisit the training exercises. When you all but eliminate muzzle flip you might not notice that your ability to track the front sight has fallen off, since there's almost no movement to track. Unfortunately, chronostasis also effects your ability to call your shots properly during rapid fire, so allowing a little muzzle flip so that you can more easily recognise when it begins to rear it's ugly head again will help you to keep your groups tight.

Hope this helps.

Edited August 12, 2014 by Jshuberg

[BoyGlock]

Thank you for your effort ?

[Nimitz]

Any other way to tell if you are blinking besides setting up a video camera to video your face while shooting?

[Dwight Stearns]

A fellow shooter, that doesn't blink, can stand beside you and can tell you of you are blinking. It's almost impossible to self diagnose.

[Nimitz]

hmmm ... more difficult than I hoped as I train alone .... however, I've heard that if you see your brass eject (which I do) then you are not blinking? True?

[CSStreett]

I've never given much thought to seeing brass eject. Makes sense though.

[Dwight Stearns]

seeing brass eject is a pretty good indicator that you are not blinking.

[Nimitz]

ok thx, so I just suck at shot calling at the moment ...

[Jshuberg]

Try the things above. There's a very good chance they'll help.