Need Help With The Bill Drill

[ardo]

I've been practicing Bill Drill in live fire regularly for a few months now. One thing I notice is that when I'm trying to push my splits below .20s my shots start creeping high. I am concentrating on a really strong (for me) weak hand grip, and it does help with tighter group sizes at slower (0.22s) split times, but when I push into 0.18s the shots end up walking higher and higher. I feel like I'm letting the sights return and am calling every shot, but the results say otherwise.

I suspect that my stance (not leaning forward far enough) may be the problem. I'm seriously considering taping myself to see what's going on.

Any help would be appreciated.

[ShortBus]

I shot a couple (first time) bill drills today and when I tryed to really push it I was high as well! That's crazy. Wonder what's to blame.

[drysideshooter]

I believe its probably breaking the next shots before the gun has fully returned from recoil in the quest to be faster. For me, when I concentrate on being smooth and having a consistent rythm the speed ends up improving with time. When I focus solely on being fast and feeling like I am pushing it, I end up with missed shots, very often high when on the same target.

May be different for you, but maybe try concentrating on being smooth with an even rythm. I visualize a metronome. Never wavering smooth rythm.

[Nimitz]

yep, you are not waiting for the FS to return fully into the notch before breaking the next shot ....

while videoing yourself is always enlightening to see what you are doing it won't help with this issue ... now if you have a POV camera co-witnessed to your sights you'd see exactly what the problem was ...

[ardo]

Thanks, Nimitz. I do have a tiny cam that I rigged with a baseball cap mount, but that's hardly co-witnessing with my sights. It does capture the slide and its movement, but that's about it. Maybe mount it to the right temple of my glasses? I'll have to experiment, thanks for the idea.

Drysideshooter, the rhythm is definitely there, and sometimes I manage to go faster and still hit the A-zone without the shots creeping high. I managed to have a couple of good runs at 1.95sec (7 yards) but I can never seem to be able to reproduce them.

I think I do better with more aggressive stance while gripping with my left hand as hard as I can. If I'm too upright my body & head get pushed back so I suspect I'm looking at the sights from above, calling the shot when in fact the muzzle is pointing a bit upwards.

This past week I've been experimenting with adding a bit of side pressure to my grip, and it does seem to help in practice (Frank Garcia's dot drill) but I cannot reproduce this in a match yet.

Thanks for helping!

[DeadReckoning]

I don't find a more agresave stance to help that much when you're trying to really push it. I think learning to relax a bit produces a better result. When I start to force it by being more aggressive I lose the focus I need for the hits.

[ardo]

After a bit of training, I think I have figured it out. As Ben Stoeger says, grip the sh*t out of it. Any slacking on my weak-hand's part will immediately show.

I can now break 2s about 2 times out of 10 in practice. I had a 2.24s all-alpha run in a match about 3 weeks ago, it was good enough to win me that stage. Now, time to learn all the other stuff. Apparently, I really suck at field courses. I try to blame it on old age, but have a feeling there's more to it.