Drills to improve Shot Calling

[Corey]

I think we are talking semantics. What Cha-lee is describing is what I consider the text book of "shot calling". By definition it is a degree of clairvoyance. Think about the phrase "calling your shot" and even think about a guy like Babe Ruth, lol. He KNEW what was going to happen before it did. Our version of shot calling is a bit different obviously as we are reading things AS they happen, not before. But, if done properly, we KNOW where the shot landed before we look at the target so in essence, its the same.

I don't think there are different levels of shot calling. You can either do it or you can't. If you can't, you need to find out why. Do you not know what the sights looked like? Do you know how aligned or misaligned sights control where the bullet goes? Do you blink during the shot and have no chance of seeing anything? If you can't call them, you need to find out why.

[Nimitz]

you can have "GM level" shot calling skills and still shoot very slowly because the only "acceptable" sight picture you use is one where the front sight is perfectly aligned in the notch and you will not fire the shot until you achieve this .... you obviously want to learn to do both and I would agree that if you are going to learn things one at a time then learning what is the appropriate amount of sight picture for a particular shot would be done first, then you would learn to call your shots as the next skill ... not saying I agree with that method of learning since the ability to call your shots only gives you the capability to do things faster, it doesn't in of itself make things faster ...

[ardo]

Big thanks to Cha-Lee and Nimitz for a great 'refresher course' of what I should already know but keep forgetting, especially the part of establishing what acceptable sight picture is.

I keep calling my shots all the time but most of these end up being missed calls...

[bockerSV]

I'm still getting my whits about me as far as shot calling goes but I find simple burm shooting to really help get you focused on watching your sights and seeing what is happening with your gun. Takes the other distractions away when you are working on one specific thing, watching your sights.

[rpd]

This thread was very helpful. Thanks.

I've been able to see the sights when I break the shot for a while and I'm able to call shots, roughly. I find myself often calling a miss and making up a shot and I had a delta or thinking I had a delta or a mike and it was a borderline Charlie. I feel like I've got a compass (seeing the sights when I break the shots) but I don't have a map (knowing what that sight picture means when I see it). I've got a lot of work to do in mapping that out, but I'm working that drill into my live fire today.