Seeing The Sight Lift?

[boo radley]

In BE's book he talks quite a bit about "seeing the sight lift", and I'm not sure I've seen anything that quite fits that description, and wonder if it's a matter of being more aware/relaxed....I also don't see the slide cycle, or the front sight in an orange silhouette, and I'm concerned I'm missing out on a good thing in life.

I have a tendency, from time to time, to blink, and anticipate the recoil, so I've really tried to work on paying extreme attention to the sight picture, when the shot breaks. What I see, when relaxed: sparks radiating out around the muzzle...the top of the slide flying up out of view (and returning).

That's it.

[ipscron2000]

Boo

I can finally see the sights lift and see the slide cycle. I guess I'm getting more aware. I think it's because I'm getting more relaxed the longer I shoot this sport.

[Barlin]

Boo,

I know exactly what you are talking about. For a long time I was concerned that I may be blinking and I was certain that I was not seeing the sights lift even though my accuracy was improving rapidly. Then one evening as the light grew dim, my questions were answered as I could clearly see the sights lift in the muzzle blast.

Now that I knew what to look for it was easier to see.

Barlin

[XRe]

It's basically something you'll learn how to do, and it *is* a result of expanding your awareness and making your focus razor sharp. It's not something you'll consciously follow, but something that you'll realize you saw after the fact. Be patient - you're on a steep learning curve

This is one area that shooting an Open gun seemed to help me - I found it easier to focus on that red dot moving around than a front sight. Switching back to irons from that made it a lot easier to pick up the front sight lifting.

[spook]

It also took me a long time to see "it". It took so long because I did not see what I thought Brian saw. Don't think about what you're supposed to see. Just see what you see.

[Jake Di Vita]

Exactly what Spook said. Great great stuff.

[Clay1]

I'm in that same learning curve and also reading Brian's book again. I shot on Thursday at an indoor range before my Saturday match. I tried to pay attention to the sights lifting, but like Brian said in the book make sure you can see the muzzle blast or you are blinking. I saw the blast fine. I shot on Saturday yesterday and things are finally coming together for me. Shot 3rd highest overall at a small, 36 shooters, local IDPA match. The work is showing some results. The book is really highlighting many things that I have already experienced but Brian just puts those experiences in words and shines light on nuances that just flicker past conscious thought. I'm really enjoying the book this time around.

[GuildSF4]

I can see the sights lift now, the way I learned to do it was in practice, deliberately focusing on my eye to ensure it was not blinking. It took a little bit of effort to do, and I remind myself periodically to watch this.

Most people blink when the gun goes off and do not realize it until they focus on their eye while they are shooting a gun.

[Ben Stoeger]

The farther I am from the targets, the more likly I am to see the front post lifting out of the notch. Up in close, I dont usually see it. As I develop I expect to see more, but I am a relative newcomer.

[kevin c]

If you have access to Jerry Barnhart's series of tapes, he has a great segment where the camera man set up over his right shoulder, looking through the sights of the iron sighted gun he was holding. JB had to hold the gun off his normal index to do this, but was able to see his sights from the camera's point of view by looking at a monitor in front of him. He was then able to show exactly what he sees when he shoots, both the sight picture he uses, as well has what he sees as the gun cycles. In both real time and slow motion, you could see the sights lift up, and a bit to the right, and how they came right back to the same sight picture and then lifted on the next shot.

Very nice...

Edited May 17, 2005 by kevin c

[Clay1]

Ben, in Brian's book he writes of 5 different types of sight focus. Until I read this section I kept thinking "what are these guys talking about seeing the sight lift out of a 4 yard target I don't see such a thing". In Brian book a type one or two focus you will not see the sight lift out of the notch. That is my take on his writing. In a type one you are focused on where you are hitting and the range is relatively short. This shot is almost just indexed and your awareness of the front sight is no where close to what it will be as compared to shoot a set of standards at 15 or 20 yards.

Someone can chime in and tell me that I am all wet, but that is what I came away with after reading this section. Currious if others see the sight lift on a type one or two focus?

[standles]

Boo.

This is not as easy to master as some think. All suggestions above are excellent. I did my drills concously forcing my eyes open to see the blast/rise. It is a cool think to see.

Most blinking is because of the noise of the gun. Double plug for awhile to make sure you minimize this blinking trigger.

Another aspect is the body defensively reacting to the explosion in your hands in front of your face. For the this line your sights up and then close your eyes. Fire the gun and feel everything there is to feel. Resight and do this again. This helps your body accept that nothing bad is going to happen.

Take a few mags and find a spot on the berm. You are not shooting groups but simply aiming at the berm. Now empty the clip as fast as you can into the berm. At some point in the mag you won't be able to blink as fast as you can shoot so you should see the "grail" of sights lifiting.

Now try and be concious of the blinking. You will have to unlearn blinking to loud noises.

Hope some of this helps, Steven

[XRe]

Clay - you've got it right, at least by my understanding. I don't set out to see certain focuses on each target, though I have a little bit of notion of what I'll need to see. I identify what I saw after the shooting is done. If I find I'm shooting a lot of Type 1 or Type 2 in a match, and there aren't a whole lot of close in *wide* open targets, I start focusing on seeing that front sight crisply - as Brian says, either of those has a danger of turning into unfocused shooting, and results fun things like misses on close wide open targets

I definitely don't see a traditional sight picture or sight lift in Type 1. In Type 2, I tend to see the whole slide lift...

[boo radley]

Thx Steven, and others....

After doing some practice yesterday, and reading the replies in the thread, I'm starting to think what Spook said makes a lot of sense: ie, don't worry about what I think someone else is seeing, but rather worry about what *I* am seeing. Fair enough.

Blinking isn't...a problem, per se, but more of an awareness issue. Sometimes I'll catch myself blinking (like a shank in golf, I don't dare use the fl**** word), but I try to be aware of it. Double-plugging absolutely helps, in the indoor range I practice in. When I'm relaxed, and shooting well, I'm extremely pleased with the groups I'm getting offhand, at 25yards, so I don't think there's a fundamental problem, it's just this nagging feeling that others are seeing more than I, as the pistol fires.

That might be true, but I need to focus first, on my own awareness....

[KimberA8]

When I missed a pp1 (last in a set of four) at a shoot yesterday someone that helps me out advised me to make sure I saw the the sight lift off the target before I moved to the next target. I was aware of the concept but didn't know how to train for it when another great shooter said I should look for it when shooting one handed. Focus is greater then and once you begin to see 'it', 'it' is easer to see when speed shooting free style. I haven't worked on that yet but it seemed to make sense to me. Worth a try.

Any road that gets you where you need to be is a good road.

[wsimpso1]

The topic of seeing the sights lift is covered better than I can write, but I think that I can add a cross training story.

I will point out that on tough targets (small or distant) I can see the sights start to rise and then they disappear for part of the slide cycle, and then they reappear as the sights head back to alignment and the target center, so I can not see the whole cycle yet, but I do get calls on my shots that reflect my results and I get early cues when the gun locks open or malfunctions. I am still working on all of this...

In 1983 and 1984, I was teaching skeet and some trap at Lordship Point Gun Club (Stratford CT). We had the nice feature of Long Island Sound blending into New England haze, which was a perfect backdrop for shooting clay targets because you could see the shot cloud fairly easily. Not the wad, the cloud of shot. I taught a LOT more rounds of skeet than I ever shot... Usually I got shooters who wanted help on a particular skeet station and they would ask how much to lead a particular target, like I know where their gun shoots, how they do the lead, and how they move the gun. I would turn it around and ask them if they could see the shot cloud, and then, almost invariably, I would have to explain how they have the best seat in the house, looking straight down the rib and watching the cloud of pellets fly directly away from them. Once you can see the cloud, you do not need me to tell you how to lead a particular target...

Well, they were skeptical, but I would also explain that if they are swinging the gun smoothly and looking down the rib, they will be able to see the cloud and break the target, but the hard part is that the gun goes off and many people quit paying attention when the recoil starts. Some stop or change their swing, etc. I would then have them swing on a few targets from their problem station without ammo, which would smooth their swing and take out the hitches as they broke the trigger. Then we would do ball and dummy, with me loading the gun, and them swinging and snapping, mostly with fired shells, but slipping a live one once in a while. On one of those surprises where the gun went off, their eyes would get big - "I SAW THE CLOUD!". So then I would have them fix their lead and swing on targets without ammo and a couple targets later, they would get a live round, and usually there would be smoke! And their response was marvelous...

What they had to learn to do was watch the whole shot, and they were learning to do everything. Once they learned how to watch the whole shot, seeing what happened after recoil commenced became one of the coolest things to observe. Some of them quit feeling the gun go off or quit hearing it go off, some only knew about the target, the bead, and the cloud, but they all got revved up watching the shot happen. I know now that they probably needed to keep some of the awareness, but their focus had shifted to a better place...

I think that this is the same change as learning to watch the sights lift. You need to be an active spectator in the process of firing the whole shot and right into the next one. It does take practice and focus to learn it.

For most of us, it also means that we have to change something that we have been doing to allow us room in our routine see things. For any one of us, this might mean time doing slow aimed fire on long targets, dry fire at the range on tough targets, ball and dummy drills, or firing on a blank backstop. You somehow have to work in time to specifically to seeing the sights so that you can help yourself learn to do something different. Once you put value on seeing the whole shot, see it yourself, and learn how to do it, it gets better and works its way into the program that you run for each shot.

Tuning the mental engine is the hardest part. I hope that this helps.

Billski

[Singlestack]

Nice post Billski.

[folsoml]

I am just surprised at the number of brand new (and some not so new) shooters I see that don't recognize that their slide has locked back on an empty mag. They transistion from one target to anther and flinch when the gun doesn't fire. My questions is, "What exactly are you looking at???" It's been a while since I was a new shooter, but I can't remember not being able to feel the difference when the silde comes back, but doesn't go forward.

[dsb45acp]

I have a similar problem with seeing the sight lift and the slide cycle. When I do see this I shoot more accurately and faster then I believe is possible for me. The problem is that I am not seeing this consistiently and my preformance is inconsistient. Any suggestions for helping to see this with every shot?

[benos]

I could swear I posted in this thread, but now I don't see it... Anyway - Yes, nice post Billski! I like the "see the whole shot" way of explaining it. That's good stuff.

When we're first learning to shoot a pistol, we're lucky if we see anything of value. We catch glimpses - bits and pieces of the whole activity. As we keep at it, we start to see more and more as we become more comfortable with the pistol blasing away in front of our face. Slowly, we learn to see more continuously. Eventually, with proper training, we can learn to see and remember every detail of entire stages.

At the end of each shot (or string of shots), ask yourself - what did I see?

As was mentioned - Not what should I have seen, or what Bob says he sees.

We see and process differently depending on our training and our innate visual skills. One day, after a lengthy explanation of how I "saw" a stage (Rob and I were practicing), Rob said - "I don't see anything like that!" And of course he was rocking the stage.

Use experiences others relate and words you read to guide you on your mission to shoot the best score possible. What do you need to see to do that?

be

[Wim]

This is really cool... thanks.

After years of slow offhand shooting I've been so intent on going fast that I get a good first shot and can often only recall seeing a target somewhere behind my hands and the gun for the rest of a stage (what Brian would call "BAB" I think) and little in the way of sight picture. Some of my times are way low - and so is the hit rate!

If I go slower I'm hitting much better though.

Between The Book and The Forum and posts like this I know it will come right over time. I had never dreamt that there was so much more to action shooting; after years of thinking I could shoot pretty well (which I suppose I can depending on the circumstances). My shooting has turned from an activity into a journey...

Thanks.

Wim

[wsimpso1]

Brian Enos: Thanks for the kind words. Now if I was actually watching the whole shot myself, I would go a long ways towards drivng the gun.

Mentioned in this thread was the issue of the shooter not noticing the gun locking open. Last night a friend and I were doing a short drills and we were loading each other's mags in order to have the guns lock open unexpectedly. What a surprise it was for each of us when we tried to shoot a gun at slide lock.

We talked about it for a while too. When I shot less and the recoil of my .45 bothered me, I was very aware of slide lock. I suspect that while I have gotten to the point where the recoil pulse from the .45 has become more comfortable - I am a recoil wimp - I have been learning to ignore the recoil pulse, and in the process, I have been ignoring the difference between loading feel and lock feel. It seems to be a reminder to be aware of what is going on...

My primary history in shooting is High Power, where the difference in feel when loading vs locking open is obvious to me. In the pistol, I believe that we do have to see AND feel the gun cycle. While I too am learning to watch the slide cycle, I am obviously not there yet.

Anybody with more thoughts on how to actually see or feel this?

Billski

[XRe]

Mentioned in this thread was the issue of the shooter not noticing the gun locking open.

Anybody with more thoughts on how to actually see or feel this?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Just keep at it, man. Follow the advice in this thread (and others) and you'll find it. The drill you detailed working with a partner is probably a good way to get a "practical" feel for it.

Just coming back into the sport, I don't always pick up on this, either - my last match I did indeed try to shoot a pistol at slide lock once - I'm still dialing in my awareness/focus skills. When I do notice it immediately, I recall having felt a different impulse in recoil (instead of a roll back and forward, it feels like snap back), and a different track to the sights - they don't return the same, though they do tend to return due to timing the gun and a desire to line up the sights for the next shot.

[shred]

When you are playing at the range sometime, try and see if you can feel the difference when the last round feeds. I don't think I've ever noticed it at a match, but sometimes in practice (where I plan to run the mag dry much more), I'll know when the last round loaded. It's eerie thinking "the mag's empty" and sure enough it is, even with a round in the chamber.

[Flexmoney]

Being shooters..that shoot at targets...we often get caught up in trying to hit the target.

This may sound weird, but quit trying to hit the target. Don't give it a second thought. Remove it from the equation.

Then, open up your awareness. Allow yourself to see what else is going on. Let us know what you see.