Splits and Calling Shots

[IVC]

This is a technical question about something I have observed during confirmation of dry fire in live fire and I'd like to get some insight from more experienced shooters. It's actually two related observations and questions. 

 

The more I am doing consistent dry fire training, the more I am in the mode where I observe myself and start noticing various details. The last one was the lack of gun movement of any kind during splits, which is unique to dry fire (not counting minimal movement during the trigger pull). The rest of the dry fire training involves gun manipulation and driving the gun aggressively, so calling a shot is the same as in the live fire - see the sights as they arrive on a target and recognize the timing of the trigger pull in relation to the sight picture. The gain from training is in the speed of gun manipulation and precision of indexing at higher speeds. However, the splits by themselves just seem unsuitable for dry fire training in general - the lack of recoil makes for a completely unrealistic dry fire simulation when the initial index doubles as the index for the split. There is no additional control or visual information that is being ingrained through practice. This is what I've noticed when pushing hard in live fire - the improvements on all but splits come from dry fire and everything but splits actually feels the same. 

 

 

So, here is the first problem. Is there a good way to practice the most important aspect of splits, the shot calling, in dry fire? For example, it seems that doing a dry fire Bill Drill is good for drawing, indexing and trigger finger speed, but not for the ability to control the gun and read the sights at speed. As such, it seems to be of limited value except for fine tuning draws and the initial shot on target. Maybe also for raw trigger speed and making sure gun doesn't move much during the trigger pull, but this is negligible movement compared to the live fire. 

 

This also made me think about the concept of calling shots in live fire during hosing drills such as Bill Drill, particularly when compared to the GM split times of .35 for hard targets (head shots or distant full targets). I know we are talking about the "acceptable sight picture" during hosing, but is it really a proper shot calling when only dealing with marginal sight picture and splits at about half the time it takes for hard targets and properly aimed shots? I mean, it's one thing to "see the sights on the brown background or A zone" and quite different thing to be able to close eyes and know exactly where each shot went. It's almost as if there is not just an acceptable sight picture, but an "acceptable shot calling" where the concept is similar - know roughly where the shot went as long as it stays within a specific zone. Anyone can do a Bill Drill, close their eyes and mark the shots on a separate target?

 

Am I misunderstanding shot calling during hosing and just need to work more to see the sights at all times? 

 

 

[stick]

Hosing is entirely different sight picture where partial or mediocre sight picture is acceptable.  You initially spoke about shot calling during dryfire.  Let me suggest a dryfire drill that will help with transitions and sight picture. It's called the Hopkins drill.  Here is a link http://www.hopkinsshooting.com/drills/