See What You Need To See

[Skywalker]

Saturday morning I was sitting at the reloading table, thinking back to my previous week end live fire training session.

So many things went wrong, that I was trying to determine what I needed to focus on in the next day training session.

The previous one was really a bad day at the range: I kept missing (static) targets from within arm's reach out to 20m, most of them being the mid or end target of any array, without really knowing why.

I was starting to determine that I didn't pay enough attention to what I needed to see (i.e. visual patience): I was diverting my eyesight to the next target before breaking the second shot on the actual target ... ... when I happened to question myself: "do you ever plan what you want to see for each shot, to determine it's a satisfactory one?"

I mean, I always planned what I wanted to see in terms of sight picture to let the shot break, but never thought about planning what to see after the shot broke.

Now I know, I've been missing a completely new world.

While thinking this all, I was just keeping reloading .40", when a 9mm brass (that sneaked through my practice brass) stuck inside a .40" case and jammed the press.

I immediately thought why didn't I see it through the clear plastic brass tube, and let it find its way down to the bottom of the pile.

I then decided (to avoid this happening again) what I wanted to see throughout the whole loading sequence: brass clearing the brass arm bushing, powder check pin sticking right in the middle of the powder check rod ring, flared brass mouth where to drop the bullet.

As soon as I got accustomed to this sequence of things to see, I started loading again: much to my surprise, I was being able to load ammo at the same speed rate I was while not paying attention, but with the added check of visual confirmation of things functioning correctly.

I decided to apply the same method during yesterday training session: before loading the gun, look at the exercise at hand to determine what to see after each shot broke; and, lo and behold, I performed a lot better than previous session, but with almost the same split and overall times.

[zhunter]

Not making fun, but is sounds like too much consciousness and not enough sub-conscious to me.

It sounds like a lack of discipline when your eyes are moving to the next target too early.

What you are contemplating doing sounds like it will slow you down due to cluttering your mind.

[wide45]

You are on the right track. Make all your decisions during the walk through.

I think what you need to be concearned with here is what you are seeing while the shot breaks.

After the shot breaks, you should be looking hard for the next target. Know what it looks like, and where to look.