Weak Hand Results

[JODON]

You may try to develop your wrist and forearm

by either holding your blaster for periods of time

as long as you can left handed and use other

techniques to make your left as strong as your

right..

thanks ..

johnb

[tightloop]

JFD after the match let us know how you did.  Good luck with it.

[JFD]

I shot the IDPA match (I don't shoot IDPA much at all) with my .38 Super in ESP.

Had a stage with a weak hand string at a short 5 yards or so.  I stunk.  My practice didn't translate hardly at all.

Honestly I didn't do too well with freestyle or strong hand either on this stage.  There was a 4 second par time for 6 shots on each string.  I haven't shot this kind of stage (with a par time) more than once, and that was 3 years ago.  I pushed way to hard to beat the time and just stunk.

I'm slapping myself right now for my pitiful freestyle results.  My time including the draw for the 6 shots with -0/-1 hits was 2.1 seconds, so I had all the time in the world to shoot all "A"s in freestyle or strong hand, and likely enough time to shoot the weak hand a lot better.

I was secretly proud to shoot that 2.1 second time though, especially from my Wilson Practical holster positioned behind the hip (I shoot USPSA from the same position).  

I was representing USPSA really well before that, absolutely smoking the rest of the squad while managing not to speed load.

I'm close to making a deal to trade for a timer.  I believe once I practice with the timer and have a better idea how fast I shoot, then these par time stages could be shot with a lot more confidence.

I'll check the web site tonight to see how I placed overall.  The members of my squad didn't handle that last stage too well either.  It's hard to tell were I might place since they weren't really following IDPA rules.  Hits on the edge of the target were counted as good hits (-3?),  and procedurals weren't being called fairly.  One of my USPSA buddies managed to speed load with a round in the chamber while moving between cover.  The SO somehow convinced himself that this was OK.

I believe I'll stick with USPSA from now on.

I'm also going to really bear down with my weak hand work, probably using my 686 as much as possible, combined with my 1911.  If I can hit something with the DA revolver, the 1911 should be a piece of cake.  I'm thinking about using those Speer plastic bullets/cases in my backyard to suppliment live fire in the 686.

[Duane Thomas]

"I'll keep dry firing and working on increasing my strength and see what that does to my live fire results."

JFD,

No offense intended - really - but I can pretty much guarantee you're on the wrong track with trying to increase your strength so you can hold the gun harder. Try relaxing your grip so you've got a firm but not hard hold on the thing. This will decrease your muscle tremors immensely. Do stick with the dry fire, as this will pay big dividends.

One trick that might help: out at the Factory Nats, I got to watch the Super Squad shoot two stages called "Picture Perfect I" and "Picture Perfect II." These were mirror image stages, shot on the same range, and using the same prop, even. Without getting two deeply into stage set-up, let's just say that PPI was a weak-hand only stage requiring you to hit four paper targets and one paper popper. PPII was the same thing, strong hand only. PPI was won by Todd Jarrett with his Para P16-40 LDA, PPII by Ron Avery with an STI 6" longslide .45, BTW. One thing I noticed is that, to a man, every member of the Super Squad bent the elbow of the shooting arm while firing one hand only, both right and left hand. Try it. It radically reduces the tendency of the gun to "wave around" out there at the end of a locked-out arm.

Don't worry about how much the gun flips. Let it flip, with no conscious attempt to control it. It doesn't really matter how far the muzzle flips, just that it starts out acceptably aimed in, and returns to the same spot after recoil. I've got a photo of Jarrett firing PPI, with the gun caught at the top of its recoil arc in his weak hand, and it looks like the damn thing is going to fly out of his hand. And remember, he won the stage.

One problem might be that, when you see the sights aligned acceptably, you're hitting the trigger hard, trying to catch that acceptable sight alignment before it can get away. Just let the sights move around in the center of the target, and smoothly squeeze the trigger. That's all it takes. Then, as Ron Avery says, "Let recoil happen." The gun will come right back down to the same place if you let it.

[Steve Anderson]

Duane,

Were their elbows bent down or out?

SA

[JFD]

Thanks for the ideas.

I'm not thinking of increasing arm strength in order to grip the gun harder (already threw out that idea), but to have a more stable platform.

Range work has shown that strength doesn't seem to be an issue.  The gun is stable and it feels pretty comfortable to be in my left hand.  It does do some odd things after firing though...a lot more movement than strong hand shooting.  Seems to move a lot to the right and right now I'm just letting it happen.

My results at 7 yards are good when I shoot slowly.  17 yard results are marginal, but getting better.  Trying to let go a little for speed is where everything goes to crap.  I just keep thinking about an earlier comment about the left hand being a newbie to shooting, so it can't be expected to keep up with freestyle or strong hand.  I'll keep working with it and hope it learns quickly.  I believe I will be able to track my progress, plan drills, and generally improve in a more controlled and less wasteful manner now that I have a timer (on the way).

I do a lot of "thinking out loud" on this forum and sometimes reject ideas or have a breakthrough immediately after hitting "submit".   If nobody ever responded to my posts I think I'd still benefit slightly from just typing out my ideas.  I'll be saving you guys from some boring stuff by keeping a notebook (tip from my just received book from Brian) and hopefully spotting the more stupid stuff before it can make it to this site.

I'm still planning on using a revolver for at least 1/2 of my weak hand training right now even though even my strong hand DA skills are piss weak.

While currently unclassified, I'll be lucky to escape a "D" classification due to my weak hand being so pitiful.  However I feel that I can quickly move to "C" class well before I really get a handle on this weak hand.  

As soon as I master this weak hand skill and gain more general experience I now feel that the sky is the limit as far as my future in USPSA goes.

I'll shut up now.

[JFD]

I didn't do too badly.  I got the match results and came in 9th overall out of 51 shooters.  

[tightloop]

Good Job

[Rick Steele]

Does anyone else use their weak eye when sighting during weak hand?

[mcoliver]

Dry firing with the weak hand, I'm still at a limbo as to which eye to use.  From low ready I can either squint my right eye a bit to give focus using my left while presenting the gun or use my right eye but cant the gun in a 30 degree angle.  Either way can be practiced but I would really like to settle on only one.  I hope some range sessions with a timer will settle this issue for me.

[JFD]

I, at least for the moment use my left eye for weak handed shooting.

I spent a long time defeating a left eye dominance problem, and now can switch back and forth easily.

The problem for me is that the slight amount of right eye dominance I've developed seems to be in danger since using the left eye for weak hand.

I was playing back my "mental tape" of the match already mentioned, and it seems that I may have had a double vision problem.  I distinctly remember seeing the left side of the gun and the front sight when shooting that fast freestyle string.  

I've already seen how left eye dominance can kill a right hander's (at least me) natural ability to point shoot.  

I've been reading Brian's book and last night tried tilting the gun to the right and using my right eye.  In dry fire it seemed to work just fine, while preserving the little right eye dominance I've managed to aquire.

If I screw that up, I'll be back to shooting with my left eye half closed instead of both eyes open.  Not a good thing for me.