How far away are they?

[Steve Anderson]

Shot the big all classifier match this Sunday, and was very disapointed in my performance at Raw Deal.

It looked so close and so easy, but Charlies and Deltas were everywhere.

Riding home I asked my shooting buddy to look on the sheet and see how far away the targets were.

Turns out they were 30, 35, and 40 ft away. If I had KNOWN that, I know I could have done better.

They just looked like 20, 25, 30, so I shot them that way...

Now, If I had called each and every F'ing shot this would be irrelevant, but again my poor distance perception caused me to shoot too fast.

Any of this sound familiar?

Would it help anyone to know a given target was X away, to mentally shift into Bianchi mode for a little bit?

SA

[Chriss Grube]

Generally I look at the course description sometimes it gives you the distances. Does it help, probably not. It all comes down to lining up the shot properly. It might help if you have a problem getting mentally ready for a longer shoot.

[Steve Anderson]

Yep, that's what I was thinking.

A shot at 30 is done differently than a shot at 45.

The question is, should it be?

SA

[benos]

Steve,

Knowing the actual distance can aid in knowing what to do with SOME shots, but the REAL INFORMATION is delivered immediately to your brain at the instant your eyes perceive "how big the sights are" on, or in relationship to the target. With some experience your brain stores this information instinctually, so you wouldn't try to shoot a 10" plate at 10 yards at the same speed as you would a 10" plate at 100 yards, for example.

Of course this is true with iron sights, but what about optics? The lack of any noticeable physical size (the sights) makes this slightly more difficult. With optics I think this information comes from: a) the size of the dot on the target, the movement of the dot in relation to the size of the target, and c) to a small degree, from the size of whatever you see peripherally from your gun/scope on the target. (The size of the tube or ring.)

To reiterate, if you are too dependent on knowing the physical distances to the targets, you're not seeing what you need to see, at the instant you are firing the shot.

[Flexmoney]

Now... why couldn't I say that (what BE said)???  That is what I was thinking...BE has the "gift" of communication.

[ErikW]

I couldn't care less at what distance the targets are (unless it's so far it affects my trajectory and hold). When I LAMR I take a sight picture and that's where and when I determine how much sight focus and trigger control is going to be needed for the target.

[TDean]

...that's what she said.

[Steve Anderson]

(insert Hank Hill alley-standing-beer-sipping voice)

"Yep"

Before this stage, I never cared how far, I just shot 'em as I saw 'em.

In retrospect, one of the issues here was that the stage was very similar to one that was very close and fast, and also one that was fairly close and fairly fast. Goin' in, this one looked about the same, so I used the same focus and speed. OOPS.

(insert Boomhauer)

man them daggone targets be how far they is man you just gotta be shootin' em whan you be seein' 'em daggone targets man...

BTW, King of the Hill is the only thing I will postpone dry fire for. Some things are just more important.

SA