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Learning to call your shot?


Alan Adamson

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I am in Flyin40's camp. I have done just about what he is saying in his posts, the only thing I will add is that Bill Drills really helped me on my shot calling. Not that I have it down 100% of the time. Sometimes I think it helps me to do something just as fast as I possibly can, eventhough I may not see everything,...... with enough repititions I start too.

As an aside: I use to run a lot and the following conversation among runners I heard hundreds of times, it goes....."I just can't seem to run fast what can I do to increase my speed?" Answer: Practice running fast!

That reminded me of a Bruce Lee quote, that goes something like - "When a runner is running as fast as he can he should not feel thathe could be running faster." A good analogy for shooting is there.

be

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We use the term "learn to call shots" but I am not sure that is what we actually mean, or maybe more accurately what we are really trying to do. In perhaps better words I don't think we learn to call our shots. I think we "discover that now we are able to call our shots". Thus a discovered ability, not exactly a learned skill.

Maybe too deep for our own good, but I believe that calling shots is merely a by product of learning to do others things then recalling that which you saw, then comparing what you recall seeing with that which actually happened. If the outcome, does not match the call, then either the call was bad, or the fiream or ammo failed.

Thirty plus years ago a comment comes to mind pertaining to improving one's shooting. If all else fails, camp out on the front sight and (then the term was) s q w e e z e the t r i g g e r. In time with proper attention, focus and recall the positioning of the front-rear sight or dot and relationship with target will be remembered as the shot fires and the muzzle lifts. When recall of the image matches the outcome at the target, you have called the shot.

I discovered that working on my accuracy taught me how to call my shots. I’ve been trying to improve my groups by shooting pasters at 25m for the past year or so – just 5 rounds at a time, taking as long as I need to. At first, I found that it was frustrating to try to figure out where each round went because (to be honest) they were all over the place. So I forgot about trying to “read” where each shot went, and just focused on doing all the things I needed to do to get each shot as close as possible to the paster. After a few months, I just started to get a sense for how close the shot was to the paster, and which direction it was off when the shot fired.

Although learning to read the sights is essential for shot calling, I think one of the things that helped me learn to call my shots was getting a sense for what a good shot “feels” like. I need to see the sights at the exact moment the shot fires, but I find I also get feedback from the way the sights lift, the way the gun recoils, and the way the recoil pulse travels down my arms. I think there’s some wiggle room for how “funny” a shot can feel and still be good – just like you don’t need a perfect sight picture to hit the A on a close target.

I remember the first time I realized I was calling my shots at a match. I shot a popper and I knew I hit it, so I snapped my eyes to the next target. While I was transitioning, I heard the “ding” and saw the popper start to fall in my peripheral vision – which meant I must have called the shot. As BE says, there’s nothing faster than knowing you hit the target.

Good luck and all the best with your shooting!

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  • 4 weeks later...

I am recently finding that calling my shots at speed while not hurrying the shot is my present big hurdle. I can call the shot with slow steady fire rather well. What I get screwed up with is developing target recognition, sight focus, and shot break into a constant smooth action, that is nearly blended into one thing. It is starting to come in pieces at a time with me. I just want to be able to put the things I've been discovering lately, together for a match.

I have found though, sorry for the drift, that front sight tracking does really make shot calling with irons less of a guessing game.

Today I was running drills with a friend and I was shooting 90% As and building up my speed trying to see where the wheels were going to fall off. On one run in particular, as I was shooting a pair on a target, I noticed that my subconscience began to talk and tell me to transition as I was breaking a shot. My impatience got the best of me and I started to drive the gun left. I watched the sights move over to the left of the A zone into the C as the shot broke. I continued on to finish the drill and knew without a doubt what my hits were down to the location of the C. It was as if I had a slow motion of where and when that shot broke. I find that as I get better with the fundamentals, the weird things, or cool things I guess, are starting to make me feel like I'm just opening up to the whole thing. Shot calling is making me more sure of my hits without really putting mental effort into the whole "where did that bullet go" type of thing.

Sorry if I rambled through that.

JZ

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I think I learned to call my shots in a different way. First, I never knew that I was "calling" them, never even knew it existed. At our local match, we almost never shoot paper, only bowling pins or steel. Some of the steel can be quite small (4" x 2" and 2" x 2"), or can be the regular steel 6" or 8" plates. Shooting at the steel, I learned what it felt like when I had made a good shot, so before the steel even rang, I was moving to the next plate or rectangle. I just saw other more experienced shooters doing it, so I thought that's what you had to do to beat them. Now, don't get me wrong, I do miss, but I think it's mostly from me not getting the sight picture as clear as it needs to be before I try to move on to the next target (me being stupid and trying to go faster than I can right now!). What I need to practice on is seeing "through" the dot, instead of looking for the dot.

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  • 8 years later...

I know this is an old thread, but it's the best I have been able to find in trying to learn how to call my shots.

I copied everything, put it into an editor, and summarized it into something I can take with me to the range.  

Here's what I ended up with; I'll be working on this starting the next time I get back to the range.

Thank you all for the advice - as I said, this is the best information about learning how to call shots that I could find, anywhere!!:

 

 

 

 

Mike Instructions:

 

Pay Attention.  Shoot at a plain piece of white paper, so there is nothing to distract me.  My goal is just to SEE and REMEMBER only the red dot at the instant the gun fires.  

 

Wait long enough for the image to be recovered from my memory.

 

Watch and remember the fire and smoke in front of the gun? See the brass?

(That’s not the goal but sometimes it "wakes up" people to how little they see or input. )

 

SEE the dot relative to the target, not the target relative to the dot.  

I’ve been trying to “see” where the dot was over the target.  

Maybe I need to pay the most attention to the DOT, not the target

 

 

 

ATTENTION

It helps to learn when a problem can be broken down into the lowest common denominator. In this case, that denominator is attention.  Where exactly, is your attention at the instant the shot fires.? It is very simple, but also very important to fully understand. Very few people have trained their attention to "be" where it is directed.  For example, in order to know where my attention is, I may need to decide where it is not. "Gee? Did I blink?" (I hope it ain't there) "Where is the bullet hole?" (I hope it isn't there either)….  Where should your attention be? If the eyes were open, they were seeing. What happens, happens really fast, so the brain may not comprehend what was seen, and therefore classify it as being of no importance. It is of extreme importance.  This is exactly where attention needs to be: What did the eyes see at the exact moment the shot broke? It may start as just a hint of movement, the recoil impulse is pretty quick, as most people would count quickness. But, it happened! If the eyes were open, they saw what happened!  With full attention, the mind can gradually begin to decode the blur of movement. Eventually, it may even become clear. Just hold to the fact that you saw it happen. It was right there, just as certainly as if it was captured on high-speed video. The eyes see everything. The brain has to learn to de-code what the eyes see. The hand is never quicker than the eye, as we have been told. But the hand is always quicker than the untrained mind. 

 

TO CALL THE SHOT, TRAIN THE MIND

Shot calling begins with seeing what you need to see before you break the shot. You must see the sight/dot clearly before the shot breaks. After learning to do this, shot calling will come. All the information needed to call the shot has been recorded in the mind. It takes a little time to allow this information to be processed and utilized. 

 

SEE THE FRONT SIGHT/DOT

See your sight/dot on every shot. Whether or not you remember it at the time you break the shot is not nearly as important as seeing it before the shot breaks. Processing what you see and correcting it at speed will come, but it will never come if it is not there to process.  You are striving to allow your brain to process information based on a "picture" that is probably happening in a thousandth of a second.  It’s a process like driving. First you learn how to brake, shift etc. Then later you can drift through a unknown corner at 9/10ths.  Do the drills, dryfire, live-fire, matches, etc.  Remember the final goal and work towards it. Practice eye drills. start paying attention. Do you see the fire in front of the gun? Do you see the brass? That’s not the goal but sometimes it "wakes up" people to how little they see or input.  In order to "call your shots" you have to have a precise sight picture and really focus on the front sight. Really notice how the front sight tracks; up and back down. If you are very focused on that front sight, you will "see" in a split second where the front-sight/dot was when the shot broke. Aside from the obvious like open eyes, it's not what you see but what you have registered in your brain as happened. It's still difficult to describe but you can’t just stare hard at the front sight. That is actually taking away from paying attention to what is happening.

 

 

SQUEEZE THE TRIGGER

If all else fails, camp out on the front sight and then “squeeze the trigger”. In time with proper attention, focus and recall the positioning of the front-rear sight or dot and relationship with target will be remembered as the shot fires and the muzzle lifts. When recall of the image matches the outcome at the target, you have called the shot.

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On 1/18/2010 at 10:08 AM, Morgan said:

When you're dry fire practicing (you do dry-fire practice, right?), after each run try to REMEMBER where those hits on target would have been. If you don't know, you're not even trying to call the shot.

 

Thanks a lot, really like your method, that's what I am going to practice in dry fire.

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Calling your shots is critical to shooting well.

 

Take a shot up target and put a clean target on the back.  Shoot through the shot target into the white back of the next target.  Then you can't see your holes.  Shoot 2 and tell your training buddy where they are, go behind the target and see how u did

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So this is kinda how I learned to call my shots.  Its not as fancy or as intellectual as what some of the other posters said, but its another perspective...

 

Basically calling a shot is just knowing if you made your hit or not... without looking at the target.  I keep watching this videos online and they overcomplicate it beyond that.  Like taking a target beyond the distance a new shooter is even capable of placing a tight group on, and saying he should be able to know where his hit is... Thats not what its about.

 

Its about being able to figure out if you pulled your shot or made your hit without having to visually verify it, and then breaking the habit of constantly looking at the target after you shoot.

 

Trusting your own ability to make the hit using your sights, and knowing if you need to recover that shot or your good.  Cause if you look after each time your pull the trigger, your wasting time that you could be using on placing the next shot.   Like seriously, its a hard habit to break, the whole shoot, look, shoot, look... And it really adds up on the clock.

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