Physical and mental fatigue can very much play a role when you are attempting to be as accurate as possible. Many times in different shooting diciplines people will find ways to mitigate this fatigue and to increase their endurance.
Not sure how much experience you have with recoil from large caliber firearms, but there is a differnce in how much each individual can take before they begin having trouble with maintaining tight groups and performing the fundamentals in a consistant fashion. Each person will be a little different and what you do to avoid this will be up to you. Pushing too far will make it more difficult for you to improve or maintain a high level of markmanship proficiency. You must learn and know your limitations.
Recoil has a cumulative effect on the CNS. There is an old torture technique I have heard called " Chinese Water" toruture. The method involves strapping a person to a chair and while they are immobilized a steady drip of water is allowed to strike the victim upon the skull. Given enough time the drops begin to feel as if they are hammer blows and even become painful to the victim. The splashing effect also causes flinching in the victim as well. This is the same effect that a shooter will encounter as he shoots more and more rounds in a non stop string of shooting.
The fatigue induced by higher recoiling firearms takes less to reach this threshhold than with something such as a .22LR pistol or a .38 Special shooting wadcutters out of a full sized service revolver. Once you do reach that point the body begins to react to it and attempts to protect itself. A flinch in a natural reaction to an external stimulus where the mind and body will perceive it as harmful. Just as constant noise will cause a person to tire so will a louder more intense report for a larger caliber. So it is this synergistic effect on the person which lead to a degradation of accuracy. If you push too hard the body will develop bad habits you had previously trained out of your shooting.
Older gentlemen that shoot heavy magnum rounds in large caliber pistols, think 44 Magnum and up, can atest to them not needing much more than 50rounds before they encounter this same effect and they have a great deal more tolerance from steady shooting and building up to those calibers. The same can be said of any firearm and shooter combination.
Shooting gloves and recoil vests or weighting for longarms can mitigate this and allow a little more shooting. Increasing your round count by taking taking more and longer breaks will help too. The one thing you don't want to do is push so hard that the CNS becomes traumatized by it as this will be hard to overcome once you begin shaking and flinching.
A similar effect to external stimulus can be seen in a heat exaustion victim. The next time the same person begins to even come close any exaustion from heat their body will shut down early in anticipation of the mind pushing it beyond it's physical limits as happened before.
Muscle fatigue plays a role too, but as a rule that would be related to having a very poor level of fitness. Gripping the pistol or firearm just enough to contol it and not putting a death grip on it are a happy medium developed from getting familiar with the firearm in question.
Today many don't encounter this problem or recognize it for what it is. The CQB thing, that is so fashionable, requires very little in accuracy but is more of about quickness and repetitiveness. These same guys often find themselves with poor accuracy when they attemp it from over training and abusing their CNS.
Also take note that the miniscule recoil of a 9mm or 5.56 chambered firearm allows for much higher round counts to reach this same threshold. Many will say that lower recoil and muzzle blast make it easier to accomplish a high level of marksmanship. I don't disagree, but it isn't because of the lower recoil, but rather from not having more varibles to deal with, other than the fudamentals of it. Basically you need to learn to walk before you run. It is the bane of many super manly guys that think they must start out with larger calibers and they are tougher than the other wimpy guys because of it. What they do is make it harder for themselves to unlearn the bad habits they ingrained into themselves from improper techniques and self abuse. Taking pain from shooting is a sure way to make it difficult in many more ways than most think.
Take your time as the others have said. Once you begin to see your accuracy going out, pack up for the day or in the least take a good long break and them come back at it. If you still find your accuracy is not as it should be, from your own self knowledge, then it is time to just go home. If you haven't had enough of training time with the firearm in question, then practice some presentation, grip/mounting and dry fire to further reinforce the skills you wish to improve or maintain. Quality over quantity is a good mind set to have. More can be better but only if it is not at the expense of what you have already.
__________________
History is a freak show and a dark comedy. Mankind is a spectacle all to itself. Play your role, let the jesters play theirs. In the end...who has the last laugh?
|