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Old February 9, 2015, 05:34 AM   #1
Jeff22
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Coaching problem shooters

I had opportunity to do a little informal coaching with a few shooters who were having problems last week.

One was a girl who works at my police department. She practices occasionally but hadn't shot since around Thanksgiving.

One is a girl who used to work with us who recently transferred to another department and hadn't shot since September.

One was a guy I shoot in local USPSA matches, fairly new to shooting, who in the past was smooth & accurate and reasonably proficient, but who has not been shooting well of late.

These were a couple of the things I observed:

At really close range, (out to 5 yards or so?) you can focus on the target and point the handgun and often get decent hits. If you are moving or the target is moving or both, target focus shooting may or may not work in that application, depending on circumstance and your skill level.

At greater distances it requires greater precision on the sights and trigger control to get a good hit. At close range, you can just focus on the front sight, put the front sight on the target and get a hit. Oftentimes even if you jerk the trigger, you can still get a hit. As distance increases, it becomes more necessary to employ proper sight picture and sight alignment. The shooter's visual focus will have to come off the target to the front sight before the shot breaks. At greater distance, the visual focus will have to come off the target and you have to look through the rear sight at the front sight, and have some kind of alignment to get a hit.

With the cops, the course we were practicing on had stages at 3 yards (18 rnds) 7 yards (18 rnds) 15 yards (8 rnds involving shooting around cover) and 25 yards (6 rnds shooter's choice of position).

With my USPSA buddy, we did all our shooting on an IPSC target at 50 feet.

Everybody seemed to have problems with running the sights -- either they didn't shift visual focus from the target back to the front sight, or they only used front sight focus at 15 yards (which didn't work very well) or they were looking OVER the sights rather than through them.

Part of the problem was that they were all trying to go too fast. Trigger control actually wasn't too bad, except that the girls struggled shooting weak hand only at 3 yards. (trigger jerk was very noticeable and I'm not totally sure but I think they were looking at the target and not the front sight)

Both females were using a Glock 22 and in both cases the gun is almost too big for their hand, even with the small back-straps installed. All of the shooters were right handed, and at distance the girls were hooking shots to the left, pushing on the side of the trigger rather than pressing it straight back.

My USPSA buddy (who most often shoots a Glock 17 in production class) had been working to increase his speed lately, and as a consequence he was jerking the trigger some, failing to reset the trigger or follow through, and not getting enough sight alignment at distance. We figured that out, and he shot a bunch of timed fire groups (5 shots in 20 seconds) from the holster on both bullseyes and an IPSC target, and he self corrected his problem.

One girl was using her duty rig and the other was using a leather off duty holster. She got in the habit of holding the mouth of the holster open with her support hand while re-holstering and as a result she swept her hand with the muzzle EVERY time she re-holstered. She had no idea she was doing that. I think that it will take some serious re-training for her to get over that habit.

Nothing that some frequent practice can't solve, and all pretty common problems I think.
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Old February 9, 2015, 07:40 AM   #2
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Yeah. It's all in the practice and the muscle memory that comes with practice.
Safety and proficiency go hand in hand.
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Old February 9, 2015, 09:48 AM   #3
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And a reminder that not only do you need practice to be perfect, but you also need perfect practice to be perfect.
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Old February 9, 2015, 11:40 AM   #4
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Getting together with others can be a much better way to practice and correct errors than shooting by one's self.
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Old March 24, 2015, 12:09 AM   #5
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coaching shooters continued

So we have Department In-Service coming up this week.

One of the guys I work with wanted to go to the range in advance and get a little trigger time with his issued Glock 22 and his personal Glock 23.

He has HUGE hands and average trigger control but a pretty good grasp of the basics. He struggled at distance when we had DAK Sigs but now that we have Glocks that problem has pretty much taken care of itself. (The Glock has a much shorter trigger stroke and reset and is more user friendly)

He shot really well with both guns, as long as he slowed down a little on distances of 15 yards or greater.

His hands are BIG. The Glock 23 is almost too small for him. Last summer we had a bunch of officers get Glock 42s for off duty & backup use and he mentioned that he had shot one and liked it but that it was WAY too small for his hands.

With the G23 he was using a holster similar in design to a Bianchi Black Widow or a Don Hume Agent 9 -- a belt slide holster with a thumb-break.

He had acquired the habit of holding the mouth of the holster open with his support hand while re-holstering, thusly sweeping his strong hand with the muzzle each time. I suggested that he change his procedure and I got a blank stare in return. Every time he repeated his mistake, I pointed it out. I think he was becoming aggravated with me by the time we got done shooting.

It's really easy to develop and program in bad habits if you are self trained or if you do a lot of shooting by yourself without anybody watching.
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Old March 24, 2015, 12:22 AM   #6
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I know what you mean. I have a friend who has been casting after his draw for a LONG time. Initially when I saw him do this, I explained what it was and why it was unnecessary and that it was wasted effort. Then, for quite a while after when I saw him cast, I would say "stop casting". Then he would do it again..."stop casting". And AGAIN..."stop casting". And he is still doing it.

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Old March 24, 2015, 10:52 AM   #7
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Honest question: what's casting?
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Old March 24, 2015, 03:53 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shoot
Honest question: what's casting?
When you initially bring the pistol on target and you start with the muzzle high and then lower the muzzle to your proper sight picture. It looks a little like you are casting in fishing.

The theory behind it is that you will pick up the front sight more quickly and keep it in your field of vision as you bring the muzzle down and line it up with the rear sight. Thus making the sight acquisition quicker, but...it's NOT.

Fly
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Old March 26, 2015, 11:38 PM   #9
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Ahh... got it. Thanks!
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Old March 27, 2015, 02:08 AM   #10
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Thanks Shoot. I didn't know either.
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Old March 27, 2015, 08:55 AM   #11
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Jeff22 - give those women shooters a smaller gun and see how that works for them. While those are not authorized sidearms for their department, the purpose is to test whether they have mastered basic marksmanship. If they can shoot proficiently with those smaller guns and not throw their bullet to the left, I'd make an argument to issue them alternative firearms.
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Old March 30, 2015, 07:39 AM   #12
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Most all "new shooters" have problems, but need the basic (NRA) classroom training. Oh, and women shooters are for some reason, better shooters than men...concentration and focus. After the training, it's about practice, practice, and practice (Practice makes BETTER, not PERFECT!"

Each shooter is missing one or more of the fundamentals of shooting if they are having problems. Trigger pull, follow through and breath-hold are imperative.
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Old March 30, 2015, 10:41 AM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Boncrayon
Trigger pull, follow through and breath-hold are imperative.
In light of the OP specifically referring to pistols, and considering that pistols are primarily used for defensive purposes, I don't see any real world application for "breath-hold". Maybe for bullseye competitions, but otherwise...not so much. Rifles? Sure. Pistols...nah.

Fly
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Old April 1, 2015, 12:12 PM   #14
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weeds

They all have weeds. I had a neighbor who had weeds in his lawn like that and he would get out on the weekend and pull and pull and pull at weeds. Then again the next weekend what was in his lawn? weeds.
Finally I suggested "why not plant some good lawn grass seed" He did and now he has a great looking lawn, no weeds. Still has to mow though.
Moral of story: You can't just pull weeds, you have to have something good to replace it.
Principle: Break down the whole act of shooting into small parts and then identify the problem part. Then create an action to REPLACE the faulty part.
Application: For the trigger problem, most people place the "hook" of their finger in the edge of the trigger. This usually causes pushing to the opposite side of the strong side hand (right hand person pushes left, opposite of hand). First have them dry fire a couple of times and have them watch how their hand pushes the gun off sight. (1. student recognizes the problem and acknowledges it) Then show them and have them actually place their finger on the pad, not the "hook" or bend. Then have them dry fire again, and watch and see how it eliminates the problem. (2. student comes to believe the solution works.) Next, holding the empty gun with the support hand, have them re-grip the strong hand to the correct trigger position several times with the finger now going to the right place (3. sowing the good seed. Student is now motivated and chooses to practice the proper technique) You have given them something to replace the bad habit. repeat repeat repeat. Do something else then repeat again. (This is mowing the now good lawn) The do something else and monitor for the the weed to reappear. Repeat again with generous praise for job well done. Give homework to repeat re-griping with correct position several times prior to dry fire practice.

For covering hand with gun at holster: For both going out and back to holster, give them something safe to do with that support hand. I recommend: As your strong hand is moving to the holster, move your support hand to your chest, open, flat. Then as you draw, come straight up and out, support hand still on chest. Now move strong hand straight to target. Support hand comes in behind guns and takes grip as you reach target. Do it is very slow motion for several repetitions. Then pick up speed.
For return to holster, just the reverse. As soon as you start back to holster, the support hand comes off and returns to chest. Support hand remains on chest until gun is fully holstered. Side note: You can look at the holster as you return, but with duty gear and practice for on duty use, I recommend that you practice keeping your eyes forward on the situation, and be able to holster without looking. Since your duty rig should remain pretty much the same, it is not hard to learn to re-holster without looking. Mussel memory will take over very quickly.
Also, if the problem is that he doesn't realize it or acknowledge it, show him what you mean by holding your hand over your holster like he is doing, then moving your hand with a finger like pointing a gun (don't use a gun, just point) and show him when and where he is pointing at his own hand.
It does seem that we can not repeat the 4 basic safety rules too often.
"never point at something you are not willing to destroy"
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Old April 1, 2015, 12:20 PM   #15
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also for casting: practice a close ready position, not low ready. Close ready is elbows bent and close to body, (no "wings") wrists almost touching chest. Then in VERY slow motion, push out straight to target, bringing sights up to the target only as you reach full extension. and never letting sights get higher than your line of sight. Close ready is what you want when you go through a door, so that you don't signal your arrival or give someone the chance to knock the gun from your hand, so it is good to practice anyway, and it will help eliminate that swing into position with a push out straight to target.

gotta plant the good seed to replace the weeds.
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Old April 3, 2015, 10:06 AM   #16
Andy Blozinski
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Casting

"The theory behind it is that you will pick up the front sight more quickly and keep it in your field of vision as you bring the muzzle down and line it up with the rear sight. Thus making the sight acquisition quicker, but...it's NOT. "

I accidentally tried this a few weeks ago and found it worked amazingly well for me. My rear sight has highly visible green fibre optic rods. The front sight has a red one that is harder to see in lower light or darker backgrounds. The front sight is much easier to see when the fibre optic cable is seen with some length. By bringing the front sight down I was able to aquire it much faster.
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Old April 3, 2015, 01:00 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy Blozinski
Casting

"The theory behind it is that you will pick up the front sight more quickly and keep it in your field of vision as you bring the muzzle down and line it up with the rear sight. Thus making the sight acquisition quicker, but...it's NOT. "

I accidentally tried this a few weeks ago and found it worked amazingly well for me. My rear sight has highly visible green fibre optic rods. The front sight has a red one that is harder to see in lower light or darker backgrounds. The front sight is much easier to see when the fibre optic cable is seen with some length. By bringing the front sight down I was able to aquire it much faster.
Errrr...well...okay. Here's the deal. You may have discovered some method that is the newest and greatest advancement in pistol shooting techniques. Or, you may have discovered something that simply is the greatest thing for you and your abilities/skill set, or you just may be going down the wrong path and practicing something that SEEMS quick, but ultimately will never give you the maximum speed in sight acquisition.

For a majority of shooters, I would pick the last explanation. I'm not LEO, military, or a mall ninja, BUT I have slept in several Holiday Inn's over the years. If you go to a reputable and progressive (in a good way) firearms trainer, they will NOT teach you casting, teacup grip, Weaver stance, bowling draw, etc. Why? Because it has been proven time and time again that these are not the most efficient or stable methods for shooting a pistol quickly and accurately.

Need more confirmation of this? Watch videos of top competition shooters, military, and LEO who's training program is up to date. As I understand, the Lincoln, NE training program is about 5 - 10 years behind modern methods. Go to a range to watch some of the TOP competitors, and see how many of them employ the antiquated methods listed above. Or just take my word. NONE of them will be casting, bowling, or any of these other techniques...NONE of them. Simply put, it may seem to be a great idea, but IT IS NOT. STOP doing it before you have muscle memory that automatically does any of these inefficient things. DO learn (watch videos, read books, or better yet...take classes!) correct pistol grip, sight alignment, draw, stance, etc. While you are at it, get obsessive...and I mean REALLY OCD...about safety. Finger off the trigger unless you are actively engaging a target, treating the gun the same regardless of whether you believe it to be "empty". Many friends and family I know should be going back to the basics with some fundamental safety training.

There are a series of videos from a local shooter who is a Master USPSA (and I believe Master IDPA) shooter. Check them out here...

Precision Response Training

He explains a lot of the common errors and the misconceptions that people have about what will make them quicker or more accurate.

Fly
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Old April 3, 2015, 11:50 PM   #18
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The OP said trigger control didn't seem to be a problem, but in my experience trigger control is often at least a part of the problem.

I'd suggest some time with a single action .22lr such as the Ruger Mk. series.

As far as the person having problems holstering her gun safely, she might try placing her off hand on top of the gun to help guide it to the holster instead of holding the holster open. Two hands will keep her off hand away from the muzzle and hopefully give her better awareness of where the gun is pointing.

Slow fire target shooting will get people more used to concentrating on the front sight. If you mix that in before they run the exercise, emphasizing sight picture, it might up their scores.
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Old March 23, 2016, 03:57 AM   #19
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coaching problem shooters -- continued

"give those women shooters a smaller gun and see how that works for them. While those are not authorized sidearms for their department, the purpose is to test whether they have mastered basic marksmanship. If they can shoot proficiently with those smaller guns and not throw their bullet to the left, I'd make an argument to issue them alternative firearms. "

Absolutely. When we issued Sig pistols, we issued females with smaller hands the Sig 225 and later on the Sig 239-DAK. Now that we have 4th generation Glocks, the current administration feels that putting the smaller backstrap insert in the guns should solve all problems. It doesn't.

I taught in the local regional police academy on and off for a total of 13 years. Way back when (late 80s) we still had officers coming through with revolvers, and we'd often switch to the Pachmayer Professional Grips (the ones with the exposed backstrap) to assist shooters with smaller hands.

Once agencies around here transitioned to auto pistols (which started in about 1988) we tried to talk officers with smaller hands into buying pistols with single column magazines. (In our immediate area, most departments have officers buy their own guns off an approved list. My department is one of the few in our county that issue guns). We tried to talk administrators into letting them carry those guns. With some limited success. I sure got tired of hearing some Chief who didn't know anything about guns claim there was a liability issue in having officers carry more than one type of gun on duty . . .

When instructing at the police academy, I (finally) talked them into getting grip reductions done on two Glock 19s (grip reductions by Arizona Response Systems). That helped some.

So the last few weeks I've been doing a little coaching with one of the female shooters described in my initial post. She sometimes had a problem with the gun shifting vertically in her hand when shooting rapid fire. We got her a rubber grip sleeve and that helped cure that problem, but created another problem in that it slightly increased the reach from the backstrap to the trigger, which means sometimes her trigger finger is in contact with the edge of the trigger and not the face of the trigger, which causes her to push shots left at 9 o'clock. (This is with a Glock 22)

The other day she was also shooting her personal Glock 43 (which has a much thinner grip) and she was doing the same thing, and I figured out that part of the problem there was she had an absolute death grip on the gun which made it difficult for her to move her trigger finger as an independent unit. So she sometimes jerks the hell out of the trigger and drifts shots to the left.

So we have another problem to solve . . .
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Old March 23, 2016, 10:05 AM   #20
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Jeff22, since you are a USPSA shooter, you already know the fundamentals: stance, grip, sight picture and trigger control. Grip being the most important. You also know that shooting a pistol in real life self defense is not Bullseye, breath and squeeze, it's make your hits and move, ie, grip it and rip it by slapping the crap out of the trigger. Watch Leatham and Miculek. The guy in the PRT video is Thomas H. USPSA classified Production Master. He is also a USPSA Master. His videos are kind of over scaled, personally never heard of the word casting or bowling, we just call it Hollywood. The answer is don't do that stuff, let your gun look for you, are BG's hiding under the floor or stuck to the ceiling? Unless you are in an entry stack, then you go to SUL position.

Don't think that's the problem with your USPSA buddy or the female deputy. Honestly, your competition buddy probably knows how to run and gun pretty well, he just thought he could turn up the speed, without turning up the focus. See that allot with C/D class shooters. As you said he corrected his own problem. 5 rounds in 20 seconds for a USPSA shooter is death, it should have been 5 rounds in under 2.2 seconds at 15 yards.

As for the female, we had one with the exact same issues at the academy years ago. So, go back to the beginning. Start with an AirSoft at 3 yards by holding on target (AirSofts will dimple a USPSA target). That gets rid of the noise from the G22 and the recoil. So one shot holding one, repeat, critique/remind the fundamentals. When you get to one dimple, new target, from the low ready, repeat, critique/remind the fundamentals. Next from the holster, you get the mojo. Move up to a .22LR and do the same routine, always repeat, critique/remind the fundamentals. They need to build confidence and have immediate feedback. Now the duty weapon, start holding on, then low ready, etc, from the holster, out to 7 yards, then 12 yards. She should be making 3 shot groups under 3" in under 3 seconds from the holster at 12 yards. Always repeat, critique/remind the fundamentals. We have several all female teams shoot at the Police and Fire Games, Police Pistol Combat, USPSA rules with duty gear. They didn't start out as natural masters, it took years of training and practice, some have more ability than others.

Now just for consideration and comparison, what if your deputies could shoot like this off duty? Most of my crew carries that way, and I've never done better than 1.2 seconds, course I'm 40 years older...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDXjk6itaIw
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Old March 23, 2016, 10:18 AM   #21
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Also video the shooters actions. They don't know they are doing anything wrong when they are shooting, and you can tell them, but that usually takes lots and lots of reminding, and then they quickly revert, draw technique or muzzling for example. The only way to correct that is for them to understand how they do things by watching the video and practicing until it's good. I have a really bad habit of going to SUL position in transitioning arrays in competition. I watch the videos, know that it's costing time and position, know that your gun should always lead, you follow, shoot the next stage correctly, then right back to SUL...
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Old March 23, 2016, 10:22 AM   #22
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For some surprising opinions on shooting, check out these interviews with Rob Leatham.
They just might alter your way of thinking about shooting fast and accurately.
Especially about the idea of "front sight, front sight" and notions on trigger control.

http://americanwarriorshow.libsyn.co...ers-in-history

http://americanwarriorshow.libsyn.co...t-one-part-two
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Old March 23, 2016, 10:33 AM   #23
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Jeff, do you ever use video as a teaching aid? I've seen where some instructors video their students and together they analyze what the student can improve upon.
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Old March 24, 2016, 12:36 AM   #24
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use of video as a training aid

We used video for a while in the Police Academy. We had quite a hike between the range and the range house where the monitor was, so in our particular circumstance the video was of limited utility.

These most recent coaching sessions were conducted at a commercial indoor range that has a fixed firing line and partitions between the shooters,. so it's hard/damn near impossible to position yourself to the side where you can better observe what the shooter is actually doing.

Once the weather breaks I'm hoping to get these people out to the outdoor range where I have more flexibility in where I position myself to observe what they're doing.
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Old March 24, 2016, 09:44 AM   #25
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Yea, an indoor "bowling alley" range would be damn difficult to see anything going on. That's why I suggested the AirSoft, you can do that in the office.
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