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Old March 20, 2023, 10:16 AM   #13
JohnKSa
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Join Date: February 12, 2001
Location: DFW Area
Posts: 24,994
I've watched people completely miss a human-sized target at about 3 yards when shooting while moving.

I agree that shooting accurately on a stationary target while standing still is an important skill. What I found when I transitioned from shooting bullseye was that the skills needed to shoot accurately while shooting fast and moving were quite different. They built on the foundation of shooting accurately when time and movement were not an issue, but they also required relearning things.

When I was shooting bullseye, the best results were obtained with a relatively loose grip on the gun. That doesn't work when shooting fast. I had guns that wouldn't even function properly when I tried to use them for bullseye because I would get grip-related malfunctions--I wasn't holding them tightly enough.

When I was shooting bullseye, I tried to deal with natural point of aim issues to get best results. That doesn't even make sense when shooting from the move or when shooting multiple targets or moving targets.

In real world shootings, people very often move because they don't want to get shot. They are very often shooting at moving targets because they are shooting at people who don't want to get shot. They may be shooting at multiple targets because criminals don't always work alone. They are very often shooting very fast because they are scared of dying and perceive that getting a lot of lead downrange is the way to keep themselves alive. Or maybe just because they're so scared they can't slow down.

If you haven't shot from the move, if you haven't shot at moving targets, if you haven't practiced transitioning from one target to another, if you haven't spent time working on your grip so you can shoot fast follow-ups without having the gun shift in your hands, if you haven't shot rapidly so you get used to finding the sights as the gun comes back down from recoil, then it's highly unlikely you'll be able to do any of those things well when you need to.

BEFORE you even start working on all that stuff, you should have sight awareness, sight alignment and trigger technique down. Those skills need to be at the level of unconscious competence before any of the other stuff is going to have a chance of working.

Here are the levels that one goes through as one learns a skillset.

Unconscious incompetence. Unskilled and unaware/mostly unaware of one's skill level.

Conscious incompetence. Unskilled, but aware of one's own skill deficiencies.

Conscious competence. Skilled, but the skill comes from concentration. Able to perform when one can focus on the task.

Unconscious competence. Skilled and able to use those skills even when the focus isn't on carefully completing that specific task--able to use the skills when distracted, focused on something else, or under stress.

A person can do quite well shooting small groups at the range when they are at the conscious competence level because they aren't likely to be distracted, they aren't under much stress and they are focused on nothing other than shooting small groups. You can focus on careful sight alignment, on a careful trigger press, on getting your stance just right, etc.

Gunfights are the definition of stress and distraction. There's a lot going on, you won't have time to think things like: "Get the sights aligned just right...good. Now carefully squeeze the trigger..." because you'll likely be very focused on not getting killed, on getting away or hiding behind something, on who is trying to kill you, on what they are doing, etc. You'll need to have ingrained the ability to track your sights and control your trigger so that they happen without you having to concentrate on them.
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