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Old May 7, 2016, 06:21 PM   #26
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Pep in CA,

When I took my NRA rifle instructor's course, the councilor we had was Web Wright, who, IIRC, still had two world records standing in 300m International rifle. He asked us all to define follow-through as he'd yet to find the best way of saying it. That it is a continuation past the point of shot release seems apparent, but he wasn't satisfied with any phraseology yet applied at that point (over 20 years ago, now).

One thing that puts me in mind of it, though, is Web's definition of the fundamentals of marksmanship. He said that over the years the NRA's training materials had variously had 8 or 12 or some other number of basic marksmanship principles, but that it seemed to him that if a principle is truly basic, it should never change like that. He felt there were really only two.

1. Line the gun up so the bullet will hit the desired point of impact.
2. Keep it that way until after the bullet clears the muzzle.

That's it. If you can find a way to make that happen every time, you will be the perfect marksman. Whatever specific technique gets you there is the right technique for you, and you've had some very good ones suggested already. But my point in bringing this up is you see from that second principle an illustration of follow-through: "…until after the bullet clears the muzzle".
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Old May 7, 2016, 09:08 PM   #27
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Update from the OP.

I went to the range today to practice the "follow through" tips you guys gave me, but also the other 2 fundamentals. I shot my .22 rifle and my 9mm pistol, starting with the rifle, as I usually do.

At first, it was difficult to focus on "follow through", but I think I started to get the hang of it. I was keeping the sight very close to the target after the shot fired and I tried to keep it there for several seconds at least before I prepared to fire the next shot. Doing this, I noticed I previously had the temptation to shoot the next shot quickly. I had to fight that urge. I took my time. Once I got warmed up, I was plinking targets quite regularly.

Then I moved on the pistol.

As expected, trying to incorporate the tips you gave me was much more difficult for me with the pistol, mostly because the muzzle moves a lot more (I'm guessing). I was shooting at metal targets from about 35 yds.. I hit on only 1 of my first 10 shots and had some flinches. Not good at all, but I wasn't so concerned about the results as I was about keeping my focus on the fundamentals. I think I fired about 50-60 rounds before I tightened up my groups (I guess you could say I was missing closer). :-P

The next 40 rounds I saw improvement. Began hitting the target about 33% per magazine. Improvement is good. That's what I'm looking for at the moment.

Thanks again for the advice. I'll keep trying.

Pep

PS -- Unclenick, I loved your post.
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Old May 7, 2016, 09:27 PM   #28
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What does "follow through" mean?

"Follow through" simply means you should not mechanically move your line of sight after you fire, preparing yourself for the next fire. It's when you need to take your next breath and align your aim again. Follow through is a practice that prevents you from moving the muzzle off course. Many shooters wave the muzzle erratically to reload the chamber for another "boom." It's focusing your firearm in the same direction that you chose to shoot in the first place...much easier to shoot again if the line of sight hasn't move much. If it is a bolt action, after the firing, your follow through is close to the bull's eye where you shot in the first place. The magic is in the intent to get a second bullet down range with little movement of the muzzle with a follow through line of sight.
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Old May 8, 2016, 10:51 PM   #29
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Consider closer targets.

There's nothing wrong with shooting pistol at 35 yards. However as you have experienced you get a "hit or miss" feedback. Knowing where you are hitting can accelerate your growth and you might be missing out on that.

Typical practice distances for me are mostly from 5-10 yards, with 15-25 being less common, and 50 very rarely for kicks.

It helps to be able to see:
Rough estimate group size
Group location
Flyers you can associate with bad behavior (yep I just jerked the trigger)

That helps you know (among other things):
Current status of fundamentals
Ammo preferences for pistol (more of an issue if you reload)
Exactly how a change in technique has affected your shooting.
If your sights are off
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Old May 18, 2016, 06:21 PM   #30
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The focus on the front sight, which has been previously mentioned earlier, is paramount. Along with a proper grip and a smooth trigger press, teaching new shooters to stay focused on the front sight through the shot is key. Most new shooters will get their sight alignment, then sight picture, focus on the front sight, fire the shot, and completely lose the front sight because they will shift their focus to the target to see where they hit. We teach them to follow the front sight up in the recoil process, realign sights and back on target, and fire if desired or necessary. Repeat.

We've found that once they grasp the sight alignment/sight picture concept, we simplify the process on the firing line with the simple mantra "front sight - pressssssss". The press is said slowly to help facilitate a smooth break. We encourage them to say this to themselves during the shooting process.
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Old May 30, 2016, 03:02 PM   #31
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See this post for an illustration of the importance of follow-through:
Quote:
Originally Posted by rjinga
...the bad habit was looking over the sight to see were the laser point was striking on non-reflective targets. That bad habit manifested itself last Saturday on my first trip in two months to the pistol range. I consistently shot a little low until I figured out what I was doing.

This (photo) is the proper sight picture for my Sig P229 handgun. So, starting today, I’m (back to) practicing focusing on the front post, with the front post covering the target, pressing the trigger, and follow through. ...
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Old June 7, 2016, 10:20 PM   #32
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Part of it is keeping your gun and arms from flying all over the place, over correcting, just allowing your handgun to naturally return to firing position..
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Old June 8, 2016, 10:30 AM   #33
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Amazing how keeping still can become so stunningly complicated.
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Old June 8, 2016, 05:26 PM   #34
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If it was simple, we could all freeze in place as naturally as a rabbit in the grass or a squirrel on a branch. Instead, we are as twitchy as a here of fire ants.
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Old June 8, 2016, 05:31 PM   #35
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Has anyone mentioned that one of the more important skills is that you need to learn to isolate your muscles from each other? You must be able to pull the trigger without moving your hand.

I believe that upper body strength training is important. Not to pack on muscles, to give you strength to remain steady and solid.
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Old July 13, 2017, 08:38 PM   #36
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As the OP, I'm resurrecting this thread from a little over a year ago. It is a very informative thread and I'm sure many new members will find it interesting and helpful.
However, the main reason I'm resurrecting it is because I have yet to master follow through and I have a specific question:

Starting from the premise that my focus is on the front sight, when the shot breaks, should my focus remain on the front sight throughout? I.e., should I follow the front sight with my eyes focused on it, or should my head & eyes remain still and on target as the sight inevitably moves?

This brings me to a second point of issue. I recently watched a training video for tactical handgun that advocated target focus instead of front sight focus. The trainer argued that in a defensive situation, your focus will naturally be on the target, so it is proper to focus on the target, not the front sight, when you train for tactical handgun. This makes sense to me.

Thoughts & comments welcome, of course.
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Old July 13, 2017, 10:55 PM   #37
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Follow through is not really the same thing as what you focus your eyes on. In fact, nothing in your last post is really about follow-through.

Your eyes shouldn't follow the front sight during recoil but you do need to keep track of the front sight if you want to be able to hit something past a couple yards of distance.

When shooting multiple targets, generally the best (fastest) shooters actually look at the next target and then let the gun catch up with their eyes, shooting when the sights are on the target, then look at the next target and repeat.

Choosing whether to focus on the target or the sights is sort of a non-productive endeavor. You obviously have to see both to make hits. How well you have to see depends on the distance and the size of the target. A large close target doesn't require a careful focus on either the sights or the target. But if you need to make a precision shot you're going to need to see the sights pretty clearly to make sure they're aligned properly. And since you can't focus on two different distance objects at the same time, if you have a very clear focus on the sights, your focus on the target will have to blur a little.

For self-defense shooting, it's likely you'll focus more on what could take your life than on the sights. That's why you need to have enough practice/training so that the process of getting the gun on target with the sights aligned and pulling the trigger without jerking the gun is second nature.

If you don't have that level of skill then you're going to either point and spray or focus on the sights very carefully and have difficulty keeping track of what's going on downrange. The former is FAR more likely than the latter.

What you DO need to do is to keep your eyes open while you're shooting. A lot of shooters blink involuntarily BEFORE the shot breaks. This keeps them from noticing that they're flinching and also makes it hard for them to shoot rapidly and transition from one target to another. If you don't see the muzzle flash on a fairly regular basis then you're blinking before the shot and flinching.
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Old July 13, 2017, 11:59 PM   #38
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JohnKSa, thank you for your reply. It may very well be that I'm blinking as the shot breaks. I will try to avoid blinking during my next range practice session.

However, I am still confused about where my eye focus should be when the shot breaks and immediately afterward. You seem to say eye focus has nothing to do with follow through but I say it does. Maybe this is why I'm confused.

This is certain: My focus should be on the front sight as the shot breaks (for maximum accuracy). But the sight will move a millisecond after the shot breaks.

You said my eyes should not follow the front sight during recoil but I do need to keep track of the front sight. This where I get confused.

The sight will go off target. If I don't keep my focus on the sight, I must therefore focus on the target (or the next target), at least for a brief moment. In other words, I will have to leave my front sight focus for a moment after the shot breaks, focus on the target (or next target), until my sights are realigned. Then I focus on the front sight again.

Yes?
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Old July 14, 2017, 10:18 PM   #39
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Follow through simply means that you intentionally keep doing whatever you were doing at the time you decided to break the shot. The idea is to keep from unconsciously affecting the shot. Without consciously following through, a shooter may actually start to relax before the shot in a target-shooting environment. Or the shooter might stop swinging the shotgun before actually pulling the trigger in a wing-shooting situation.
Quote:
You said my eyes should not follow the front sight during recoil but I do need to keep track of the front sight.
I'm assuming that you're holding the gun in a normal grip and that it's not a heavy-recoiling magnum revolver or something similar. The front sight should never leave your field of view even if it does move upward during recoil. So you keep track of its general location as it recoils upwards and recovers back onto the target, but you don't need to actually track it with your eyes as it moves. In fact, I don't think many people could actually track it accurately with their eyes even if they tried.

If you CAN actually track it accurately with your eyes as it moves upwards and then recovers back onto target in the fraction of a second that takes, then that's pretty impressive. I don't believe that doing so buys you anything, but I doubt many people have that ability.
Quote:
If I don't keep my focus on the sight, I must therefore focus on the target (or the next target), at least for a brief moment. In other words, I will have to leave my front sight focus for a moment after the shot breaks, focus on the target (or next target), until my sights are realigned. Then I focus on the front sight again.
Trying to change your focus back and forth between the target and the front sight will slow you down unless you can focus your eyes very rapidly. Maybe even if you can.

Your comments leave me sort of at a loss.

On the one hand, the implication that you can focus on and track the front sight as it moves rapidly in recoil and that you can change your focus from front sight to target and back in the fraction of a second that it takes to transition targets suggests that you have very impressive visual acuity and should be shooting very well if your trigger control is decent.

But the way you're asking the questions and some of your other comments suggest that you're having trouble with the basics.

I don't really know how to reconcile the two. I've started trying to type responses several times but they keep self-destructing because of the way the implications of your comments and questions contradict each other.

Maybe let's start with your basic skill level. If you're transitioning between multiple 8" targets at 10 yards or so, how many shots a second can you fire and still make your hits?
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Old July 15, 2017, 02:21 PM   #40
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Quote:
What does "follow through" mean?
I always thought that it was keeping the gun swinging through the target when wingshooting.

I see from reading this thread that context matters a great deal and follow through means different actions, or lack of action to different people.

I'd say that "follow through" is what ever you are doing before the shot, keep doing it through, and until after the shot.
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Old July 15, 2017, 02:49 PM   #41
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A stool has to have three legs in contact with the ground all at the same time.
Focusing on one aspect of shooting is OK,but if you compromise any others,you may not see results.

I'm certainly not the expert to explain it to you.You can find a percentage of really good stuff on Youtube.
Rob Leatham's name has been dropped a few times,mostly regarding "trigger slap"
When I watch Rob Leatham,he is about being sufficiently accurate to not drop any points,while realizing the shot that is 0.1 second slower is the loser.
There is an umbrella strategy,the "stool" that has been stated,point the gun at the target and don't move it till the bullet has left the gun.
To that end,how your feet are on the ground,how your bones are stacked,etc are components of the shot.
Rob Leatham emphasizes no amount of sight focus makes up for moving the gun as you pull the trigger.He then demonstrates some pretty darn good ,fast shooting with his eyes closed.
First foundation is grip.Done right,the gun is stable in the hand,AND movement during recoil is minimal.The gun also returns to point of aim.Ideally,it returns to sight picture.
If you don't begin with the foundation of grip,balance,and stance,you are chasing your tail.And BTW,that includes having your feet move.

An aspect of follow through is calling the shot.See the sight picture as the gun recoils.You can't do that with your eyes closed.Its a technique to discipline your eyes to stay open.

The desire to see target reaction causes problems.First,its time better spent getting and killing your next target.Maybe worse,is a recoil anticipation where you leave your sights,move your head to see the target better,and then shoot.

While follow through is essential,ideally it is not static. Its a dynamic series of sequences.

I recall the basics of learning foil fencing.A great deal of emphasis was put on static poses ;step one,step two...
It was,for me,a major hurdle to incorporate all those fixed pose drills into one smooth/explosive movement.
Try the Rob Leatham videos. See what you think.Try Jerry Miculeks videos.
Study,and practice,the grip and stance they teach.
Learn trigger control so you don't move the gun.
Call the shot so your eyes are open.
If the shot called good at the instant of recoil,you finger can relax at the trigger and you can recover from recoil with your sights on the next target,pressing the trigger.
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Old July 15, 2017, 07:10 PM   #42
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Thanks for the information guys. There is a lot of it to digest. While that is a good thing in general, I think I'm getting more confused.

Actually, I think I've psyched myself out lately. Over tha past several months, I've tried to shoot smaller groups than I had been. I concentrated on sight picture, front sight focus, and a slow smooth trigger press. Unfortunately, my marksmanship has actually become worse. Right now I am miffed by what's happening.

I used to be able to keep all my shots inside a 6" circle from 7 yds. Not great, I know. But now my group is not only that large but high and left. On the pistol correction chart, that means I'm either pushing the shots or lacking follow through. Hence the reason I resurrected this thread.

I am also experiencing some truly awful flyers. Not even close. Those usually go way low and left. I have developed the yips, I think.

It might be time for me to hire a hands-on trainer who can watch what I'm doing and correct my errors.
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Old July 16, 2017, 12:17 AM   #43
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Quote:
I used to be able to keep all my shots inside a 6" circle from 7 yds. Not great, I know. But now my group is not only that large but high and left. On the pistol correction chart, that means I'm either pushing the shots or lacking follow through. Hence the reason I resurrected this thread.
Ok, that's a good gauge of your skill level and I can give you solid advice that will be appropriate for where you are based on that information.

1. You have a bad flinch--you are anticipating the shot. At 7 yards, the gun is capable of making groups that are smaller than an inch and you should have no real difficulty doing the same assuming your visual acuity is normal and you have no unusual health issues like a hand tremor.

2. You should focus on sight alignment because at 7 yards the target does not need to be seen clearly to get good hits. Just understand that focusing on the sights won't solve the anticipation problem that is causing your groups to be so large.

3. Forget about trying to track the front sight during recoil and forget about trying to switch focus back and forth from the target from the sight. None of that is useful for shooting slowfire groups at 7 yards.

4. Forget about the pistol chart. You have a more foundational issue that needs to be addressed before that chart will be of any use to you.

Here's a good video to watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li0rGtXh23I
Quote:
I have developed the yips, I think.
That's correct. You are getting the sights aligned perfectly and then spoiling the shot by moving the gun AFTER you make the decision to fire, right before the shot breaks.

Most likely you are blinking when you anticipate the shot actually firing and flinching at the same time which means that you don't actually see what's happening. So the last thing you see is perfect sight alignment, then you reflexively close your eyes (blink) as part of the flinch/anticipation and when you open them again, the shot didn't go where you wanted it to.

I've worked with shooters who have this problem and one thing I usually do at the very beginning of the session is to get them to align the sights with their finger off the trigger and then I reach over and press the trigger for them. They are amazed at the small size of the groups. Because they don't know when the shot will break, they can't flinch before the shot and the bullet goes where the sights are pointing. The secret is, of course, that the bullet ALWAYS goes where the sights are pointing, it's just that if you blink and then move the gun, you don't know where the sights are pointing and therefore you don't know where the bullet will go.

Start doing the following exercise as dryfire practice. Take the normal precautions for dryfiring to insure that you are practicing safely.

Count 1, 2, 3 at a normal speaking pace. Do NOT slow your pace when you start using the technique or alter it during the exercise.

Start from low ready.
Count 1 as the gun comes up on target.
Count 2 as the sights align on the target.
Count 3 as you break the shot.

Keep the sights on target after the shot breaks (follow through) and then go back to low ready and start again.

You should see the sights clearly starting at two and they should stay on target solidly from that point on until you reset to low ready to start again.

The point is to distract your brain from generating the flinch reflex by giving it something else to do and also by shortening the time it has to prepare to flinch.

By the way, BEFORE you can really do this exercise effectively you will need to be able to pull the trigger on your pistol in a reasonably short amount of time without moving the sights significantly. If you can't do that, then you need to practice dryfiring until you can.
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Old July 16, 2017, 02:57 AM   #44
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Imo, simply put, it's retaining control and being steady to follow through with a second or even dozens of following shots.

Follow through is how a sniper can hit a target, rack the bolt and have his scope on target for the second time without a minute trace of wasted effort.

Follow through. Bring gun back to bear, release trigger to reset, observe that gun fired without jamming and went to target,that the first target was neutralized, whether or not another shot, or even another target requires more rounds.

Follow through, imo, has nothing at all to do with speed. They are actually the worst of enemies. Taking the few seconds to carry out the process of following through with the various aspects of the shot delays all further shots slightly. Focusing only on speed means that the shooter doesn't really care about control.

In slow, deliberate shooting, imo, it means to create consistency. Fire, retain position, keep control, observe,prepare for a repeat shot. If you rack your bolt with your eyes off of target, off the scope, rifle out of the proper position on shoulder,, squirming all over the position, you are not properly following through with tha round, retaining control of weapon or giving the situation proper attention.
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Old July 18, 2017, 06:38 PM   #45
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JohnSKa .... Thanks!

I went to the range today and took your advice with me. My markmanship was much improved. I jave been either trying to track the front sight or peek at the target as the shot fired. Neither of those work, as you correctly pointed out.

Once I started to forget those things, I was hitting most within 3" of dead center from 10 yds ... much better than I have done previously. Also, when I shot more quickly, my group improved ... not as much time to psych myself out.

I think it will take some time to completely get rid of my bad habits, but I now know what they are and how to fix them.

You're a fine instructor. Best regards.
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Old July 18, 2017, 11:10 PM   #46
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I'm very glad I could help out a little. It sounds like you're well on the way to making some serious improvement.

The basics of shooting are very simple. The problem is that your brain is very concerned about loud noises and rapid movements in front of your face. It wants to protect your face/eyes and so it tries to flinch away to keep everything safe. Controlling your reflexes is not easy, but it can be done and the payoff will show on the target!
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Old July 18, 2017, 11:33 PM   #47
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John, since our conversation here, I've gone from miffed to highly encouraged. No more high left nonsense + ridiculous flyers. You cured my yips!

Thanks again, and long live the Republic. :-)
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Old July 19, 2017, 06:29 AM   #48
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Glad your groupings improved. I learned follow-through via archery. With its lower velocity arrow, follow-through is much more important with archery than with modern firearms. If you can master follow-through in archery, shooting is a cinch.
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Old July 20, 2017, 09:37 AM   #49
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Just to emphasize some of what John said:

The reason for front sight focus is mechanical. It's to keep your focus close enough that the rear sight is still clear enough to achieve adequate alignment. If you focus on the target or, as is a common error, let your focus drift out somewhere between the target and the front sight, the rear sight becomes so badly blurred that you lose all precision in the sight alignment. You can prove this to yourself by focusing on the target while using sandbags on the bench to keep the gun stable. Get the best sight alignment you can while focusing on the target. When you have it, without disturbing the gun, shift focus to the front sight and move your head, but not the gun, until the sight picture is correct. That shows you where you were actually aiming the gun vs. where you thought you were aligning it. Repeat by picking the gun up off the bags and starting over. Generally, you'll find you didn't get back to the same actual aim point with your focus beyond the front sight. You'll find repeating the exercise under different light conditions makes the actual point of aim move around, and this is the source of unreliability.

I appreciate the fellow thinking you should focus on the target because that's natural, but given how poor site focus is at that point, it is really moving you from aimed fire to a version of point shooting, which his a whole different can of worms. I won't stir the pot by getting into that discussion here. I'm only going to reiterate that target focus spoils aimed fire. Learn Cooper's color code, as it teaches you to program yourself to shift focus from the target to gun sight at the appropriate moment.

An exercise I find helpful is to put up a blank sheet of paper or a reversed target and get a good sight picture over the approximate center of paper. Practice keeping your eyes open and your grip undisturbed by watching where the sights settle after recoil. That is, you don't follow the sight as it recoils, but at discharge you will keep looking at where it was when it jumped out of view and on keeping your grip muscles in unchanged tension. These are both elements of follow-through. Just allow the gun to jump as it will and watch for the front sight's return into the rear sight notch.

In that exercise, what you are looking for is how well the front sight alignment survives the recoil event. If it returns to perfect or near-perfect alignment in the rear sight notch, then you have a near perfect grip for accurate placement of a second, fairly rapid follow-up shot (aka, the hammer, double-tap, etc.) when you get to where you want to try that. If the front sight is off to one side, you want to shift your grip on it or try different weak hand tension until you get the sight returning pretty close to perfectly. That's the point at which the gun is lining up with your bone and flesh structure to shoot repeatably into a group.
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Old July 20, 2017, 02:26 PM   #50
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Quote:
... you don't follow the sight as it recoils, but at discharge you will keep looking at where it was when it jumped out of view and on keeping your grip muscles in unchanged tension. These are both elements of follow-through. Just allow the gun to jump as it will and watch for the front sight's return into the rear sight notch.
Yes! This is what I was not doing. I was following the front sight.

My instructor told the class to focus on the front sight and make a slow smooth trigger press, but he never to me or the class to keep your focus where the sight was and let it return there. I took his instruction literally.
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