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.
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.