Help analyzing the wife's shooting.

My wife usually hates it when I give her advice about shooting or any other activity where I'm critical of how she's doing things. Perhaps it's my approach, but a wall of stubbornness is raised even when I give her little suggestions - like to spend more time dry fire practicing.

One day I was trying to explain the pencil triangulation exercise, and she thought it was just stupid. So I drew my dots on the paper tapped to the wall and started firing the pencil at them while she went to do something else. She was obviously watching, because a few days later I noticed a bunch of crumpled up papers in the bedroom trash with dots and little holes and marks below them! :D
 
ProxyBoy...

First, welcome to the forum.

Now, sit down, loosen your belt and relax a bit. Don't take this personally--because I'm about to pin your ears back a bit.

1. You stated that you are just learning how to shoot. Good! There's nothing wrong with that. You should, however, reconsider attempting to instruct someone when you have mistakes of your own to work through.

2. You mention that your wife is shooting low--with a major caliber handgun.

The very first firearm a novice should ideally use is a .22 caliber. Yes, they go "pop" through the ear protection. No, they don't recoil too much at all--which makes them the perfect training aid.

3. You posted a situation and asked for advice--and got kind of upset when some of the people on this forum attempted to tell you what was wrong. Did you expect anything less? Some of the people who have posted to this thread are fully certified firearms instructors. They are giving you valuable insight, if you'll take your feelings off your sleeve for a while.

First item...what was the very first thing that you talked to your wife about? It should have been the basic safety rules for ALL firearms. Can your wife recite them verbatim? Can you?

Second item--can you describe the cycle of operation with the firearm you're using to teach? If not, why not? It helps to know what is going on inside the firearm and cartridge.

Third item--have you taught her about sight alignment/sight picture? Do you know it well enough to use it? Can you teach her the elements of breaking a successful shot? I would say, "no".

You can not even observe and spot a flinch yet, as evidenced by your initial post. It is a common problem, and easily remedied--or, easily coached by an experienced instructor.

So, what should you do?

For your benefit, and your wife's benefit....

1. Get some competent instruction--for both of you. This can be either an NRA Basic Course, or training by an experienced shooter. But--GET SOME INSTRUCTION.

2. Ditch the big bore for now. Get a .22 handgun.
3. Next time you go shooting, pull your targets in close, and have her sit down, at a bench, with a sandbag rest.
4. For your benefit, dry firing will help. HOWEVER--do NOT practice dry firing at your home. Practice ONLY at the range, with the firearm pointing at an actual target, with a backstop that will STOP a bullet.

Finally, LOSE the hurt feelings. There are people here who will be blunt with you--me included. We are not posting this to be contrary; many of us have literal decades of shooting experience. Shooting is a fun sport, an excellent pastime, and an excellent method of self defense should the need arise.

It is also a practice that can lead to a horrible tragedy if you make a mistake.

Listen and learn, friend. Good shooting to you!

Yours,
Powderman
NRA Certified Instructor
Police Firearms Instructor
Law Enforcement Armorer
(and former gunsmith and military armorer, working on shooting (my favorite pastime) for 43 years)
 
Powderman... *sigh* seems you might be guilty of the same thing... not reading what I am actually posting. Take the subject out of the situation. If I said "My wife LOVES breakfast foods and I'm trying to get her to fry the PERFECT egg..." would you guys then suggest maybe we start off with some toast as to "ease her into breakfast... wouldn't want to scare her away from it". This is basically the post that I have "complained" about. Those that have given advice after reading I cherish. Those that post saying "do this so you can make sure your wife continues to enjoy shooting obviously failed to read the fact that my wife LOVED shooting before we ever got together." READ.

1.) Well, first off I NEVER had a desire nor intent to "teach" anyone to shoot... I was asking for YOU guys to teach her what she was doing wrong. I would MAYBE convey what you guys had said but if it wasn't something easy to translate I would just have her read the forum... so far all she has gotten from reading is mainly laughing at how little you guys are actually reading of my post.

2.) Don't disagree and this is on the list of things we would like to get if nothing else for the cheap practice... my wife actually (NO READ THIS), kind of snubs her nose at the idea of a .22... she LIKES shooting the large caliber guns. See why it doesn't make sense to make sure not to "scare her off".

3.) Again... you mistake frustration with people that failed to pay attention to the actual post vs the appreciation for those that did and posted good advice. I got a couple of PM's agreeing that some of these guys aren't even coming close to listening. So I don't feel like I'm completely off based with some of my frustration with *SOME* of the post.

I have received some great info from some of the people that have posted here and I appreciate it very much. I have also read post that should have never been posted because they never actually addressed a single issue at hand and just spit some generic reply that looked like it was posted purely on the subject line and not the content of the post.

Sorry if this hurts YOUR feelings, it is just the way it is.
PB
 
ProxyBoy,

2.) Don't disagree and this is on the list of things we would like to get if nothing else for the cheap practice... my wife actually (NO READ THIS), kind of snubs her nose at the idea of a .22... she LIKES shooting the large caliber guns. See why it doesn't make sense to make sure not to "scare her off".
Click to expand...

You are reading a whole lot more into the advice than you were given, I think.

The reason it makes sense to get a new shooter started with a .22 is NOT because they might get "scared off" with a larger caliber. It has nothing to do with emotions at all, in fact.

Shooting is a sport like many others: it requires time and lots of practice to develop the basic skill sets that help you reach success. More than that, it requires correct practice -- that is, lots of repetitions doing something right in order for your muscles to "naturally" do the right thing without a lot of high-concentration effort.

If instead you repeatedly practice doing the wrong thing, you will never improve.

Beginners who start with larger calibers often have significant problems with a flinch. Again, this is NOT an emotional problem ("she doesn't like the sensation of shooting a larger caliber") even though sometimes the shooter's like or dislike of the sensation can come into play. It simply comes from the mechanics of shooting a gun with more recoil versus one with less recoil.

Put more simply: when you shoot a gun with lower recoil, you are more likely to practice doing the right thing and less likely to practice doing the wrong thing.

Since your wife obviously has a signficant flinch already, she would almost certainly benefit from

1) instruction from someone who knows what they are looking at and knows how to instruct the change, followed (not preceded) by
2) lots of dry fire, and
3) using a lower-recoil firearm such as an all-steel .22 that really soaks up the impulse.

Once the flinch has been beaten into submission, she can readily transfer her new skills over to other firearms and will rapidly progress with them because she'll have experience doing the right things with the trigger and her muscles.

Yes, this is less fun than simply blasting away at the side of a hill or something. But hitting the target is a great deal more fun than missing it.

More here (though past experience suggests there's no point, perhaps it will help others): www.CorneredCat.com/Basics/flinch.aspx

pax

(Edited to add: I agree with Powderman that in this case, any dry firing you do should happen at the range, not in your own home.)
 
ABSOLUTELY Pax... that is why I said I agree.

I have actually stated everything you said, in not so many words, in other post. Basically a .22 will allow you to learn good habits vs bad ones (better to do up front than later).

This kind of touches upon exactly my problem. I stated that I agree in my previous post and I stated that the problem with other people that stated to use a .22 was the ones that instead of reading that the wife like shooting and stating why to use a .22 they only mentioned "scaring her" which is preposterous. I am ALL for constructive criticism that is pointing me in the right direction and is thought out. Like, using a .22 to develop good technique. Not, "start her off with a .22 or she will get scared an never want to shoot again".

Most of these type of post have been deleted making most of what I was/am complaining about irrelevant at this point and makes it look like I am "attacking" those that actually gave good advice. I am definitely not doing that.
 
Proxy, I think the mention of the eggs might be misdirected. If an egg cracks the wrong way, you get shell in the egg. At worse, a crunchy omelet. (Ewwww!)

If a handgun goes off in the wrong direction, someone might get hurt. Badly.

We (I) can NOT teach your wife--or anyone--through a computer. However, I will pass along something to you. This was passed along to me when I was struggling in Conventional Pistol shooting. As soon as I applied it, my scores improved drastically. I applied the same principle to my shooting in general, and my marksmanship improved exponentially.

I am a great fan of reducing matters to their least common denominator. Do you want, in a single sentence, the heart of shooting in its purest form?

Here it is...

Shooting accurately involves nothing more than centering the front sight in the rear sight notch, holding it in position, and maintaining that same sight picture and alignment while pulling the trigger to the rear. All other facets of shooting lead to, and support, those simple steps.

By the way, that is not mine. I got that from a passage in "The Pistol Shooter's Treasury" by Gil Hebard.
 
ProxyBoy: "pencil triangulation" is just shooting a sharpened pencil from the barrel of your centerfire pistol at a little target dots drawn on a sheet of paper hanging a couple inches away. Some people (including military instructors) find it useful for practicing target acquisition and alignment, trigger pull, and follow through, all in a single drill. The marks the pencil leaves allows for grading and analysis.

Eraser end goes in first of course, and you aim with the pointy end an inch or two from the target. I wrap the steel band part attached to the eraser with some masking tape just to protect my barrel and to make a better fit in the 9mm. For a .45, you'll need two bands of tape several layers thick to center the pencil loosely in the barrel. Don't use plastic tape with a lot of sticky stuff or you'll foul your barrel.

You need to follow all safety precautions, including following the 4 laws and proving your firearm safe each and every time you pick up your pistol after laying it down. Remember that gremlins can magically load your firearm even if you lay it down in plain sight. Your sheet of target paper must be attached to a suitable backstop. Ensure you can see the eraser end of the pencil enter the empty chamber while you have the action locked open. Ammo and mags must be locked away out of sight. I think you know the drill :p

Here is a U.S. Army training video that explains and demonstrates the pencil technique (starting at the 05:40 mark): USA M9 Pistol Training 1991 (Part 2)
 
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I should also mention for the record that there are a lot of people who don't believe that any gun should ever be dry fired without using a snap cap or some other dummy round that will absorb some of the force of the firing pin. This is of course controversial and has been argued to death even before these forums existed.

For this reason, we only practice the pencil dry fire with the cheap Norinco. But we've probably dry fired it thousands and thousands of times and it still works just fine. But if it's something you feel uncomfortable doing with your firearm, you might instead consider dry firing on snap caps with the coin balanced on the barrel technique. It's one option to help cure a flinch and work on smoother trigger work.
 
Wow

There is a ton of good advice in this thread, it didn't all fall on deaf ears.

Thanks to those that took the time to make some very informative posts and provide the links.

My daughter (new shooter) has a flinching problem and this will be very helpful in addressing it. :cool:
 
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