Pistol Team Workbook - How to aim at blank paper, using a red dot sight

First topic message reminder :

In the Pistol Team Workbook, it references shooting at a blank piece of paper.  How does one do this with a red dot sight?

The dot needs to be on, just to know the sight is level and aimed at the paper, not the moon.
The area within the sight is just "white", no indication o whether or not its centered.
The only thing I can think of, is to center the outline of the sight within the edges of the sheet of paper?

With steel sights, this was easy.  I see the paper, I see the front and rear sights, and shoot at the middle.

Then there's the issue of not seeing the previous bullet holes - all I can think of for that, is to use the wrong glasses, so previous holes are not in focus.



If there's no good answer, I'll just use a different gun with steel sights, like I used to do.
That eliminates all those problems.    :-)

CR10X wrote:.........So, remove anything that temps you to look, aim, see, distract you from using whatever you have (front and rear sight alignment or dot in the tube) to work on and INSURE you are constantly keeping the gun PARALLEL with your intended line of sight.  Wobble all you want / have to but work on keeping the gun aligned.  And that means working with a blank target............

One more question, when I read this, the only way I know to achieve it is to "lock" my entire body into position - hands, wrists, arms, everything.  I friend of mine (the president of my shooting club) told me to forget putting my left hand in my pocket, but instead to move it to my belt buckle, and continue on beyond the belt buckle to the next belt loop, and wrap my hand around the belt with my palm facing forward, and my thumb down inside my pants, so my left arm is in contact with, and pressing on my tummy.  Maybe you'll be laughing at this, but it definitely helped make me better at what you're describing, as my whole body felt "locked" into position.  The "blur" from the dot got smaller, and the dot stayed in place MUCH better.  What you're describing, keeping the gun parallel with my line of sight got much easier.

On the other hand, with my left hand in my left pocket, my body was not "locked" in place.  Silly or not, this idea made a big difference in my doing what you're describing.

lablover wrote:Floaters are my problem too...........My floaters are so bad at times that when using the dot it will totally blur the dot and target. I’m going to start practicing with my left eye now. I’m right handed BTW

I re-read this thread again from the beginning, knowing ahead of time what CR wrote - the main point as I see it being:

• any instantaneous position of the dot on the target or sight picture with open sights is relatively unimportant.  
  
• It's just going to move somewhere else.  
  
• Quit chasing it and learn to see your wobble 
  
• and most importantly, keep the gun aligned. 
  

CR is one of the people I pay the most attention to, so I have been trying to find a way to practice what he wrote.  What I'm trying to do now is to ignore whether things in my sight are "sharp" (meaning my floaters no longer matter) and try to keep the "blur" (wobble) of the dot in the middle of the sight (which gets better over time with more and more dry-firing).  As I understand what CR meant, it's the entire "wobble" that needs to be centered, NOT the "dot", since the dot is not going to be in the same place when the gun fires.  I think keeping the blur centered, means the holes should be in a group the size of my wobble, as long as I don't muff it up with bad trigger release.  

What's difficult for me, is that the wobble/blur wants to move one way or another (the entire blur, not the dot), which I'm certain is because I've changed the orientation of the gun.  I can prove that to myself by closing my eyes for a few seconds, re-opening them, and the gun is no longer aimed where I wanted it to be.  This is after doing the POA adjustment.  

I think I know what I need to do, but don't know how to accomplish it, other than endless practice.  I'm tempted to do the POA adjustment, aim gun at target or blank wall, close eyes, count to ten, re-open eyes, and see where the gun is now aimed.  Usually I find the dot/wobble/blur is no longer centered in the sight.  So, what to do about it?

• I can just re-align the gun, and ignore the fact that the gun had moved.
  
• maybe I can find something I can do, adjusting hands, whatever, such that when I close my eyes again for ten seconds, the dot/wobble/blur will still be centered in the sight?????
  

(Adjusting right/left I think I can accomplish by finding a better place for my feet - that's half the problem....   but what to do about up/down?  Is there a way to compensate for the gun usually trying to "fall", probably due to the weight of the gun???   Any advice for this would be appreciated.  Maybe I just need to adjust my grip on the gun, or maybe I need to practice more with my lead magazine in the gun, so when I remove the lead magazine the gun will feel lighter?)


To 'lablover' --- if --- what I just wrote is valid, maybe the best thing you can do about your floaters is to ignore them; when the view gets blurred because of the floater being in front of your eye, just deal with where the blurry blur is, not how sharp.      .....but I put 'if" at the beginning of that, because while I think this is right, I'm still learning to do this myself.


Something else to add to this discussion.  During my one hour dry firing session, I have 45 repetitions of a "work" session and a "rest" session.   I decided at the end of my "work" session, to dry-fire holding the gun in my left hand.  Yikes!!!!!!   I'd be lucky to even hit the backing board - but each day it's improving slightly.  If nothing else, this reminds me of how far I've come, as when I first joined this forum and started attempting to use only my right hand, that's exactly what I had to deal with.  My conclusion - compared to what I can do left handed, my right hand is acting like a Ransom Rest.    :-)


I pay more/less attention to posts here depending on who wrote them.  I've already gone back in time to find things Brian Zins posted, and I need to do the same thing for posts by CR.

Ten seconds might be a bit long. But if your hold is deteriorating that quickly you might need to work on getting the shot off faster and abort quicker.

Dave, if you get set for a shot, and rather than shoot, you close your eyes for ten seconds, then re-open, has anything changed?  

I'm talking here about dry-firing; in live firing, I don't think I ever take ten seconds to take the shot.  By that time I'm already lowering my hands, and will start all over again.   For dry-firing, I'm holding the gun up for 20 seconds, "firing" once during that time, then continuing to hold the gun aimed at the target until the buzzer sounds telling me to put the gun down.

Curious - How long should a "hold" last, unchanging, with eyes closed?