Why do people keep calling this follow through!!?!??

As soon as your pistol goes bang, that shot is over. Period. Managing the recoil of the shot that you just fired, and recovering - meaning reacquiring your sight alignment, and sight picture - is constantly packaged together and mislabeled “follow through” by MANY shooters. This is not follow through. 

Follow through is maintaining your sight alignment and sight picture until the bullet has left the barrel. To mention it in another way, follow through is maintaining your sight alignment and sight picture throughout the action of pressing the trigger, and throughout the movement of the rest of the parts in the handgun that carry out actions necessary to detonate the cartridge in the chamber. Follow through is doing what ever it is, that is necessary to fire the pistol while not disrupting the sight alignment and sight picture. 

As soon as the bullet exits the muzzle, there is nothing you can do to effect its point of impact on the target. Follow through has already happened, everything you could’ve or should’ve done to make that shot go where you wanted it to should’ve already have been done by now. Because now it’s too late. That shot is over. It’s no longer present, it’s past.

100% right!

Ditto Wobbley.  Do read my signature line below.

Follow through ends when recoil ALONE changes your sight alignment.  The better your grip, stance, focus and other strengths (including mental), the longer sight alignment remains.  When the recoil moves the gun, I call the action you do then as recoil management.  Another way to describe follow through is after the hammer falls, seeing the sights long enough to make a good call.

True, but you need recovery for the next shot in sustained....

bruce martindale wrote:True, but you need recovery for the next shot in sustained....

Yes you do. But it isn’t follow through and you said it your self. Recovery. Not follow through. And you referenced the following shot, which has nothing to do with the round you just fired.

So in reference to what you’re talking about - we train ourselves to make it a habit to recover back to aiming for another shot even in slow fire so that when we get to sustained fire, we’re trained and ready to shoot that short of stuff.

Follow through is important (if you relax your grip immediately after pulling the trigger, you will have problems), but as mentioned shot recovery is a better description to what many are calling “follow through”. Follow through is something that is far more evident in air pistol than bullseye.

I always thought "follow through" was anything and everything a shooter does after pressing the trigger.

https://www.nrafamily.org/articles/2020/4/6/follow-through-a-shooting-fundamental

The term follow through can be applied in different contexts.  Like follow through with your whole shot plan.   Or even a larger context like finishing your task tomorrow.

I think this discussion is about the nitty-gritty of sight alignment for the shot to the X ring at 50 yards.

Interesting discussion.  I too was taught and teach using the term "follow through."   Always liken it to a baseball throw, baseball bat swing, golf swing, or basketball shot.  When the ball leave the hand, club, or bat the ball is gone but the movement is not complete. I think the same idea applies to firing a shot. I use "follow through"  to test the quality of the position.  If the gun does not recover naturally to sights aligned and on the target the grip and or position need to be adjusted.   Maybe we need a more descriptive term.

Follow through was a concept taught during the black powder days when there were long barrels and leisurely bullets.  The problem is the term itself really.  It’s never been defined…just “follow through”.  The concept tho is to not relax anything between the release of the trigger and the bulletin leaving the barrel.  In a cap and ball pistol that might take 3-5 times as long as the 3 milliseconds it takes for the 45ACP.   Slow motion videos show the bullet leaving the bore before the slide moves .1 inch the gun has barely recoiled.  That’s all the “follow through” needed.  Recovering from recoil and re-aquiring  a sight picture is recoil recovery practice.

Too many times shooters relax their hand and arm after they feel the trigger release the hammer. As mentioned by Wobbley that would be a disaster back in the black powder days with percussion or flint. Now follow thru is after recoil the gun is brought back on target, it confirms nothing changed plus it gets you into form when shooting the short line.

I trained for FP most of all in the early 70s.  What I was taught there I carried over to slowfire.  Especially with the 38 OMM, I made no effort to return to the target.  I let the recoil rock me back and I ended there in a rocked back position.  My job was to keep the sights aligned before, during, and after the fall of the hammer.  No more. No less.  I wish I had the eyes and shoulder I had back then.

36  times during a 900 recovery is important. Being that shooting is repetitive and doing the same thing every time that resulted in a X follow thru is simply keeping every thing the same. Quite a few top shooter will follow thru in slow fire and if all looks good shoot again. I can recall my first time on first relay at Perry for .22, I made Master Class and was on the relay with all the top shooters. Next to me a shooter had a lawn chair and during the time when not having to be at the bench sat in his chair reading a book. When time came to shoot he picked up his pistol, shot 10 rounds before I shot about 3 or 4! Then sat down to continue reading his book. Thinking to myself he must have just made expert and was lucky enough to be put on first relay .22. I scored him, 99 with a lot of Xs, Being he was to my left I had the chance to watch him, he recovered (followed thru) after every slow fire shot. Sometimes he shot again sometime not. After it was over he was on the Podium being one of the top 3 shooters (I don't remember which one) He was Jim Lenardson.
 My point is that many of the best shooter follow a sequence, many books list the sequence and a lot of advice given includes a sequence of events in shooting a good score so there must be some merit to it!

A S&W Model 52 will teach you a whole lot about, "follow through".