Blank Wall Versus Target

I'm a 68 yr old who is trying to take up Bullseye shooting because I think it's a great challenge and will improve my shooting with all my other pistol disciplines.  I've been practicing 25 yd slow fire at my local range and while I can keep my shots on the paper, they hardly all in the black and more than occasionally outside the rings.  I'm using a Pardini SP Bullseye with a Match Dot II and CCI SV ammo so I know it's not my equipment that is lacking.  

In dry fire practice, if I fire at a blank wall, I have no problem keeping the dot steady through the press.  However, when aiming at some object, it's a whole different story.  Is there a secret sauce to ignoring what the dot is doing relative to the target to achieve a smooth break?  The brain too often wants to steer the dot and/or snatch the trigger when the picture looks good.

Have you googled "area aiming" and or read Bruce's book "Finding Center"?

It may answer a few questions.

There really isn't a "secret sauce" other than lots of effort and training.

Try and keep your focus on the dot and concentrate on holding it still.  When you have a target out there your eyes want to look at it which makes your dot wander.  Holding the dot steady (translate that to maintaining good sight alignment) will improve your hits into the black where you want them.

Good luck and welcome to the sport.

John

If you have a polarizer on the lens, you can dim the scope so the target is harder to see. Of course, some successful precision pistol shooters concentrate on the target, at least for slow fire. I've found that the older I get, the more emotional I get and of course there's that pesky problem with old, weaker muscles and tendons, as well as, the reappearance of old injuries. It takes a lot of training to learn to really focus (not just look) and concentrate. Keep at it and keep your expectations reasonable.

John Dervis wrote:Try and keep your focus on the dot and concentrate on holding it still.  When you have a target out there your eyes want to look at it which makes your dot wander.  Holding the dot steady (translate that to maintaining good sight alignment) will improve your hits into the black where you want them.

I'm a noob too but also find this to be true.  It is easier to keep the dot still during dry-fire triggering against a blank wall than against a target (at least at my stage). Your natural arc of motion (wobble) is more visible and distracting when trying to align with a target. One way to see this is to alternate between blank wall and an adjacent target, such as a vertical door frame, etc.

Besides dry fire, air pistol is another good training for sight-alignment/smooth trigger

FLTony wrote:Is there a secret sauce to ignoring what the dot is doing relative to the target to achieve a smooth break?  The brain too often wants to steer the dot and/or snatch the trigger when the picture looks good.

No.  This is learning to trust your hold.  It’s much easier to learn to do so with irons first, then carry it over to the dot.  Irons lie to you in a good way; dots are too honest. Big/bright dots can help, but dots are still excessively fine indicators of gun alignment. You cannot perceive all the constant tiny changes in alignment with irons like you will with a dot. 

Blank target drills with irons helped build hold trust for me.  The sight picture’s position relative to any given point on the target is almost meaningless for shooting a tight group.  Shooting small groups on a blank piece of paper, when I couldn’t see the holes at all, proved that to me. Alignment of the sights to each other is king (parallel error versus angular error).  

When I learned I could trust myself to hold and shoot groups like that, I carried that mentality over to the dot.  

Most people of reasonable fitness are going to wobble the size of the black, maybe a little bigger or smaller.  That comes down with practice and conditioning.  

The sight “picture” just confirms your hold is centered in a good area and, in sustained fire, that you returned back to center.  You can let go any thoughts of “precision aiming” or “timing the break in your wobble.”  Press the trigger straight back without changing grip pressure or worrying about whether the dot is over the 10 ring.  The dot spends most of its time over the center of your wobble anyways, so the odds are your shot will break there.

A couple of thoughts…

If you only have a blank wall to aim/hold the pistol on, how do you know  the dot isn’t moving or how big the movement is?  For this reason, I think you need to have some reference Tom”aim” at.  It doesn’t need to be a big black dot.  Some just use an “x” hand drawn on a piece of paper.  Just make it thin enough so it tends to not refocus your eyes.

Next time you go shooting put up a repair center with your “x” on the back and see if you can keep,20 shots on the repair center.  Repeat the process until you can shoot 20 shots in a 6 inch circle.  Then turn around the repair center and see if you can shoot 15 of 20:shots in the 8 ring or better.

Keep at it. It ain't easy. If it were, everyone here would be a high master!

Wobbley wrote:A couple of thoughts…

If you only have a blank wall to aim/hold the pistol on, how do you know  the dot isn’t moving or how big the movement is?  For this reason, I think you need to have some reference Tom”aim” at.  It doesn’t need to be a big black dot.  Some just use an “x” hand drawn on a piece of paper.  Just make it thin enough so it tends to not refocus your eyes.

Next time you go shooting put up a repair center with your “x” on the back and see if you can keep,20 shots on the repair center.  Repeat the process until you can shoot 20 shots in a 6 inch circle.  Then turn around the repair center and see if you can shoot 15 of 20:shots in the 8 ring or better.

The purpose of the blank wall drill is to accept your hold and make the hammer fall without disturbing your sight alignment. Your gun will be moving throughout your normal arc of movement but this drill will prove the movement doesn’t have that great of an affect on the shot.  
When you add a reference point (black bullseye, X, whatever) you will get distracted by it and then you will force a shot when the gun crosses that mark.  In a real shot, if you accept your arc, and make the shot go off without disturbing the sight alignment, the shot will be within that arc. 

If you want to train separately on making your arc as small as possible, do that with a reference point but don't pull the trigger.  Hold the gun on target for 5-10 seconds then bring down to rest.  Do it again a minute or two later.  Repeat a few times but I wouldn’t do it more than 10x in a session because your muscles will fatigue.  

John