Can we talk Wobble?

First topic message reminder :

If my reading and understanding of what I read is right as long as your trigger breaks with in your wobble area that is what you want.  That way you can keep the trigger moving and not try to snatch the shot when the dot is on the X ring.  Because that is not where the dot is going to be when the bullet clears the barrel.  Now what I want to know is I been right so far is when you all are shooting clean targets your wobble is all in the 10 ring?  Don

If the gun comes out of your hand. You have to unload and re-grasp and dry fire before putting a round in the chamber. How can you just pick up the gun and shoot without confirming that your grip is correct by dry firing?

When you abort a shot, you need to know why you aborted it. Was the trigger just moving, did the sights move, were the sights not on your target naturally when the gun settled? 

If the sights were not automatically aligned to your eye and the target you have a grip issue. Fix it. If its a grip issue you must unload and re-grip and dry fire to make sure it is right. 

So many times I have watched people in a match dry fire in prep time. Put their gun down. on the command load, they pick up the gun and load, when the target faces they start shooting. Never once dry firing again after they re-grasped their gun. 

Why did they dry fire in prep time? I have yet to understand that. 

I watch people change their grip in the middle of slow fire and never dry fire. How do you know the grip you changed to is right? Dry ire confirms that how you are holding the gun is the best way at that moment. 

NMC....
It is fine to practice a NMC once in awhile just to get in that mindset, but training should be taking small bites of the fundamentals and mastering them one at a time. 

Kinda like training sustained fire. Why shoot 5 rounds in timed or rapid fire over and over. Just work on getting the first shot off when the target faces. Not as in the target turns and you pull the trigger, but as in the sights are aligned and you are applying pressure to the trigger and the shot breaks and low and behold the target turned in front of you. 

Finger reacts to what the eye sees (sights settling on the edge of the target) not the turning of the target.

I saw the handle and thought..hmm that sounds like..oh wait, it is.
Welcome back Brian.

Do you ever get an early first shot in sustained? For you, Is there actually a delay between the turn and the shot? I had oscillated on the trigger take up during commands followed by initiating final continuous trigger build with target motion. Thanks

No early shots. shoot a bunch of 1 shot drills and you will learn to get the trigger to start moving a split second prior to actually exposure of the target. to the point where it almost happens as the target turns. They key is to get away from the trigger starting in reaction to the target moving. 

Finger reacts to what the eye sees, rather than the seeing the target move.

12XNPC wrote:If you do Holding drills do not look a the sights while doing holding drills. The objective is to get to where the finger reacts to what the eye sees. Holding drills while looking at sights is not allowing the finger to react to what the eye sees.

I  have a habit when shooting precision pistol of lowering the gun right after the last shot. In other shooting I manage to use the "five shots, six sight pictures" rule. I started to work on this more and began holding and maintaining a sight picture (dot alignment) for one or two seconds after the last shot or when dry firing to break the habit of lowering the gun too soon.

Since this could be considered a "holding drill", is this detrimental, or what would the recommendation be to improve my follow through technique?

Thank You!

(I did a search for "follow through" and strangely, nothing came up.)

(Brian, can I collect all your posts in this thread, and combine them?  So much of what you say here now sounds "obvious", but only after having read it and thought about it.  I have a feeling I'm not the only one here who feels that way.   I learn a lot of new things every time you post!  Thank you.)

12XNPC wrote:If the gun comes out of your hand. You have to unload and re-grasp and dry fire before putting a round in the chamber.
How can you just pick up the gun and shoot without confirming that your grip is correct by dry firing?
If the sights were not automatically aligned to your eye and the target you have a grip issue. Fix it.
If its a grip issue you must unload and re-grip and dry fire to make sure it is right.
I watch people change their grip in the middle of slow fire and never dry fire. How do you know the grip you changed to is right?
Dry fire confirms that how you are holding the gun is the best way at that moment.

I now accept that you need to dry-fire to confirm your grip is right.
My question is how do you confirm the grip is right?

If you raise the gun to your eye, and the sights aren't where you want them to be, that is a grip issue.
If you raise your gun to your eye, and dry-fire, and the sights move as the gun goes CLICK, that is a grip issue.
If you raise your gun to your eye, and the dot is not in the middle of the sight, that must also be a grip issue.

Do you check these things (and others?) to confirm all is right?

Not knowing better, I've been doing all this incorrectly. I have always assumed that when you raise the gun up, there is a short time to get everything centered and looking correct.  I figured that someone like you, who does this so well, so often, and probably spends a huge amount of time dry-firing, learns it by repetition.  From what you're saying, I should lower my arm, start all over again, and grip the gun so it comes up correctly, and NOT wiggle things around until the sights are aimed at the target, which I've done for over 30 years.....

(I'm still struggling to get my hand and fingers in the exact same spot every time, and you can laugh at me, but I've gone as far as to put a mark on the web of my hand, so that spot is centered on the gun.  You're in college, and I'm in the second grade, but you're making me aware of things I never even considered before, let alone tried to do....  Time to learn a better way to do things.  Maybe my plan is to just stand and look at the target, and raise my arm.  If things are not all right, lower my arm, start all over again, and try again.  And again.  And again.   It would be wonderful if I could learn to do what you're describing.)

mikemyers wrote:

If you raise the gun to your eye, and the sights aren't where you want them to be, that is a grip issue.
If you raise your gun to your eye, and dry-fire, and the sights move as the gun goes CLICK, that is a grip issue.
If you raise your gun to your eye, and the dot is not in the middle of the sight, that must also be a grip issue.

Do you check these things (and others?) to confirm all is right?

Mike, I'm not all that experienced, but that is exactly what I do. When dry firing on a blank wall, my first reference is whether or not my sights (irons) are correctly aligned. I regrip if they are not. Second, I focus on sight movement. On my first shot, of this step, the front sight ALWAYS moves to the right. (This is extremely frustrating and my primary dry fire focus right now.) I then reposition my trigger finger and dry fire again. This takes me two or three dry fires to get correct. I find that different guns/grips require a slightly different position which is even more frustrating. Anyway, I never ever dry fire with the intent of working on my grip while pointing at a target. A target is a distraction. Once my grip allows for a perfect trigger press and sight alignment, I am then ready for a target. 

I'm still new, so if anyone has a correction to my method, please let me know.

(Stork, take this with several grains of salt, as it's something I just started doing, and I don't know if it's a good idea, but when you finally get your grip the way you like, my thought is to mark my hand with a marking pen, which helps repeat that grip.  I'm not sure if others will laugh at this, or agree, but it's the best I have come up with on my own...)

Mike, I use reference points. For example, I ground off part of my pinky in a motorcycle crash a few years back and if I squeeze too tight it's uncomfortable. If I don't squeeze enough, it feels spongy. That feeling is one reference of many. As for location, once again, reference points. Pick a crease in your hand. Where is it located when you grip the gun? If your grip is good that time, write it down. Then repeat alot. Eventually it will become muscle memory and you'll feel when you are not holding it the same as before. Square edges are generally uncomfortable, so I use those spots as my reference points. On my Ruger MKII, the stupid safety digs into my thumb if my grip is high and tight. Barely feel it if I grip loosely or not high enough. 

Once again. I'm just a noob shooting high 260's, not a master or HM.

I  have a habit when shooting precision pistol of lowering the gun right after the last shot. In other shooting I manage to use the "five shots, six sight pictures" rule. I started to work on this more and began holding and maintaining a sight picture (dot alignment) for one or two seconds after the last shot or when dry firing to break the habit of lowering the gun too soon.


YES THIS IS BAD. It may sound like "follow though" but it is not. stop doing it.


 (Brian, can I collect all your posts in this thread, and combine them?  So much of what you say here now sounds "obvious", but only after having read it and thought about it.  I have a feeling I'm not the only one here who feels that way.   I learn a lot of new things every time you post!  Thank you.)  


Please by all means. 


If you raise the gun to your eye, and the sights aren't where you want them to be, that is a grip issue.
If you raise your gun to your eye, and dry-fire, and the sights move as the gun goes CLICK, that is a grip issue.
If you raise your gun to your eye, and the dot is not in the middle of the sight, that must also be a grip issue.

Do you check these things (and others?) to confirm all is right?



Yes, all those have to be present in order to have and understand grip. 




Keep in mind that if the sights are aligned to one another but not on the target then its not a grip issue its  a body alignment issue. 

12XNPC wrote:"I  have a habit when shooting precision pistol of lowering the gun right after the last shot. In other shooting I manage to use the "five shots, six sight pictures" rule. I started to work on this more and began holding and maintaining a sight picture (dot alignment) for one or two seconds after the last shot or when dry firing to break the habit of lowering the gun too soon."


YES THIS IS BAD. It may sound like "follow though" but it is not. stop doing it.

Thank you!

One less thing I have to think about and work on when training!

Hopefully I can find some fairly local matches with some talent (M's, HM's) that I could attend as an observer just to see how they do things.

Someone told me that Brian suggests putting your left thumb over and behind your belt buckle, rather than in your pocket.  Since I am making the attempt to copy everything he says, I tried doing that.  

Brian can explain the reasoning behind this - all I know, is it makes a huge difference - the belt buckle helps support the thumb and my left arm, which just "hangs" there.  It feels completely different, in a very nice way.  Maybe that's because before, my left shoulder was holding up all that weight, but now the belt buckle takes over.  My body feels more relaxed this way, and I think that alone helped reduce the size of the "wobble".

mikemyers wrote:Someone told me that Brian suggests putting your left thumb over and behind your belt buckle, rather than in your pocket.  Since I am making the attempt to copy everything he says, I tried doing that.  

If you stand up straight and raise your hand keeping your elbow in place, wherever the hand meets your belt is where you want to have the thumb hook over the belt. 

Try to put your hand in your pocket without moving your elbow. With your hand in your pocket is your arm still against your body as much as possible? 

If you are shooting an alibi and experience a stoppage during the alibi, how fast can you get your non shooting hand out of your pocket to clear the stoppage and get back into the string of fire without running out of time as opposed to just lifting your hand form your belt?

12XNPC wrote:If you are shooting an alibi and experience a stoppage during the alibi, how fast can you get your non shooting hand out of your pocket to clear the stoppage and get back into the string of fire without running out of time as opposed to just lifting your hand form your belt?

++1 on thumb in belt!  3 years ago during a team match I had a rapid fire alibi, during the alibi I had a jam on the 3rd round, I cleared the gun grabbed my extra mag (I always have 3 mags loaded) and got all 3 shots off and on target, we won by 2 points! 
- Dave

Learned rapid mag changes from my run and gun shooting days.  I use to practice reloads in my bedroom for hours with my pistol, rifle and shotgun - dummy rounds of course.

dronning wrote: (I always have 3 mags loaded) 

Another gem of wisdom to be followed from now on.    :-)

And I’d always heard “Marines don’t have their hands in their pockets!”

I've been shooting for 30 years, and on-and-off one handed for the past year.  I try to do things the way that has been recommended, and in particular I try to do everything Brian Zins and several other people here posts, even if I don't yet understand the reason why.  I've recently noticed two things that really had me going... 

First, when I go to pick up my Model 41, I still reach for it as if to shoot with two hands, until I realize what I'm doing, then move my left hand out of the way, and instead use my right.   Mistake.

Second, more recently, I am trying to hook my left thumb over my belt buckle, rather than put it in my pocket.  In dry firing, I am constantly finding, and even more so at the range, that I am moving my left hand over the pocket, then realizing what I'm doing, and move it to my belt buckle.  Mistake.

I am memorizing for my subconscious that my hands are to go to the wrong place, then move to the correct place.
Explanation here:   http://blog.shooting-performance.com/mental-toughness-101-thoughts-on-improving-the-mind/


Maybe I'm slow, but it just hit me why Brian keeps saying to put the gun back on the table, and repeat things from the beginning, doing it correctly.  All I've been doing is teaching myself (my subconscious) to do something wrong and then move to the correct position.

Maybe I'm the only one who does this, but I am constantly making corrections as I dry fire.  I think I've been doing this all my life.  I never caught on until now, but as of this morning, I can see why that's a terrible idea.  From now on, if I find anything that needs "adjusting", I'll put the gun down, and start over again.


So many things here pertaining to wobble, and what causes it.  Brian and others have pointed out what to do better.  I doubt I'm the only one here doing it, but unknowingly, I've been teaching myself to do something wrong, then correct it, then shoot.  Why else do I automatically move my left hand to my left pocket, and right then, almost automatically, move it to the belt buckle?   And what's worse, if I (or anyone) does this about anything they're doing wrong, they'll automatically do it wrong, without knowing they did it, only to see the bullet hole in the wrong place and wonder why, and what happened?

More to the point, when my wobble is larger than what I expect, now I mentally have to check for what I'm possibly doing wrong, and usually I can find the something.  Whatever it is, "correcting it", then taking the shot I now realize is NOT the right way.  I guess I'm slow - this is something Brian has said many times, but I didn't catch on until this morning, which is why I went searching and found the website I linked to up above.



Lots of discussions here on why NOT to think about what went wrong for a bad shot, and only to think about the good shots.  Maybe a better way is to somehow recognize something that is wrong before taking a shot.  That's obviously something I need to do, until my subconscious learns to do everything properly.

Short follow-up on something Brian said to do, which I "wrote off" as impossible, at least for me.  When raising the arm to shoot, start applying pressure to the trigger before the dot/wobble is moving down onto the black.  What I thought was if I did that, I'd be firing way too early.  So I applied the pressure to the trigger, while aiming, but didn't really "shoot" until everything was right.  .....but I knew this was not correct.  It was too much like "interrupted".

After a weekend full of doing what Brian did want me to do (as I understand it), I started applying un-interrupted pressure to the trigger, but slowed down my trigger press, so while the trigger was moving back, and the dot was moving down, both got close to the right place at the same time.  I didn't think it possible two days ago, but now I'm doing it repeatedly (in dry fire).  The rest became area aiming, with a choice of shoot or abort.  My "area" is the 9-ring, the black.

Jon, you talked about focusing on the dot, or the target, as an either/or.  What's almost happening, is I'm not focusing on anything.  I'm trying not to think.  Somehow, my hands are now doing what they should, almost on their own....    or at least that's how it feels.  It's sort of scary in a way.  The "wobble" pretty much vanishes, which also surprised me.  



What is very good about this forum, is we find out what to do, even if at the time we're not capable of doing it.

12XNPC wrote:.......
 (Brian, can I collect all your posts in this thread, and combine them?  So much of what you say here now sounds "obvious", but only after having read it and thought about it.  I have a feeling I'm not the only one here who feels that way.   I learn a lot of new things every time you post!  Thank you.)  


Please by all means. .......

Brian, all done.  It's saved as a Microsoft Word document, which I can send you.  It's also posted here as a thread, but the MS Word version you can edit more easily.  Send me a PM and I'll attach the file to an email later today.              Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A lot of different ideas on what wobble area is.

It is simply your perception of the meandering arc of front sight (or dot) movement during sighting and firing. Given enough rounds fired, it should approximate your group area.
 
In general, I have found that my group area is smaller than my perceived wobble area. I think of wobble area in terms of a bell curve; if you are preforming techniques correctly (stance, body alignment, grip, sighting, and trigger pull), the center of your wobble area should correspond to the center of a bell curve over the 10-ring. When your wobble area isn't centered around the 10-ring, you have to diagnose the reason. I have shot some great groups that were centered on the target. When my group is not centered, my mistakes are typically in grip (not pulling grip straight back into palm) and triggering (not pulling it straight back).

When I'm doing everything more or less correctly, the bell curve is the red line example, but I have shot many targets where my group was off-center (left or right in this simplified graph). Groups are rarely round, politicians rarely honest, life rarely fair, and too often attended irritating outliers (I am certain Rover said this on another forum).

Regardless of pithy witicisms, some of the best advice I've ever read is "trust your wobble area." dipnet

It is hard to perceive the dot in the tube the same as the front sight in the rear notch.  So when you say wobble.....Do you differentiate between the front sight dancing in the rear notch, and the front sight dancing on the bull?

Always focus on the front sight. After initially verifying front sight is centered relative to rear, I focus on the front sight. dipnet

I have found that setting goals for whatever fundamental skill I'm working on is the difference between 'practice and training.' Having goals makes me think a lot more about what I'm doing, is particularly helpful diagnosing mistakes, and figuring out corrections. I wish I could have all the ammo I shot while practicing.... 

Slow fire has been a the most inconsistent part of my skill set. I am specifically working on increasing focus, especially on visualizing shooting an 'x' prior to raising pistol.

The 'shot plan' for this includes establishing fundamental techniques (stance, body alignment, and grip). Importantly, I focus on pulling pistol straight back into palm (aligned with forearm) and make sure the end of the trigger finger is independent of grip. The grip is firm but not strained (no fatiguing 'squeezing the oil out of the grip'). I inhale when raising pistol, arm straight, and endeavor to quickly settle-in on the visualized aiming point and smoothly pull the trigger. When it works, the hit is invariably better than the shot I called. The point of all this is that getting the shot off in a timely manner helps reduce your wobble area. Adding emphasis on focus in conjunction with shot visualization in improving confidence but inconsistency (so far).

When this process goes awry, its usually due to lapses in focus when random thoughts that just pop into my mind. I don't think Viagra will help. Also, the biggest mistake I make is trying to force a shot that hasn't settled-in (7s or lower). I've read this sport will teach you more about yourself, if you pursue improvement. When I was younger, I was not open to meditation or target visualization as valid techniques to improve one's shooting skills. I can already see that it is helping me; if it regularly carries over from the range work to matches, I'll be pleased. Hats off to slow learners, dipnet

More thoughts on wobble.

I have found that setting goals for whatever fundamental skill I'm working on is the difference between 'practice and training.' Having goals makes me think a lot more about what I'm doing, is particularly helpful diagnosing mistakes, and figuring out corrections. I wish I could have all the ammo I shot while practicing.... 

Slow fire has been a the most inconsistent part of my skill set. I am specifically working on increasing focus, especially on visualizing shooting an 'x' prior to raising pistol.

The 'shot plan' for are employing fundamental techniques (stance, body alignment, and grip). Grip, focus, and trigger pull are especially important for minimizing wobble area. For grip, I focus on pulling pistol straight back into palm (aligned with forearm) and make sure the end of the trigger finger is independent of grip. The grip should be firm but not strained (latter will cause fatigue). I inhale when raising pistol, keep elbow and forearm straight, and endeavor to quickly settle-in on the visualized aiming point and smoothly pull trigger. When it works, the hit is invariably better than the shot I called. The point of all this is that getting the shot off in a timely manner helps reduce your wobble area. With emphasis on focus and shot visualization results in better shots, improving confidence consistency (so far).

When this process goes awry, its usually from loss of focus (random thoughts that just pop into my mind). Perhaps there are some mental exercises to improve focus. A repeated mistake is forcing a shot that hasn't settled-in (resulting in a 7s or lower). I learned not to do this some time ago but still make the errorI've read this sport will teach you more about yourself, if you pursue improvement. When I was younger, I was certainly not open to meditation or target visualization as techniques to improve precision shooting skills. I can already see this is helping me; if it regularly carries over from the range work to matches, I'll be pleased. Hats off to slow learners, dipnet

Dipnet wrote:........For grip, I focus on pulling pistol straight back into palm (aligned with forearm).........

One more thing that for a long time I though was "obvious", but then Brian said was wrong in one of his videos.
Check this video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXWoJ2arPuI

Thinking back on it, I guess I was correcting by changing my wrist alignment.
I'll never in this and my next five lives shoot like Brian, but I've been trying to follow everything he talks about in his videos.  I've lost count of how many times I've watched them.