Concentrating on that front sight

[Island Beretta]

For the soft sight focus, if you have good trigger control you will be surprisingly accurate and maybe a little faster and less tense when you shoot. This is because the acquisition and maintenance of a hard sight focus requires fast and strong eyes and some of us are not up to it. It also involves a measure of trust as you will lose clear sight of the target but you have to believe that it is still there and that the gun will return to the point of aim.

Burkett talks about a continuous sight picture when really shooting at hard targets and wanting to ensure some measure of speed.. Brian talks about types of focus- I think if you experiment with Brian's focus types it will help you find what works for you. Ron Avery talks about sight alignment by feel with the eyes verifying sight picture-can be anywhere from a flash sight picture to a hard focus sight picture. I found that for me, Ron's suggestions helped me bridge the gap between accuracy and speed as I usually pause too long on target trying to verify sight picture before breaking the shot.

Many concepts, find which one works for you, stay relaxed and shoot safe, fast and on target.

 

[Ankeny]

Island Beretta:

I went into IPSC from a precision shooting background and as a result I obsessed over the front sight. As soon as I learned to see what I needed to see to make the shot, overaiming vanished and my speed increased dramatically.

About two years ago my vision went into decline and I started wearing bi-focals. I was convinced that an optical sight was the way to go so I went to an open blaster and quit shooting iron sights. Ron Avery convinced me that I could still be very competitive in IPSC with the softer sight focus. Afterall, we weren't shooting bullseye.

To shoot fast and accurately we need to see what we need to see to make the shot, exercise enough fire control to make the shot, and then call the shot with certainty. The task is simple, it just isn't easy.

 

[Island Beretta]

MX5:

I remembered when Ron would time his 'pause' depending on target difficulty by going 1-1000-2-1000-3-1000 or 1---2---3 or 123 and I tried the exercise with a timer I was astounded. Not only were the splits consistent but by using the count concept I could also vary pace and still remain in the A zone by choosing the appropriate 'pause'. It also allowed me to develop a better 'feel' for my shooting pace.

It really is one of the best training exercises I have come across for shooters trying to develop/manage pace.

 

[powderific]

Wow, if anyone is looking for that Plaxco book, skip amazon, $193! They have it for a reasonable 20 at brownells, sheesh.

 

[sm]

Agree with Plaxco's book.

The gentleman has the ability to teach.

Took the time more than once to share some "tips" with me...including shotgunning 'some years ago". No fees , just enjoying being out and passing on "each one - teach one".

Hand him anything that fires a projectile and he can shoot it. Let him watch you shoot and he can analyze what will work best for that shooter.

Thanks again Plaxco...

 

[bradvanhorn]

Hmmm... Hard focus, soft focus... Never heard it described that way, but it makes sense in the context.

Having just spent a week learning to shoot without sights, I'll be the weirdo in the thread. "Shooting without sights?!" Yup. Shooting at steel plates or IDPA targets at ranges of 3 to 20 yards. Draw. Index. Present. Fire. Hit. Every time. (Well almost every time ) Standing, kneeling, prone, moving left or right, forward or backward. Single shots, double taps, or shoot to slide-lock. Sights? Didn't need 'em. For "well aimed" shots beyond 25 yards the sights needed a bit more attention, but otherwise - nope.

Yes, this would be the blashpemy of "point shooting" as taught by D.R. Middlebrooks. 15 years of shooting "front sight, press" wiped away in the first day of training - and thank God for it. I'm neither qualified nor well-versed enough to explain the system here. You can either try it and agree, disagree, doesn't matter to me - I'm a believer, and that's all I care about.

 

[bountyhunter]

Just to avoid confusion: "point shooting" more commonly called "point and shoot" is a third method, it is neither hard focus (front sight focus) or soft focus (target focus, looking through the sights viewing them "indirectly" because they are not in focus).

Point and shoot can be useful and some people are very good at it, but it's been my experience it takes a lot of practice and you have to acquire a different "feel" for every different gun so your hand knows it is level and on line. I have gotten reasonably good using point shooting out to about ten yards, but I would only consider to have a tactical advantage in situations where you must draw and fire as quickly as possible (ie, shoot from the hip). If you have time to aim, I think it's always better to use the sights in some fashion.

 

[Paco]

Funny, since day one with handguns, point shooting was always a strong point with me (no puns!). It's really like pointing one's finger. When I pull the trigger, I'm thinking kinda like as I'm pointing my finger at the target, I'm jabbing my finger accusingliy at it for emphasis as I'm pulling the trigger. Anywho, it makes sense to me. Otherwise, frontsite-focused shooting is the way to go for me beyond 20yards.

-Ooooor, you can have a high-capacity pistol and pull the trigger as fast as you can in the general direction!!!

eyes open, optional

 

[Ankeny]

Point shooting is nothing new. I suppose the only reason the merits of point shooting are constantly debated is because us old school dogma folks don't believe it is effective at say...20 yards. It's just hard to believe anyone can clean a 20 yard plate rack on the move without some pretty serious visual inputs.

Even though I still "point shoot" some IPSC stuff, I find myself doing so less frequently. Considering the human eye is the fastest part of the body, I see no reason not to use the sights to confirm the index and to call the shot.

 

[JNewell]

I haven't read JMP's book (just ordered a copy) but I have taken a two or three day class he taught. He's an outstanding teacher and communicator, and his suggestions were equally applicable to the gamer as to defensive use.

 

[gtd]

"Both eyes open" or "soft focus" are both terms for situational awareness.

You're not focusing on a single point, but on all that is happening around you, while keeping a special emphasis on the main point. Airplane and boat pilots use this technique all the time, as do good automobile drivers.

It's the awareness that tells a driver it is safe and OK to break the conventional rules and skid, or go onto a shoulder, or make a sudden turn, or make whatever out-of-the-ordinary response is needed to avoid an accident.

In shooting, it is a way to observe both your target some distance away, and your gun sights only a few feet away, not to mention using peripheral vision to spot potential dangers (e.g., kid suddenly wanders onto the range). This is critical for hunters, who are in a less controlled environment with other people nearby.

It's especially helpful in pistol shooting, because the short barrel makes aiming extra tough, anyway. It is much easier to focus on the distant target and use your peripheral vision to see the close-by gun sight than to do the opposite. Once you get used to it, it works.

 

[Shawn Dodson]

"Both eyes open" or "soft focus" are both terms for situational awareness.

I don't agree.

Situational awareness, in my opinion, is a matter of understanding the meaning of what is going on around you, i.e., "reading the situation". While one can observe a situation, one might not necessarily understand the meaning of what is being observed (orient to the situation).

You're not focusing on a single point, but on all that is happening around you, while keeping a special emphasis on the main point.

I focus on my aim point; the exact spot on the target where I want my bullet(s) to hit. Through experience I've developed an intuitive sense of my sight picture, as well as the quality of sight alignment needed to get the hit.

 

[bountyhunter]

"Both eyes open" or "soft focus" are both terms for situational awareness.

Not when I do it. I just open both eyes and focus them dead on the target where I want to hit, and then raise the gun until it is being seen (through the sights) along the sight line of the dominant eye (my right eye) A second gun image is seen to the right of the one in line due to the parallax effect of the left eye's view. The second gun image is easily ignored. You can try it with your finger: stare at a dot on the wall 30 feet away with both eyes and raise your pointed finger until you are looking along it like a gun barrel. The finger you are seeing will be in line with your dominat eye. In this mode of sighting, the non-dom eye always sees a clear target image and the dom eye sees the sight picture which appears to "float" in front of the target.

The sight picture you are looking through will be blurry because your eyes are focused on target. However, a blurry set of sights can be aligned very well once you learn the "look" of what the sight picture is when the gun is aligned. The sight alignment accuracy using soft focus is slightly less than if you focus on them, but not really as much less as most people think. I have seen that using colored dots on the sights helps with this. I use orange on the front and yellow on the rear. Under a fast sight aquisition, I am just trying to get the orange blob centered between the yellow blobs.

Brain awareness is interesting because brains can see two things at once and shift awareness back and forth. Shooting iron sights, I nearly always "look through" the sights to the target, and allow my brain to pay attention to the sights only until they are aligned well enough and then I block them out of my mind and concentrate on making a smooth trigger pull because I have found that is where most of my error in not hitting my POA is actually coming from.

 

[gtd]

Fair enough.

I'm just not being very technical about the matter. When I'm at the range, my situational awareness is much better with both eyes open, and my shooting results are about the same and sometimes better.

I'm an average guy who shoots infrequently. I just want to be "situationally aware", whatever that means, when the time comes. For me, that means I need to keep both eyes open so I will see more of my surroundings.

Just my personal experience. If something else works better for you guys, you won't get any argument from me!