misANTHrope
Member
First, a bit about me. While I grew up with firearms in the house, I didn't really shoot that much, and even then, it was usually rifle and rarely handgun. So I'm decent with a rifle, but I've got a long way to go before I reach the level of handgun proficiency that I desire. I've just recently finally gotten serious about improving myself- paid the $$$ for a membership at the local indoor range (rather than tagging along with friends to their places), read lots and lots of specific drills and info, etc., etc.
Here's the "aha!" moment I had at the range this afternoon. Realizing that I've got to walk, and walk well, before running, I've been focusing on freestyle, slow-fire group shooting- to the extent that I load one round at a time in order to force myself to focus on good sight picture, trigger squeeze, and controlling my main problem- anticipation. I felt today that I was doing well at controlling the trigger, not anticipating... but I was still not shooting like I felt I should have. In particular, I noticed that rather than the muzzle lifting and falling, I was getting sort of a "double bounce" going on, which told me that I was doing something wrong.
So I stepped back and evaluated what I was doing. I went back to the basic description of a good grip- and found that I'd somehow drifted from the path of righteousness. I was gripping lower and looser than I should have been. So I started over- right elbow, arm, barrel in alignment; right hand as high on the grip as possible. Carefully wrap the left hand, again getting really high without interfering with the trigger finger. I got into firing position and it felt really different, but not necessarily in a bad way. It felt to me that I was really set up well now to resist the recoil and get the sights back on target fast. Basically, the old grip I'd had left it totally to my wrist deflection to bring the sights back on target. After restarting, it was like I had arranged my hands in such a way that there was almost a positive force holding the gun on target- thw wrists felt naturally locked, sort of. Tough to describe, but I hope it makes sense.
Then I went back to firing, and watched myself improve vastly just by fixing my grip. If anything, I just reinforced to myself my need to master things at the most basic level, to ingrain the habits, before moving any further.
Here's the "aha!" moment I had at the range this afternoon. Realizing that I've got to walk, and walk well, before running, I've been focusing on freestyle, slow-fire group shooting- to the extent that I load one round at a time in order to force myself to focus on good sight picture, trigger squeeze, and controlling my main problem- anticipation. I felt today that I was doing well at controlling the trigger, not anticipating... but I was still not shooting like I felt I should have. In particular, I noticed that rather than the muzzle lifting and falling, I was getting sort of a "double bounce" going on, which told me that I was doing something wrong.
So I stepped back and evaluated what I was doing. I went back to the basic description of a good grip- and found that I'd somehow drifted from the path of righteousness. I was gripping lower and looser than I should have been. So I started over- right elbow, arm, barrel in alignment; right hand as high on the grip as possible. Carefully wrap the left hand, again getting really high without interfering with the trigger finger. I got into firing position and it felt really different, but not necessarily in a bad way. It felt to me that I was really set up well now to resist the recoil and get the sights back on target fast. Basically, the old grip I'd had left it totally to my wrist deflection to bring the sights back on target. After restarting, it was like I had arranged my hands in such a way that there was almost a positive force holding the gun on target- thw wrists felt naturally locked, sort of. Tough to describe, but I hope it makes sense.
Then I went back to firing, and watched myself improve vastly just by fixing my grip. If anything, I just reinforced to myself my need to master things at the most basic level, to ingrain the habits, before moving any further.
