Posted by Naren on September 02, 1999 at 15:20:45:
Here is a twister:
Is head position important in pistol shooting?
My personal experience says it is very important.
Thinking through the physics however, one would conclude that within reasonable variation the head position should not affect
the point of impact of the pellet. I say this because you are lining up the sights exactly with the target in the different head
positions.
Please let me know the fallacy in the above argument, this has been driving me nuts for the past few days!
Thanks,
Naren
Posted by Warren Potter on September 02, 1999 at 19:01:18:
Head position has varying degrees of importance to different shooters.
If you wear corrective lenses it's imperative to keep the same head position so you don't have any chance of distorting the image
you get through your glasses. For this reason I use an iris; not to close it down, but the frame does not allow me to change my
head position and still have the image of sights and target in central view.
If you don't use a lens then it is less important, but consider this. Every slight change in head position results in a different arm
and wrist position. It may only be slight, but believe me it is enough to change the point of impact. We are not precise
mechanical apparatus, so I guess the laws of physics can only be loosely applied to us as shooters.
Posted by AllenM on September 02, 1999 at 21:23:56:
William Krilling's book "Shooting for Gold" on page 38 describes the effect of head tilt on the inner ear balance mechanism.
Forward/back has little effect but side to side causes the body to sway slightly.
Posted by Roy Nagel on October 22, 1999 at 00:34:29:
The head position isn't the critical thing -- it's CHANGING head position as you shoot. When you line up, you take the stance,
grip, etc, raising the pistol to align sights to the target. Your wrist is locked, your head erect. If you bend your head slightly
forward (as many shooters do in concentration), you change the relationship between eye and sight position, and you will
unconsciously break the wrist to bring the sights back into alignment, creating the REAL problem -- inconsistency in grip. It's
easy to check out -- just assume your stance, keep your wrist locked and bend your head -- and the front sight disappears! I've
encouraged shooters to put a strip of frosted scotch tape on the lens in front of the non-aiming eye, positioning it so if they bend
their head forward, they'll see over the strip. It helps.
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