Posted by Patrick Bennett on January 28, 2001 at 17:29:41:
I did some practice with my Hammerli 280 over the weekend to refine the basics of shooting. Now and again (in my mind) I fluked the odd string of 4 x 10's. I tried to think what I was doing right and decided that it was when I changed from staggering the trigger to pulling it back at a constant rate. I know it's stated in all manuals to pull the trigger and commit to pulling it back but, besides practicing the fundamentals, is this really the big secret to getting high scores?
Patrick
Posted by Jason Long on January 28, 2001 at 20:35:08:
Hi Patrick,
The only 'big secret' to shooting high scores is to master the basics. Trigger control is only one of them.
I myself have been working on trigger control, as it seems that I am the least consistent with trigger pull versus the other 5 basics. My problem is that I think about it too much while executing the shot. I have read (I think it was in one of Bill Blankenship's articles in the Pistol Shooter's Treasury - but don't quote me) that trigger pull should be automatic; it should be activated by your sub-conscious mind while you're focusing on the front sight and maintaining proper sight picture. When I apply this technique, and I mash the trigger in a deliberate and assertive manner while focusing on the front sight, I will shoot a 10.
For me, shooting well comes down to this: Make as many of the basics 'habit' as much as possible. The most mental effort goes towards keeping the front sight in focus, and keeping the proper sight picture. Trigger control is a close second as far as mental effort is concerned, using my sub-conscious mind to as much as possible to employ proper trigger control. When I try to 'juggle' concentrating on sight picture vs. trigger control during shot execution, I don't perform as well.
Hope this helps.
Jason
Posted by Patrick on January 30, 2001 at 17:42:36:
Thanks for your comments guys. I've one more question. How long should you take to pull the trigger? Should you creep it back? Should you be more aggressive? Should you start before you are in the aiming area (I've recently tried this and it seems to work)? Like body-building I want to train everything but I also want to make sure that I am doing it right.
Patrick
Posted by mako on January 29, 2001 at 01:39:13:
>>>>The most mental effort goes towards keeping the front sight in focus ...
With shooting glasses and the proper diopter, no effort need be put into this. Your focus will only be on the front sight. You use an iris to then bring the target more into focus if necessary.
Posted by David Levene on January 29, 2001 at 02:26:41:
All it normally takes is one session on an electronic trainer (Scatt, Rika, Noptel etc) to see if there is a problem with trigger control.
I don't know about the others but on Scatt, just changing the F-coefficient on a saved air pistol shoot from 0 to 26 (for example) will show the effect on score of any movement of the gun during the shot breaking. As a broad generalization, more than 2-3 points reduction over 40 shots is a good indication of a faulty trigger action.
You can also just watch the trace or several of the graphs to get the same indication.
Having used Scatt with many pistol shooters of reasonable to good ability I firmly believe that the vast majority of sub 9.5 shots are caused by bad trigger control. I know what I focus on.
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