Long Barreled Guns

[DustBuster]

Yes, I did one of myself a while back... I was shooting at 30 yards 🙂 standing... You guys will probably see Horrible mechanics... Haven’t done one of close up of trigger/ejection port.  I will try to crop my video down enough for import here, but future videos will have to wait till mid August.  I’m heading to AK for halibut Hunting.  Never done it, never been there.  I was born up there but don’t know what it’s like....moved down to lower 48 when I was 1

[98Z5V]

12 hours ago, Cliff R said:

So I hand it back to him and he takes careful aim and "click".  At the same time the gun goes down about 2"  as he anticipates the shot and jerks the trigger at the same moment. 

Perfect applied definition of "Recoil Anticipation" right there.   Those impacts in target usually come in a 6 o'clock, if that's the only thing going on with their pistol shooting. "Low" anything, besides sight manipulation/adjustment - low left, low right, both tell a story.  But "low" followed be anything else is Recoil Anticipation, with more possible.

Edited July 29, 2021 by 98Z5V

[DustBuster]

Yeah, I like that story, idiots like me need a pros to point out the glitches.  Here are two videos of my self, the first one was an attempt at “rapid” firing, the target was swaying back and forth like I was at sea.

The second video is of me trying to be more accurate, but I knelt on brass and rocks and was not comfortable at all.  I misstated where the target was, Lower Right.  I put it down in that gully so I could video everything.  Since then I’ve tried squeezing trigger with finger tip instead, also holding it squeezed for Natural Point of aim.  Pizza box was to keep the dust from poofhing at 100 yards.  I am a long way from being a good rifleman.

Edited July 29, 2021 by DustBuster

[Cliff R]

The "ball and dummy" exercise is the absolute best way I know of to show a shooter that they are anticipating the shot with a hand gun.

With auto pistols it is easy.  The instructor has the student continue to face the target, they remain in that position thru the entire exercise.

You start out with the slide locked to the rear and a magazine with one round in it.  Show this to the student.  The pistol will be in your shooting hand, the mag in the other and the pistol pointed down range.  You are standing just to the left of the shooter..

The next part takes a little practice but you insert the magazine and hit the slide lock at what appears to the shooter at the same time charging the weapon.  IF you want the shooter to get a live round the magazine hits home and at the same instant you hit the slide lock and a round gets chambered.  Hand the weapon back to the shooter and tell them to fire one round on target.

IF you want them to get a "dummy" hit the slide lock just an instant before the magazine hits home and it will NOT chamber a round.  Hand the weapon to the shooter and tell them to fire a round on target.  The cool part is that they can't tell the difference if the weapon chamber is loaded or empty even if they are looking right at the weapon when you load it.  It takes a little practice with the "timing" thing when inserting mags and hitting the slide lock to either chamber a round or not.

After each shot you reach up and take the weapon from them with your left hand, keeping it pointed down range remove the mag and lock the slide to the rear if it isn't already there.  Load one round in the mag and repeat the process.  I usually give them one or two live rounds before a "dummy".  This way they can see their rounds kick up dirt if front of the target, then on the first empty round they see the pistol tip WAY down as they anticipate the shot.

With a revolver you work with only one round in the cylinder and have to take the weapon from the shooter, eject that round and load one back into the cylinder.  As you close the cylinder simply pay attention to the orientation of the round whether you want it to rotate into position to fire or not.  Even if you are off and a round gets fired once in a while it's still OK because it's a "ball and dummy" exercise right to start with.  You are trying to hit on empty rounds often enough to surprise the student and so they can see what they are doing wrong, so mixing it up in no certain pattern anyhow.

This exercise absolutely works and I've helped the worse handgun shooters you've ever seen improve the skills and get qualified.  I hope that drop dead gorgeous blond LT from the Academy I had a the range in the late 1980's sees this.  She was by far and above the WORST shooter I've ever seen.  No kidding when she touched off a round from the M-9 pistol the rounds were hitting the dirt only 5-8 feet in front of her!....YIKES!  It took a half hour of "ball and dummy" but she managed to figure it out and get qualified.  I didn't mind the extra time at all because she was pretty easy to look at........LOL.....

[DustBuster]

You meanie drill Sergeant , that’s unfair.

Edited July 29, 2021 by DustBuster

[Cliff R]

Yep.

It always amazed me how poorly most folks are with a handgun.  Good damn thing it's usually a secondary weapon, because most recruits/entry level personnel have trouble putting rounds on paper even at close range and it's not moving nor is it shooting back at you!.......

[Sharpshooter]

I read about a drill similar to this once. The instructor hands the student the pistol and says "it's OK, it isn't loaded." The student "dry fires" the pistol and the damned thing goes off! The instructor says ""that must have been an extra round in the magazine, but it's empty now." The student dry fires again and the pistol goes off (again).  The instructor takes the pistol, jacks open the slide, drops the magazine, then palms a cartridge into the chamber and drops the slide, then hands it back to the student. The student dry fires (yet again) and then gun goes off.

This is all to teach the student that you can't take anyone's word for whether a weapon is safe (unloaded) or not. CHECK IT YOURSELF!  (not that any of you need this lesson, only the ones who are watching)

[Cliff R]

"Anticipation" is a skill set that is very quickly formed by at least 90 percent, if not more of beginning shooters with handguns.  Especially hard hitting rounds with a lot of muzzle blast and heavy recoil.  It is often difficult if not near impossible to correct the issue since you don't know it's actually happening.  It's a natural body reaction to shooting handguns.  No matter how much you try to keep a good sight picture and "squeeze" the trigger, when the shooter reaches the moment they want the gun to fire they will try to force the gun to fire the round, jerk the trigger and push forward against the recoil at the same time.  This puts the point of impact low and right or left some depending on how hard you jerk the trigger and right or left handed.

This happens with rifles too but to a much lesser extent.

Case in point.  Every Fall we sight in our 308-AR's at 100 yards from a bench rest.  I get "hired" to check all the rifles to make sure they are on.  Then the owner of the rifle, which is my brother, nephew and my brothers son-in-law will fire their own groups.  My groups will not only be tighter they are often in a different location than theirs in relation to center.  How does this happen, we are all shooting from the same bench, rest, ammo, rifle, etc?

I simply will not flinch, anticipate, jerk or do anything to the weapon to disturb the bullet as it travels down the barrel.  I also will not touch off a round unless everything is perfect for sight picture, etc.  These skills come from shooting competitively and many thousands of rounds put down range while I was an SAI for 20 years.  Even with that said there is ALWAYS some human error involved with target shooting before you throw in environmental factors, like a cross wind, gusting wind, haze from high humidity, etc.

Sometimes I read threads where folks on here are sighting in or firing their rifles and mention it was windy that day, or hotter than balls, etc.  Wind, for example can have a tremendous impact on where the bullets end up at.  Something else seldom if ever mentioned is the position of the sun overhead.  If you are using open sights and the sun is directly overhead it will light up both sides of the front sight equally.  If it is to your right or left it will not and you'll find your groups thrown slightly right or left accordingly.  It's all in the details, and when target shooting we need to have the most ideal conditions and control  of what we can, reducing the variables as much as possible to the human error thing.......FWIW......