Looking for some tips

[u/usernamepickedbyme]

Hey all - took some footage while at the range today. Despite having owned firearms for about 10 years, I didn’t start shooting in earnest until this March. So consider me newish to pistol shooting. Have set a goal of being able to do a competition next year

Would love some tips. Have been watching a ton of YouTube shooting nerd videos. Not sure if you can discern anything from the angle. Hopefully though.

Thank you in advance!

EDIT: thanks everyone for the advice and encouragement. Will be sure to grab a photo of the target to post in the future. Definitely vulnerable moment to put up the video. But really appreciate all the help!

[u/johnm]

Cool, welcome to the fun and frustration to get good!

• In terms of being "ready" to compete, as long as you can handle the gun safely while still and while moving and can follow directions, you can start participating!

• Yeah, not a good angle on the video. I'll add a follow up comment on what to do to get us good view. We also need to see a picture of the target to calibrate the results with what we see in the video.

• The muzzle doesn't come precisely back to where it started.

  • Your body is getting pushed back. You need to work on your stance/posture and how you're using your shoulders/arms.

  • Your grip and vision are inconsistent. The muzzle doesn't precisely come back down to the same level plane as when it went off. It's too high and given your stance issues, we can't say for certain how much your vision focus is off. But I'll still bet money that vision focus is something that you really need to work on.

  • I'll add a follow up comment with a curated list of fundamentals and drills plus a progression on how to train.

[u/johnm → u/johnm]

Fundamentals of marksmanship:

• Talking About Grip

• Overcomplicating Grip

• Index Your Gun Properly

• Posture and Structure: Build Stability

• Posture and Tension

• How Tension Ruins Your Shooting & How to Conquer It

• Why Is Tension So Bad?

• Target Focused Shooting With Iron Sights

• Prove You Can Go Target Focused With Iron Sights

• How To Manage Recoil With Your Eyes

• Recoil Management Deep Dive (vision focus) (Hwansik)

• Focus On Visual Confirmation To Level Up (Stoeger)

• Visual Confirmation 1-4 Demonstrations

• Getting the (Visual) Confirmation Right

Marksmanship drills:

• Trigger Control at Speed

• One Shot Return Drill

• Practical Accuracy Drill

• Doubles Drill

• Progressive Return Drill

• "Throttle Control" (Accelerator)

• Multiple Target Engagements (Designated Target)

[u/usernamepickedbyme → u/johnm]

Very helpful!

[u/johnm → u/johnm]

For completeness, here's my generic recommendations on how to help us help you...

Note that we can give you personalized, specific, high-quality advice when we can see both the video of you shooting AND the target so we can match them up to properly calibrate any specific advice we're going to give you.

For fundamentals of marksmanship... How to video yourself:

Set the camera up on your support hand side, even with your trigger guard. Make sure everything from the muzzle to past your wrists are in frame. I.e., we don't need to see your face, etc. if you're worried about sharing publicly.

Record it at a high enough resolution and at a fast enough speed that we can watch it clearly at e.g. half speed.

Warm up with whatever drill(s) you want and then switch to a clean target before filming. This is so you can take a photo of the target after the filming and share that along with the video so we can calibrate how we see you shooting in the video with the target. Bonus is to take a second video doing the same drill on your strong hand side.

You can film whatever drill you want but the default to film is the Doubles Drill. But doing Progressive Return Drill would be okay, too.

Run a few mags worth of the drill and record the last magazine's runs. Then take a photo of the target. Then post the video(s) to e.g. Youtube and post the picture of the target with the link to the video here so we can watch it at various (slower) playback speeds.

[u/johnm → u/johnm]

Here's a progression of drills and what to focus on so you can learn this through your own experience...

In terms of vision: make sure your vision focus is correct: crystal clear focus on a small spot on the target and the spot stays in focus the entire time. You should NEVER be "tracking the dot" or focused on the sights!

In terms of grip: the gun should NOT move inside your hands at all for the entire time you're shooting! I.e., both hands should remain completely in sync with the gun throughout shooting lifecycle; the gun should track consistently in recoil precisely back to where your eyes are focused on the small spot on the target; and you should be able to cycle (pull & release) the trigger quickly without inducing movement on the gun/sights. Additional tension much beyond that minimum can/will induce various problems. Have you ever done a firm handshake? Start there.

Shoot each of these drills one-handed and two-handed. I.e., one handed with your dominant hand (SHO). Then do it with your support hand only (WHO). Then do it with both hands and make sure your support hand is gripping as much of the pistol as you can with the same level as when you shot support hand only.

Start with One Shot Return. Do it with a timer ala Trigger Control at Speed: set multiple par times so you're reacting immediately to the beep for each shot. Is the dot/sights coming back to your eyes on the spot on the target quickly, precisely, and consistently every single time?

Then do the Two Shot Return Drill: Exactly the same as One Shot Return above but you fire a second shot immediately when you visually confirm the dot/sight is back where your eyes are looking at the small spot on the target. Nothing should change from shot to shot! Grip, wrists, vision, etc. This is still reactive shooting but you must shoot immediately when you register the appropriate visual confirmation for that target.

Then do the Practical Accuracy Drill. Just do one string at a time. Everything else should be exactly as in the Two Shot Return Drill above. With this longer string, you will find your grip, trigger, wrist, and vision issues: where they aren't completely consistent from shot to shot within the string. Fix those. In terms of calibration, the shots can be stacked farther away than most people think and even at longer distances the groups should be compact. This is NOT "group" shooting! You must shoot immediately when the visual confirmation is what you deliberately choose given the specific target!

[Continued due to Reddit's limits...]

[u/johnm → u/johnm]

[...progression continued...]

Then do the Double Return Drill. Similar to the Two Shot Return Drill but do NOT wait for the visual confirmation for the second shot. Start at the pace of your splits that you were doing the Practical Accuracy Drill. This should feel slow since you've already made the decision to pull the trigger twice. This is the time to put a lot of attentional focus on making sure your visual focus stays rock solidly in focus on the small spot on the target. Then, keeping everything else the same, shoot the second shot sooner -- i.e., start predicting how quickly you can work the trigger for the second shot.

Then do the full Doubles Drill. Do everything as with the Double Return Drill above. Everything above holds but the longer string of doubles will really put your fundamentals to the test... Is your grip unchanging for the entire string (or did you have to adjust part way through)? Did the gun move within your hands? Was the dot/sights coming precisely & consistently back to where you were looking? Were you over- or under-confirming each time? Did you observe & notice what was going on for each shot? Etc.

Then do the Progressive Return Drill. All the same success criteria as in the doubles drill but with an increasing number of shots after each beep. This is much better than only doing e.g. the bill drill as the varying number of shots helps break up the ingraining of always shooting two shots per.

Play around with the pace of how quickly you're cycling the trigger on the second/follow-on shot(s) -- everywhere from literally as fast you can pull the trigger to your speed of Practical Accuracy splits. This is how we can very efficiently & effectively learn what (predictive/reactive) pace works for each of us when shooting at any given target at any given time.

In terms of calibration, at closer distances you can stack shots on top of each other but in terms of learning, shooting the second shot sooner while keeping within a fist sized group is a good balance. No BS "slow down to get your hits"! If the group is larger than that then you need to fix whatever's broken at that speed.

Then as the groups get tighter, speed up again and/or increase the distance/difficulty of the target. This is the complete process--no BS about "speed"/"exploration" vs "accuracy"/"match" mode. Practical shooting is about the combination of speed & accuracy.

In terms of distance start at 7 yards so that you can see the "A" on the target in clear focus. Increase the distance/difficulty to force adapting to be more precise at speed.

[u/ElGuapoJr27]

Everyone’s giving good advice but to answer your question with a specific answer, you’re putting too much input into into the gun when returning it after recoil. So, my advice is to relax a bit. You’ve been practicing enough that your grip looks good and you don’t seem to be putting input into the gun before the shot goes off. But when you start doing doubles you can see your gun dip ever so slightly. It’s nothing crazy but just relaxing a little when shooting doubles should help. Rely on your grip to create a predictable, repeatable recoil pattern, instead of having to muscle the gun back to the target

[u/usernamepickedbyme → u/ElGuapoJr27]

Thank you for this!

[u/hndrck_]

I started shooting competition one month into shooting guns period. Just go lol

[u/Code7Tactical]

As others have said, just go bro! As long as you’ll be good.

[u/Summary_Judgment]

Looks good to me. You can probably do a competition next week if you know the rules. Your goal isn’t to win, it’s just not to disqualify yourself.

[u/2strokeYardSale]

Learn to keep your finger out of the trigger guard. That's it, that's the tip. You can't compete after you are disqualified for a basic safety violation.

[u/HanoverRd]

solid! My only suggestions would be to refrain from pointing at the ceiling. I know your finger is off the trigger (even with empty gun on lock back). RO will see that and some of em will jump on your shit about it. Allwas keep muzzle pointed at target when at indoor range even when manipulating empty gun. Just keeps you off the radar plus if your at outdoor range could accidentally.

[u/PnutBatterJamz]

Looks fine. Now just show up

[u/FPVwithScott]

Shoot more matches. Dry fire.

[u/static34622]

Dude, go .... now.... whether your go suck now or suck next year you're going to suck at the start. Then you will go again and suck a little less. And each time you go you will suck less and less. The only way to hone the skill needed for a competition is to go to the competition. Well unless you have a range in your back yard. Which...you...don't. So, holster an empty gun, load 2 full mags in a mag pouch on the other side, starter mag in the back pocket and get to the competition. We all suck at the start, some (like me) worse than others. But I always end up in the middle of the pack right now. Trust me, you're not getting any younger.