[Sharyn]

benos said:

Call every shot.

Whether or not you do anything about the call is a decision made upon the calling of the shot.
be

This poll stems from a few recent (and not so recent) topics.

What are you doing when you're not calling your shots?

[Flatland Shooter]

If you don't call your shots, there is nothing left to do but go to the next target. If you hit it, you get the points. If not, you get the penalties.

Therefore, I try to call 100% of my shots, but my lack of practice means that my "calls" are not always correct.

Shooting major, I want to "watch my sights" put all shots closer than 8 yards into the "A" zone. Moving out from there to 25+ yards I want to see "center mass" and feel this will give me an acceptable "C" hit.

If it seems my sights may not have been there, I usually shoot an insurance shot. If I have no idea where my sights were when the blaster went bang, then I definitely need to put another round downrange. Good plan, just doesn't always work that well.

The worst for me is steel plates. I call the shot but still hesitate to see it fall. Gotta work on this.

At first I felt calling my shots was slowing down my shooting, but after a while it becomes second nature. My times will never be great, but when I pop an extra shot, it always increases my points. I now try to lower my times by efficiency of motion. Old people don't run real fast!

[zhunter]

6 weeks ago, I would have been in the 30-50% group. But, after a daylong workout with Dirtypool, I am now calling EVERY shot that is more than 3 or 4 yards, I still feel comfortable pointing and shooting at that range.

I am working on seeing my sight for EVERY shot!!!

I am shooting steel as if it is Virginia count.

Points have gone up since I have made these changes

[moverfive]

I would be surprised to hear of a good shooter at a real match say that they take shots blindly, meaning they were not able to tell you where they were on the target when shooting. With that said - I am not necessarily talking about them always having a traditional sight picture as many shoot on timing.

[Flatland Shooter]

"I am shooting steel as if it is Virginia count."

I like that. Simple but very useful. I may be the only person who has not thought of steel this way, but I will now thanks to "zhunter".

[SteveZ]

I'm pretty much calling the shot now on every target....including super close stuff where I probably shouldn't be .... you know, the targets at 3 meters or less where you could probably just point the gun and close your eyes and still hit the A-zone....for some reason, I'm seeing the sights on those "point shooting" situations too....probably from doing LOTS of dryfire practice.

This post has been edited by SteveZ: 01 November 2006 - 12:22 PM

[Flexmoney]

zhunter, on Nov 1 2006, 01:56 PM, said:

6 weeks ago, I would have been in the 30-50% group. But, after a daylong workout with Dirtypool, I am now calling EVERY shot that is more than 3 or 4 yards, I still feel comfortable pointing and shooting at that range.

I am working on seeing my sight for EVERY shot!!!

I am shooting steel as if it is Virginia count.

Points have gone up since I have made these changes

zhunter, that is fantastic.

Shooting steel like it is Virginia count is waaay awesome. That is how Steve Anderson used to approach it when he was working really hard to improve his steel shooting (way back when he had room for improvement). I am sure he still sees it that way. Shooting the Bianchi plate rack stage (hi BigDave ) is a great trainer for this. 48 rounds...all Virginia count.

Oh, and call those shots on those targets inside of 4 yards too. Heck, those are FREE ALPHAS. I refer to close/easy targets like that as "ducks". Always get your Alphas on the ducks...hit factor scoring demands it. (Your time gets slowed down doing all the other stuff in a stage...lowering the hit factor. So, get those points on the easy targets...they don't cost near as much time.)

[TDean]

Calling your shots.
As I understand it, it's more than just "seeing your sights" on the target. Isn't it knowing if the shot was a C or an A at a distance where you can't see holes in the paper?

The only time I do that is on low hit-factor standards or very tough shots. At speed, I normally just aim at the middle of the target and attempt to hold the front sight in that area until the the shot(s) off.

I'd be in the 10-20% range of actually calling shots because that seems to be the % of tough shots I see.

[benos]

Quote

What are you doing when you're not calling your shots?

I'm not sure why that cracked me up!

The point of calling every shot is to know whether the bullet hit the target before it did, or didn't. The by-product of which is speed.
be

[JFD]

I don't call shots when I point shoot. We get a lot of targets behind 4' walls that are maybe 2 feet from the wall and low - Those I point shoot. At best I may know the FO in the front sight is below the top line of the A zone and roughly centered. At worse I know I'm indexing in the center of the target.

I'll get concerned if I ever fail to shoot 2 alphas on every one of these I come across.

Last Saturday we had a hasty-setup stage with 12 fairly small non-falling plates (1 string freestyle - 1 string strong hand only - both Virginia count) at distances from maybe 10 yards to 20 yards or so. I've been doing a lot of accuracy work and figured this stage was going to simply highlight my awesome skills. Somehow I ended up calling lots of misses and doing nothing about it. At that point I learned I could call my shots and still suck. Lots of mental break downs on that stage, as 2/3rds of us zeroed it. Prior to that I had never zeroed a stage.

[Loves2Shoot]

As often as I can. I found out I can't point shoot faster than I can see, so calling my shots have helped my close shooting too. If I could do it 100% of the tim, I would have better scores. This is my main focus right now.

I still have bad (for me) habit of thinking I can shoot faster than I can see, and it almost always bites me in the butt when I let myself shot that way.

[Crusher]

Quote

I don't call shots when I point shoot.

I too was not concerened with shot calling on close targets but have since mended my ways. Seeing the sights and watching the front lift is just as fast (if not faster) than point shooting targets (at least this is what the timer tells me). I also like the idea of a single sighting plane (allthough focus will vary) as opposed to a slide profile.

I have found my eyes can move to the next close target and the sights just appear and the gun goes bang, the transition speed is what has increased not the split times again this is what the timer tells me.

[vincent]

I don't think I call my shots often enough. I'm either not doing it or I'm doing it without conscious effort at least 50% of the time. I definitely don't remember where my shots are on most targets at the end of the stage. However I also understand that isn't required to call shots. You really only need a one shot memory.

That's one of the things I need to work on -> knowing that I'm calling my shots

[Sharyn]

If you call 100% of your shots, you'll never have a miss (except on rare occasions - i.e. Virginia). Super Squadders have misses so I think calling every shot is an absolute.

Glad I made you laugh, Brian.

I put that in there because I had a little revelation. I had one no-shoot penalty going into the last two stages of Nationals... I planned a target engagement sequence and didn't follow it while shooting, I shifted to recovering-the-sequence mode and lost focus... BAM!... mike, no-shoot and didn't know until verifying hits with the RO/scorekeeper. DANGIT! I shot Nationals mike-free until the next to the last stage... a momentary lapse of focus. bummer. I'm convinced that cost me the <1% that I wanted to be within my class %. Just curious as to what goes through other peoples minds.

vincent, I'm thinkin' the same thing... and as soon as I shift to conciously calling my shots... times increase dramatically... (i.e. stages 10, 11, and 16).

There has to be a happy medium.

[TDean]

I think it called obtaining an adequate sight picture for the given conditions.
If your time is comparable to the best shooters in your class and you're getting 90+ percent of the points...you're sight picture is adequate. IF you're doing better than that, you may be the National Champion.

[vincent]

I think you can call every shot and still have a miss. I consider the call as knowing where the shot went from reading the sights at the moment the shot breaks. Being tuned into your shooting enough to be able to react immediately to your call seems like a seperate skill.

[shred]

My problems come when I mistake "putting the sights where I want the bullet to go" for "watching where the sights were when the bullet went".

[Shawn Knight]

1-29% I am still new at this shootin' thing.

[JFD]

I can't possibly get a sight picture on those "hiding behind a wall" targets as fast as I can point shoot them. At the same time I'm also double tapping them, which is double evil

If the targets are not in the configuration I mentioned, I go for an acceptable sight picture and call the shots. Too many misses in the past on really easy targets for me to do otherwise.

[Flexmoney]

JFD, on Nov 2 2006, 04:20 PM, said:

I can't possibly get a sight picture on those "hiding behind a wall" targets as fast as I can point shoot them.

I usually can. (our low walls are 4ft high and the targets are usually 3ft or less at the shoulder).

Here is something else to consider...

You may not need a traditional sight picture on some targets. You can get a lot of feedback from things other than the sights.

I shoot without sights on my gun every so often. I do this to kinda force myself to pay attention (and learn from) those other inputs.

Calling the shot is still possible. Just, perhaps, to a lesser degree of accuracy. I still prefer to use my sight. they give me the best feedback and the most accurate and consistent shot calling.

[JFD]

A lot of times these "behind the wall" arrays are set up as part of a foot race. Basically you run X distance to this type array and finish the stage after negotiating everything else.

Being someone with arthritis, a bad knee, and a replacement hip means this situation doesn't play to my strengths and can really screw up a stage for me. I'll cut corners wherever I can to try and hold on against the athletic folks. It's one of the only instances where I see others shoot the stage and think "Oh crap! - I've got to push hard here". So I'll cut whatever corners I can to try and hold on. Shooting out of position enough to not allow use of the sights is one of those corners, but it's helped.

My movement has improved this year since I've been working on it a lot. It's just not that quick of a process to go from Sloth to Roadrunner. When I can get to the wall in better position, then there will be no need to point shoot.

[Jake Di Vita]

I don't think ANYONE in the world calls 100% of their shots with perfect accuracy without fail.

[Sharyn]

Jake Di Vita, on Nov 3 2006, 10:04 AM, said:

I don't think ANYONE in the world calls 100% of their shots with perfect accuracy without fail.

In the world of IPSC/USPSA, I agree completely. Your topic, on not having a miss in a major match as one of your goals, was actually one that inspired this thread. That is an amazingly difficult feat!

To have that amount of focus, all the time, is miraculous. I don't doubt it can be done... but, holy cow!, that's an ultimate goal.

I'm surprised there are so many 100%'s in the poll... then again, I'm not. I think a lot of shooters either over-estimate their skills or maybe don't understand shot calling. BTW, I rate myself in the 30-59% range.

I think calling every shot in IPSC/USPSA competition is unrealistic, especially for those trying to improve. GRANTED, calling your shots is accomplished by the cumulative effect of executing the fundamentals... and that must be learned in order to progress... however, to a certain degree, I think it may hinder the ability to observe, absorb and learn from other aspects of shooting. From my limited experience, I think it's essential in learning how to shoot, but after that, calling every shot, 100%, requires an extreme amount of focus. Your focus has to shift to learn new things... (?)

There must be levels of shot calling... (in the realm of IPSC/USPSA)... miss? on paper? A/D? A/C? upper/center A zone?... and a relative time factor involved.

Well, that's my perspective on it at my current place and time in my shooting history. However, my perspectives tend to evolve as I grow.

vincent said:

I think you can call every shot and still have a miss.

You could, but why would you?

[BSeevers]

Yea I am not sure how to answer since I believe you should call 100% but I don't. I have no idea how much I do. Calling your shot is knowing where the bullet hits the instant it breaks. I use a different "knowing" or sight picture at 1 yard vs 40 yards.

I know if I miss its usually because my attention was somewhere else but not calling the shot. Calling shots is one of the keys to great shooting.

[Pat Harrison]

As was stated above, calling your shots does NOT mean you never miss, it just means you know where the miss went. I have called misses in major matches that I didn't make up. And you can usually tell because I will go immediately to that target at the end to check. I knew it was gone, but never hurts to check, I could be wrong.
Also, you can call the shot, but if your sights are not spot on it's still a miss. At Area 2 a couple of years ago I had this happen. On the first two stages I had a no shoot low that I called as a hit...but sure enough it was on the n/s. I adjusted the sights before the next stage and didn't have a miss or a n/s after that. The lesson is to always, always sight your gun in after flying to a match. Btw, I still didn't use the sight in range, I adjusted to how I had called the shots on the stage and the gun was right on the money the rest of the match.