[JThompson]

As most of you know I started USPSA and went right to open class. I did pretty well, but wanted to try some iron sights. I started shooting production a couple of months back with very little time invested during that time. I was treating the gun like an open my focus was all over the place... sometimes on the target sometimes on the sight. Basically no consistency. I shot a house match a couple of weeks ago and it was ugly. I decided to put in a little time and see if I could figure out how one can miss 8 poppers with 8 shots. lol I found that I was using the front sight like the dot on my open and was not seeing it in the notch. Not only that, but my focus was somewhere in between the front and rear. Yesterday I decided I was going to get my eyes on that front sight and not let go. This was the first time I can remember seeing the sight that clearly... I need some glasses, but for all intents it was damn sharp. I had a few misses when I let my focus wander, but for the most part I was hitting everything with one round and good hits at that. I never really knew what you guys meant on watching the sight lift out of the notch because I was shooting open. I can say without a doubt I saw it yesterday. A funny thing happened with that little revelation... I stopped waiting for steel to fall or listening for the hit. I would shoot the shot and move on. Cool! In the past I seemed to dwell there waiting for confirmation of the hit.

I can't wait to get back on the range to confirm.

JT

[Flexmoney]

JThompson, on Apr 28 2008, 11:53 AM, said:

I decided I was going to get my eyes on that front sight...

Decided.

[JThompson]

Flexmoney, on Apr 28 2008, 11:37 AM, said:

JThompson, on Apr 28 2008, 11:53 AM, said:

I decided I was going to get my eyes on that front sight...

Decided.

Sounds easy doesn't it....

Oh BTW... you were right about the low left... the gun shoots about 2 left @ 25 but not low Damn that chaps my ass to say.

JT

This post has been edited by JThompson: 28 April 2008 - 08:29 PM

[benos]

You're definitely on the right track Jim.

And note that you can see the dot lift peripherally, because you should be focused on the target.
be

[EZ Bagger]

That focus (calling the shots) will help you when you go back to the real guns too.

[JThompson]

I went to the range yesterday with about 500 rounds... I was determined to lock in the sight focus. Overall it went well. I still have to be careful to follow through with the shot. I have a want to line up the sight and not maintain it all the way until the bullets leaves the barrel. I found small poppers at 25yds help to keep me focused. If you are hitting those consistently then you have good follow through. I also worked a plate rack and had pretty good hit there too. The key for me is patients... not just the visual, although that's a huge part, but the mental part. I have to fight the urge to go faster than I can see. It's tuff coming from open... my mind is going 100, but my body and focus are only at 60. The hard part, for me, is to pull back the mind to where my skill level is with irons.

I've made some great strides in a short time... most of the progress has been made because of all the great info here. I would run into an issue and have already read 10 other posts dealing with it in the past. How cool is that? Sometimes you have read those and think... I can't be doing that... it can't be that easy... Kyle told me earlier that I had poor trigger isolation, and I did everything, but tell him he was full of shit. Guess what? Yup. Bad isolation and a bit of flinch too. I really have to watch flinch as I have a bad wrist... basically every shot hurts to some degree and this can lead to poor grip, tension and flinch.

Thanks to Brian, Kyle, Todd and all the other forum members who have the patients to tell us the same things over and over until we can accept.

JT

This post has been edited by JThompson: 01 May 2008 - 04:42 AM

[JThompson]

I shot the first house match since I've been working on the front sight and seeing it better. I decided to take it easy between shooting points and not run like a mad man. The first stage I was down about 10 out of 28. The second stage I got a 154 out of 160. I beat the next shooter by almost 10 points. My time was slow, but that was my plan. It sure is cool when the Ro runs around yelling 2 ALPHA 2 ALPHA through most of the cof. The last stage I had a slip and fell into some target focus, but managed to pull my vision back after a few bad rounds. I had a thought crept in when I was at the line. I thought... Hey, with those hits I've been getting I can pickup the pace, That's fine as long as you keep your vision where it's needed. I didn't and missed 3 shots on poppers.

Back to the range for more work!

This post has been edited by JThompson: 02 May 2008 - 12:55 PM

[EZ Bagger]

Keep it up. When you walk up to that stage and start feeling like yeah, I can shoot this one in .XX seconds go back to the walk through and force yourself to call them all A's

[Flexmoney]

JThompson, on May 2 2008, 03:49 PM, said:

I had a thought crept in when I was at the line. I thought... Hey, with those hits I've been getting I can pickup the pace, That's fine as long as you keep your vision where it's needed. I didn't and missed 3 shots on poppers.

Back to the range for more work!

Not just a thought. THE thought slipped in there. (wanna-b-speedy)

The conscious mind can hold one line of thinking at a time.

You traded vision for speed, in your mind.

Another common mistake in the thinking is to think "I need to slow down". That still puts the mind in a speed focus.

Just think "vision".


(I love hearing about the progress. Thanks for sharing.)

[JThompson]

Thanks Kyle... that's nice to hear.

I've had to rethink my grip since this little gun bucks pretty good even at minor. It's small and most of the recoil gets to me. I found that my grip pressure needs to be increased by a good bit. For the open I had a very light grip and it would return the dot nicely. That doesn't seem to be the case with my little PX4. It likes a lot of weak hand pressure. I'd say I'm using at least 20% more overall. It's just shy of where my hands would begin to shake from tension. Also, I found that about 75-80% weak hand is pretty good for this gun. I don't know if that's because of the twist lockup on it or what, but it seems to be where the gun likes it. Also, I didn't realize it, but part of the front sight issues I was having is because the range isn't that bright. I used a bunch of white paint on the plate rack and was blown away at how easy it was to pickup the sight on that white background. I still haven't got the glasses yet... I intend to pursue that this week if the money is there.

I'm still having an issue with getting the trigger pull straight back all the time. The grip on the gun doesn't put my finger in the optimum place to get a straight pull. The gun has the changeable grips.. I tried the small and large... I think it might be time to give the medium a shot. I also am having a hell of a time shooting the first DA shot with SHO. The pull must be close to 9lbs. That has be pulling the shot way low left. I haven't worked that hard to fix yet, but will try some more today.

Overall I'd say my shooting iron has improved by 20%. My first shot hit on a long shot is 60% or so better. I still "Have miles to go before I sleep."

JT

This post has been edited by JThompson: 05 May 2008 - 10:51 AM

[JThompson]

5/6/08

I'm really double jointed in my fingers... to the point where the first joint can almost reach 90. I started thinking about pulling straight back and did some experiments in DA. I found that my joint was either bending forward or back under the strain of the heavy pull. This has a tendency to change the pull angle of the trigger. If it flexed forward during the pull the motion is back and to the strong hand... There is no control in my finger at that joint either. It pretty much goes where it goes. This got me thinking and I grabbed some med tape and taped up the joint so it couldn't move. Guess what? The DA pull was straight back and I saw no dip going low left. I shot two poppers at 25y trans to the plate rack and took them all down. I was fairly stunned by this revelation. I don't like the idea of having to tape up my trigger finger, but as least I have a better idea of what is causing the problem. It's a double edge problem... The DA shot starts way out, but after the first shot the trigger is very close to the grip. Thus, the tape works pretty well for the DA shot, but not as good for the SA after. What I find is that I need to move my finger after the initial DA shot. I'm not sure if this a common issue or unique to this bun and myself.

If anyone has similar issues with double joints please don't hesitate to chime in.

I'm going to a practice match tonight to apply some of what I've been working on... not sure whether I'll tape the finger yet, or try to be deal with this issue with finger position.

This post has been edited by JThompson: 06 May 2008 - 08:23 AM

[Bergie]

JThompson, on Apr 28 2008, 10:53 AM, said:

I found that I was using the front sight like the dot on my open and was not seeing it in the notch.

When I went from Open to Limited I got a real good tip from a local shooter.

Use a green fiber optic for a while so that it does not look like your red dot. You will immediately realize that it is not a dot and it is a front sight and it needs to be in the notch.

It helped me.


Good Luck

[benos]

JThompson, on May 1 2008, 04:40 AM, said:

The key for me is patience... not just the visual, although that's a huge part, but the mental part. I have to fight the urge to go faster than I can see.

"Patience" begins in your mind. It's mental patience that allow visual patience.
be

[JThompson]

benos, on May 8 2008, 01:13 PM, said:

JThompson, on May 1 2008, 04:40 AM, said:

The key for me is patience... not just the visual, although that's a huge part, but the mental part. I have to fight the urge to go faster than I can see.

"Patience" begins in your mind. It's mental patience that allow visual patience.
be

I learn the hard way I guess. Sometimes I feel a bit dull as I have all these great shooters and resources here, but can not "accept" the advice until I have a problem and the need to fix it. Then I remember/read and the answer is there. I've always been a bit hard headed. What finally gets me where I need to go is wanting to make the shot... if I can't consistently make the shot I will do what it takes to find and rectify it.

I think going to irons was the best possible training aid for me in that you just can't fudge with an iron like you can with a dot gun. Also, the shorter radius of the PX4 makes you do everything well in order to get those hits. With my open I would hit a C with sloppy trigger or grip.... with the PX4, with the same sloppiness, I would have a D or Mike. This was rather shocking and I wanted to believe the gun was at fault, but in my heart I knew it was the Indian and not the arrow. What I'm getting to here is that I was forced to learn patients to get the hits. The sloppy. "wanna be speedy" crap would not work with this little firearm. A longer sight radius and a light trigger make a sloppy shooter appear much better than they are. When you take those away you have the true measure of your fundamentals. I found mine lacking and have been working to acquire that skill set.

I had a further revelation working with my grip last evening. I found that my weak hand was wrapping to far around my strong hand and putting to much pressure high on my strong hand. This hurt my trigger control. Also, I found that my strong and weak hands were not butting against one another properly and I was having to excessively drive the gun in recoil. I made a slight correction in how far my weak hand wraps and found that the gun drove much better and found the gun returning much better and with less input on my part.

This post has been edited by JThompson: 10 May 2008 - 07:49 AM

[JThompson]

Further trigger revelation tonight. I take out the pretravel and then put about 80% of what it takes to break the shot. I align the sights and give it the last 20% My groups at 20yds went from barely able to keep them in the A to about the size of a 50 cent piece. I was stunned. The plates fell, the hits were all As with just a couple Cs here and there. This was a major find for me. I can't wait to load up and get back there. These were all shot standing and not moving or under time pressure, but I saw a 50% increase in accuracy in one session... by far the biggest gain I ever made dot or iron.



EDIT: I think the deal was going to open from the start... I never really learned how to deal with a heavy trigger. The single action of the PX4 feels about 5-6 pounds. I was trying to pull it like an open, which is to say a bit of a slap. I was upsetting the gun to much to get a good shot off every time.

Something like 1500 rounds of practice this week.

This post has been edited by JThompson: 10 May 2008 - 07:44 PM

[EZ Bagger]

Awesome!

[briceshephard]

I absolutely LOVED the training I received at Front Sight. And feel VERY confidant as a single mother of 3, that I can protect my children while we are home alone. Thanks for all the confidence in the world Front Sight. Bringing another single mom out there this fall.
Can't wait!!