[safenate]

I shot a fun stage today at York IWLA and it was fast, for me. Then i noticed, i didn't use my sights for any of it. No headshots or anything, just whole targets. Is this good or bad practice for a 'C' Limited shooter looking to make M/GM? The next few stages were shot similar, but concentrating on the head shoots was required. Thanks for input.

[shred]

BE's got a good bit about "type 1 and 2" shots in his book. You can't see nothing, but you can get away with a lot less once you know what you can and can't do.

[Jake Di Vita]

See what you need to see to make the shot. The sights aren't necessarily required - although it is no slower to use them then not to.

[Ben Stoeger]

when did you notice you ..., stopped using sights at whole targets under 10 yds?




When I started having misses on those targets.

[AWLAZS]

Ben Stoeger, on Sep 14 2008, 06:09 PM, said:

when did you notice you ..., stopped using sights at whole targets under 10 yds?




When I started having misses on those targets.

Good one Ben

[fortyfiveshooter]

Ben Stoeger, on Sep 14 2008, 06:09 PM, said:

when did you notice you ..., stopped using sights at whole targets under 10 yds?




When I started having misses on those targets.

HA.....
nice
I think we all have had the 3 yard mike and wonder where in the hell the bullet went......

[P.Pres]

One of the greatest improvements (probably the greatest) in my shooting was the day I found out
I was not useing my sights !!

[JThompson]

Jake Di Vita, on Sep 14 2008, 06:07 PM, said:

See what you need to see to make the shot. The sights aren't necessarily required - although it is no slower to use them then not to.

There are times I would disagree with that Jake... Low shots under a barricade come to mind... one's where you just stick the muzzle under and keep you head up so as not to have to go prone. Also We had a cooper tunnel recently where you were confined... you would pop out of it, then shoot over a medium high wall at a very close low target. In both cases I didn't extend my arms more than half the way and in one case the slide was only a foot from my face. Another case is where there is a low target on the draw... I shot one on the way up... never was anywhere near my eye level.

All the targets I mentioned were very very close...

This post has been edited by JThompson: 14 September 2008 - 10:09 PM

[Jake Di Vita]

Jim,

For the most part I find it more important to use your sights when you are in awkward firing positions because your index is greatly compromised. But like I said before...see what you need to make the shot - regardless of what that is. I bet you wouldn't shoot the gun in a dismounted position if those close targets had no shoots on them - or they were a little further away.

You can always find extenuating circumstances, but those are the exception rather than the rule. Bottom line is in the type of shooting we do, it is better to get feedback from your sights 99.9% of the time.

[JThompson]

Jake Di Vita, on Sep 14 2008, 11:28 PM, said:

Jim,

For the most part I find it more important to use your sights when you are in awkward firing positions because your index is greatly compromised. But like I said before...see what you need to make the shot - regardless of what that is. I bet you wouldn't shoot the gun in a dismounted position if those close targets had no shoots on them - or they were a little further away.

You can always find extenuating circumstances, but those are the exception rather than the rule. Bottom line is in the type of shooting we do, it is better to get feedback from your sights 99.9% of the time.

No that, I would agreewith Jake.

[Flexmoney]

Ben Stoeger, on Sep 14 2008, 09:09 PM, said:

when did you notice you ..., stopped using sights at whole targets under 10 yds?




When I started having misses on those targets.

That is the very first thing that popped into my head when I read the thread title

[Flexmoney]

Jake Di Vita, on Sep 14 2008, 08:07 PM, said:

...The sights aren't necessarily required - although it is no slower to use them then not to.

That was the second thing that popped into my head.

[bkeeler]

I was watching the History channel this weekend and saw Jerry Miculek shooting and he said something that hit me.

"If you are looking through the sights you are shooting scared....." You must track,see the front sight.....

The front sight doesn't have to be crystal clear to make the shot on easy targets but the vision needs to be turned up for more difficult shots.. This is where you need to find out for you what you need to see to make the shot.


BK

This post has been edited by bkeeler: 15 September 2008 - 10:12 AM

[Pat Harrison]

The question then becomes: When did you become aware of the sights while shooting targets under 10 yds

[Singlestack]

I shot a stage last month that had 4 targets hidden behind barrells that you had to run right up to the barrell and shoot the target point blank muzzel on the target. They were spaced about 10 feet apart and then there was some normal stuff down range. By the time I had shot all 4 of the point blank targets and started shooting the other stuff I had so much baggage from not calling the last 8 rounds that it was all I could think about. I'm shooting an array and thinking about the last one. This was a pretty big moment for me.

[LPatterson]

CM 06-03 Can You Count comes to mind. If the front sight is not on the target then scores will trash the HHF which is insanely high. And one, two, three, four........... oh five doesn't help either.

Editted because the finger was trying to type too fast.

This post has been edited by LPatterson: 16 September 2008 - 08:26 AM

[Jake Di Vita]

Quote

CM 06-03 Can You Count comes to mind. If the front sight is not on the target then scores will trash the HHF which is insanely high. And one, two, three, four........... oh five doesn't help either.

That's the thing right there. I shot that classifier in L10 and Limited when it first came out, and scored 100% on both runs. I never saw the sights on a single shot - but I did see enough to know the sights were inside the A-zone.

See what you need to see to make the shot.

[TMC]

Interesting topic, how much under 10 yards?

At a small club match last weekend they had 12 targets hidden behind barrels and all were less than 3 yards. It was a memory stage in so much that you had to remember which openings had tagets and how many in that opening (one or two). The strange aspect was each target required 3 shots . I don't remember looking at the sights at all, only pointing the gun at the middle of each target. I shot 36 alphas with 4 reloads in 20 +/- seconds with production gear with 2 of the mags coming out of my back pocket (forget some of my gear). I'm sure it would have been slower for me if I were looking at my sights at that distance.

[Pat Harrison]

One club up here used to do several stages like that a year. I've shot it with my open gun, which since there also wasn't a whole lot of movement usually ends up in under 10 seconds, and every shot is called with the sights...now thats a dot so it is a bit easier. But I've also done it with no sights on an open gun. I sighted down the slide like a shotgun and still knew where every shot had gone. It's all about what you allow yourself to see.
Last weekend I shot a match and two stages were very similar, 4 paper and 1 steel at 10 yds. One was full paper (classic targets) and the other stage had partials and no-shoots. The full paper stage I shot in 3.06 down 2 and fired a second, not needed, round at the steel. The partial/ns stage I shot in 3.37 down 1. Quite a few shooters on my squad were newbies, and one remaked that they would be awesome runs if all the hits were there (we hadn't scored it yet) and I replied that they were all on and that I called really good points. One of the squad members, and I won't name him because he lurks here (he said he'd join once he found out the forums were free ) shot after me and had several misses while still shooting at the same pace as me (I think his splits were a bit faster) I asked him what he saw after the second stage and he said he was pretty sure they were all there...they were not.
The point is, you can shoot as fast with sights and the bonus is you'll know how you did before going to score the targets...or make up a shot if you need it....but without that feedback, you're just guessing

[safenate]

Interesting Pat. During the initial course mentioned above, i knew all were hits. I even could tell you most were As; I didn't think of this until they starting scoring it and I'd had a second to replay the run in my head. I guess a lesson learned would be: after every shot, i checked the target to make sure of the hits. It would only make sense to spend that time making sure of the shots BEFORE/DURING the shots, rather than after.

[Pat Harrison]

And considerably faster, if you have to look to make sure the shot is on paper, you're losing time.

[Loves2Shoot]

Ben Stoeger, on Sep 14 2008, 06:09 PM, said:

when did you notice you ..., stopped using sights at whole targets under 10 yds?




When I started having misses on those targets.

Beat me to it. I agree 100%

[aaronjbush12]

Pat Harrison, on Sep 17 2008, 07:20 PM, said:

And considerably faster, if you have to look to make sure the shot is on paper, you're losing time.

What if you are looking at the paper when the shoot goes through??

[HSMITH]

Seeing the front sight lift or the dot lift is ALWAYS faster for me. Recently figured out I can do 15 splits, not all that fast but I can see the sight doing it.

[Flexmoney]

aaronjbush12, on Sep 18 2008, 10:22 PM, said:

Pat Harrison, on Sep 17 2008, 07:20 PM, said:

And considerably faster, if you have to look to make sure the shot is on paper, you're losing time.

What if you are looking at the paper when the shoot goes through??

I know BEFORE the bullet even gets to the paper...from reading the sights.

What the heck ya waiting on holes for???