Shooting Tip #1

The vast majority of substantive pistol marksmanship errors occur as a result of angular error movement immediately prior to the bullet leaving the barrel. This movement is a conditioned behavioral adaptation to the environment of recoil. The shooter can overcome this problem easily as long as their mind stays with the following drill.

This drill can be run by the shooter alone or directed by an instructor. It is designed to get the shooter to move the trigger in increments while trying to not fire the gun. These two incompatible goals help to eliminate the shooter’ s anticipatory flinch. As long as the trigger keeps moving in increments, the gun will certainly fire, but because of the shooter’s frame of mind, they will not flinch. Repeated iterations expose the flinch problem by removing it, give shooters a structured method by which to continue training, and provide them with the feeling of an accurate shot that can be repeated, thereby embedding habits.

Percentage Press Drill

Tell the shooter to visualize the resistance portion of the trigger press as a distance partitioned in percentages from zero to 100, with zero being on the start of resistance and 100% being the gun firing. Tell them they have two goals:

1. Move the trigger the percentage they are told.

2. Do not fire the gun.

Get the shooter to the resistance (wall) portion of their press. Call out progressive percentages of the resistance to press through (10, 20, 30, 40).  They must keep in mind that they do not want to fire the gun. (Continual reminders of this are important!) Watch the shooter for actual and honest movement of the trigger with each percentage. (Some will try to cheat. See “Percentage Press Reversion” below.)

Later in the drill, for a faster shot, provide percentages of 20/40/60/80, 30/60/90, or 40/80/90. The instructor provides these verbal cues and transitions the shooter to saying/thinking it for themselves.

The instructor should never arrive at 100% as this, in theory, would be telling them to fire the weapon, and their goal is to not fire. (This incremental method of trigger movement is not considered detrimental staging because bad staging involves feedback from the sights and a goal to fire when the sights are correct.) Emphasize integrating fluid movement between percentages. The shooter is trying to not fire the gun, so generally, smooth will happen naturally.  Look for the shooter’s startle response when the gun does fire. This shows they are getting a surprise shot for perhaps the first time. Tell them to memorize that feeling and reinforce that it is good for accuracy.

Again, the instructor should emphasize that the shooter has only two goals:

1. Move the trigger the percentage they are told.

2. Do not fire the gun.

This drill will be extremely effective as long as the shooter keeps the two goals in mind. 

Percentage Press Reversion 

If the shooter is not giving honest/perceptible movement of the trigger with each percentage, they are a more concrete learner and are misunderstanding the nuance of the drill. They are actually trying to get to 99% without firing the gun, but they have to cheat to get there. Let them know you are onto them. Honest and actual movements usually result in the gun firing at between 30% and 70%. If with the announcement of “10%” the gun immediately fires, you know you have a jumpy shooter who will need some closer attention. If they haven’t moved the trigger with each command and they reach 90%, they are gaming it. In response to this, your instructions should be modified to single percents, if necessary, to prevent the shooter from getting to 99%. If they continue to not move the trigger as instructed or if they seem to be making the gun fire at some point, start counting the percentages both forward and backward: 20, 40, 60, 80, 60, 30, 10, etc. (Counting backward means they will be releasing the trigger.) This will tend to get the shooter oriented to executing movement of the trigger in preference to an obsession with the moment of firing.

Notes

1. Keep the percentages in even chunks. It serves no purpose to move through 22, 45, 67, etc.

2. The drill instructions seem complicated but are actually pretty simple. With practice, the instructor can communicate them to most shooters in a minute or two. Do it between drills.

3. Major emphasis must be put on their goals: Move the trigger. Don’t shoot the gun! Without this in their mind, the drill fails.

4. After numerous repetitions of this being done correctly, shooters will experience many surprise shots uninterrupted by anticipation. They will be encouraged and motivated by a great target. Many will be able to build on this experience, while others will revert back to their old ways when shooting anything other than a True Vector gun.

At all times, it must be emphasized to the shooter that if the gun does fire, then they must be ready to reset the trigger. This means releasing the trigger upon recoil and returning to the resistance (wall) as rapidly as they can.

True Story

While serving as a firearms instructor at the FBI Academy, I had a student who was just not listening to me. He was shooting especially poorly that day. He was very upset with his performance and highly motivated to do something different.

During a break, I approached him and made a deal with him that if he did exactly as I said, he would be shooting great. But he would have to listen to and obey my every word. In desperation, he promised that he would. I made sure we locked eyes and we shook hands on it.

I knew that the next drill happened to be the FBI's bullseye course. It starts with 10 rounds at the 25-yard line and ends with 20 rounds at the 15-yard line. On this drill, we were allowing alibis, so I knew I had time to squirrel my way into his head.

When the drill began, he stood there armed with his weapon of 10 rounds and my instructions as outlined in the drill above. When the 25-yard line stage was over, he had dropped only two rounds out of the 10 ring (3.5 inches). When we moved up to the 15-yard line, I told him to continue in his own mind with the instructions that I had given him at the 25-yard line, while compensating, of course, with larger percentages to accommodate the shorter time limit.

In one drill, this young man transformed his shooting from regularly hitting the berm in front of the target on previous drills to scoring a 293 out of 300. This score is remarkable considering that most instructors in the FBI are incapable of shooting it.

Until T-Vector is available, these tips and drills should help you. Stay tuned for more.