- This topic has 5 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 17 years ago by
.
-
Posts
-
So, this was exciting. We went to the shoot house again on Saturday. First we learned firing while standing, then walking, then we went on to clear houses, like the SWAT team. 😀
They let us go in in pairs of twos and threes and showed us who is supposed to do what when storming a house full of bad guys. Also some general advise, such as not to stand in front of the door when you open it, because the guy inside may just shoot through the door and they urged us to walk through the door frame quickly.
They also told us about something called \”slicing the pie\”, meaning to open the door first, then step back a couple of steps and go in a type of semi circle, looking into all visible corners of the residence, before stepping closer and then going inside.
We didn’t actually do that, but rather entered right away from the side of the open door, last guy tapping on the shoulder of the second, second on the first, he nods three times silently, then they all enter. First guy walks straight along the wall, second guy around the left corner, third guy into the middle of the room, each taking out their targets, then they yell \”clear\” and move on to the corridor, shooting while walking toward the next targets, the third guy covering the others’ back.
All pretty cool stuff and I did reasonably well, actually better when walking than when I was standing. Sometimes, when I was standing, I anticipated the shot and thus missed the target (but still hit part of the attacker’s body, just not the heart I was aiming for). The first three shots were dead center, then I started having a bit of trouble.
Does anyone know a good method to overcome anticipation of the shot? It’s just psychological somehow. They told us not to think of the shot going off, so now I couldn’t stop thinking about it I suppose. 😉 But still worked well in the end and I got all of the bad guys in the shoot house. 😀
_________________
GiantkillerWhat you are experiencing is a Flinch, you are Flinching because you think you know when the shot will go off. That’s because you are trying to control all three things at once. This is one of the most common things we see with new and old shooters. Some old shooters have gotten so good at flinching that once we break them of the habbit they have to have their sights adjusted.
There are three things that must happen to make an accurate shot. 1- The sights have to be in alignment. 2- The sights have to cover the target. 3-you must pull the trigger until it breaks. Problem is we are usually only able to do one or two things at once. That means you get to pick two. I pick the sights in alignment, and the sights covering the target. I never worry about when the shot will go off it should be a suprise anyways. Pull the trigger as slow as you can but as fast as you can control the sights. This takes practice. your feet do not matter, your weight doesn’t matter, your gun doesn’t matter. It can even be upside down, crooked in your hand as long as the three things happen when the shot breaks. You feet and weight and gun hand alignment are icing that make more shots easier later. All you need to worry about is the one shot you are trying to break. The last one doesn’t matter anymore and the next one is too far in time away to worry about.
Dry fire Practise….Empty the gun… Check it again that it is empty. Pick a safe target ( not the TV or the cat….well maybe the cat) that if you screwed up and didn’t empty the gun it won’t hurt anything. Then align the sights, cover the target with the sights, now start applying presure to the trigger as slow as you can building pressure until it breaks. If the sights come off the target, relax your trigger finger and start the squeeze over. The whole trigger pull should take 20-30 seconds. When it breaks it should suprise you and the sights should not bounce. You’ll know if you flinch. Do this a bunch. Next time you are at the range do the same drill live fire. Slow trigger suprise break.
Once you learn to control the trigger and add weight to it slowly and progressively you can speed it up with the same muscle memory and become faster. Soon you’ll be shooting controlled pairs pretty fast.
Badge54
Sorry that was long. But I was trying to answer your question about anticipating the shot. It’s hard to put in words it would be much easier to coach you at the range. Go to your range and get instruction.
What I really wanted to say was the SWAT stuff is a blast. I have been on our SWAT team for 9 years now. We have a team commander and two teams. I am one of the team leaders now and also one of the Snipers. We are part-time team that trains 8 hours a month and a couple weekends or so a year I also train on the Sniper Team 8 hours a month. We are fotunate enough to work in a great city that doesn’t need too many callouts a year. Most of our stuff is Dynamic entry Drug raids, high priority stakeout and surveilance. Other than that I am on the street on patrol.
I hope they stressed to leave the SWAT stuff to SWAT. Small room tactics should scare you enough to figure out if someone was in your house and you went hunting for them that you are in deep trouble. Take cover in a room, cover one door and wait for them to get to that door. Our plan in my house is I get the stairs and my wife gathers the kids back to our bedroom. I will wait for the police to show up and will never let anyone make it to the top of the stairs. This may sound strange to you, you may think why won’t he go arrest them? Because there is nothing in my house downstairs worth dying for. And they have to be willing to die to get up my stairs. It’s about calculated risks. Now if I had three of my SWAT buddies spend the night and we were all upstairs God help the badguy.
Badge54
Another very good post, thanks a lot.
Interesting that you would wait for police, even though you ARE police. If you do that, I guess we all should. Makes sense to just wait in one room, pointing your gun at whatever comes through the door.
I would have to stress that we mostly went to the shoot house because we wanted to. It just sounded pretty cool, also gives you an idea about how the SWAT team operates, just for informational purposes. They actually told us that it would probably not be that useful for beginners to go to the shoot house, but we just wanted to do it, so they let us. We went once before, that time we all entered individually. Also, it was just during the end of about a six hour seminar. We did a lot of other, more practical things, such as shooting at one or multiple targets or shooting on the move.
About the flinching, that was what they told us, to be \”surprised\” by the shot. I had actually practiced with the mock guns we have at the NTC, you can cock them so that you can pull the trigger. It worked okay with them, so when I got to the range (i had been once before) the first three or four shots were dead center. Then I started flinching again for some reason. Could be that the trigger of the gun I was using wasn’t very smooth to pull (not as smooth as the NTC one). I think it was a Glock. Pulling the trigger slowly, I could always tell when it was going to fire. I was trying not to think about it, but as it is when someone tells you not to think about something, that ends up being ALL you think about.
I did much better when shooting on the move, maybe because I was firing faster and there were too many other things going on. One time I shot all targets while moving, even from further away, but then the last one right in front of me I kept missing, because now I was standing there, probably thinking too much again.
I wonder if I should just try to think about something else, like a nice beach or a sunny vacation, but then it’s easy to lose track of the target. I also had a bit of trouble focusing sharply on the sights. They told us to focus on the sights, not the target, but it was close and maybe because of the contact lenses or so, sometimes it was hard for me to focus on them.
I also shot the gun without ammo a few times and I could see myself flinch, even though I knew the gun wasn’t loaded. I guess I just need more practice, I’m still pretty new to all of this.
_________________
GiantkillerAnother thing you can do to help overcome flinching is to wear ear plugs and earmuffs at the same time. (double hearing protection). It take lots of practice to get over a bad flinch but if you double plug and go through the proper fundamentals you’ll get it right.
Weird thing though, I was also flinching when I knew the gun wasn’t loaded, so it would be nothing but a light \”click\”. I was practicing with our fake guns at the NTC yesterday and still I could see myself flinch and tense up as soon as I thought the \”shot\” would go off. Really weird. But then I did it several times in a row and got much better, but of course this was all without ammo. I also find that the trigger of our fake guns is much smoother to pull, you can’t tell exactly when the shot will go off. With the Glocks we were using at the range, I could pretty much tell when the gun would fire, making it harder to \”be surprised\”.
_________________
Giantkiller
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
