Bullseye Target Shooting

Have Gun[s], Will Travel [By Air]

2008-06-26T17:16:00.016-07:00

Step 1: Check the local laws for where you are going and make sure you are 100% in compliance.

If you don't follow their rules, whether out of ignorance or otherwise, at a minimum you would be risking a significant and probably awkward delay. Worse, you might lose your guns for a significant period of time and cost yourself a lot of money attempting to recover them, and that effort might fail and then your expensive guns would be gone. And worst, you could be locked up, charged with a criminal offense, tried, found guilty, fined and even sent to prison. You don't want to do that. (And please don't email me claiming that innocent people don't get wrongly convicted. If you're that naive, you shouldn't be handling firearms.)

So check the laws where you are going and make absolutely certain you follow all the rules to the letter.

With that warning, now we can look at what's involved in travelling by air to Bullseye competitions.

Note that I'm going to present things in what some might call a reverse-chronological manner. This is because I've learned a lot of this "the hard way" and often found myself going backward to redo something before going forward to the next step.

So we start this at the baggage check-in where you are going to turn over your unloaded guns and equipment to the airline.

First, some of what you need won't be packed. You'll need it in your pockets to use or show at the ticket counter and/or at the checked-luggage security station -- you may have to hand these to someone who then manipulates the locks outside of your presence:

Keys for padlocks, if any; and
Written note with lock combination(s) for numbered locks, if any.

At the luggage check-in, you will say something like, "Hi, I need an 'unloaded firearms' tag." The agent will provide one, partially filled in, which you will complete and sign.

Ask them where the tag should go. Although the rules state the tag should go inside the locked case with the guns, I had one agent insist it belonged on top of the locked case. When I tried to show her the printed rules from her own airline, she called over her supervisor who got real snippy. "Do it like we said or leave the airport." (I did as they insisted.)

Most of the time, the airline wants me to stay with the luggage until after it has passed through TSA security. I say "most of the time" because more than once, they pitched my now closed (with gun cases locked) suitcase onto the luggage belt and away it went. When I asked what they would do if the TSA wanted to inspect the insides, they said, "We'll page you or something." Both times this happened, I found a seat close by and waited fifteen minutes before going on to passenger security and getting my own self through and onto the plane. And yes, my suitcase and guns always made it through OK.

At another airport, I walked with the ticket agent and my suitcase to the TSA luggage inspection station with my keys and combination ready. (TSA unlocks and inspects my guns about 50% of the time.) But on this occasion, the TSA agent picked up my bag, walked around the X-ray machine bypassing it completely and put it on the luggage belt for the airplane. As I stood there wondering what to do, the airline ticket agent came back and asked if my bag had been X-rayed yet. I told her what had happened and her eyes opened real wide!

"What does it look like?" she asked in a rush.

I described the bag and she took off at a run. Five minutes later she was back with the bag and, from her posture, it was clear she on the war path. She found the TSA supervisor, read him the riot act, and then stood there, hands on hips, and watched them run my bag through the X-ray machine. The TSA did not ask to unlock my gun case this time. I guess they figured the sooner me and my bag and the angry ticket agent were gone, then all the better.

When the bag was gone (again), the agent turned to leave and walking past me she said, "Thank you for having an easy to spot bag." Then, looking angrily back at the TSA agents, she muttered the name of an anatomical feature we all have, except she used the plural form.

But I digress. Back to how to pack things.

All items go inside locked containers which, in turn, go inside "well travelled" (but secure) suitcases. The goal is to not attract attention, especially at the luggage carousel where it is possible, but admittedly unlikely, that your suitcases will come sliding out for public grabbing well before you get there. If that happens, you don't want someone mistaking your bag for theirs and walking away with your guns.

Put big, obvious markings on your suitcases to individualize them. This will prevent someone grabbing one of your suitcases mistakenly thinking it is theirs. In this regard, I firmly believe that "ugly is better". Although my wife hates my black suitcase with spray painted safety-yellow spots, the fact remains that no one has *ever* taken it off the luggage carousel by mistake. On the other hand, I've had plain black suitcases that were "lost" for 24 hours or more after my arrival, more than once, probably because someone took it by mistake but didn't discover their error until reaching their hotel miles from the airport while leaving me at the "lost luggage" counter with no change of clothes until the next day.

Remember: Unique, ugly and worthless is a good look. People don't take bums home for that reason, and they probably won't pick up your crappy-looking suitcase.

Next, guns and ammunition should go in two different locked containers. Although most states don't require this, for the few that do (and also while locked in the trunk of your rental car), always using two containers just makes it easier to remember what goes where. (The Republic of Kalifornia is one such place.)

When packing the gun box, put everything else in first, then the guns last. That way, the guns will be on top when the case is opened. The ticket counter agent may (or may not!) want to visually verify that the guns are unloaded. And the checked-luggage security station may want to do it again. One TSA agent in Phoenix, after inspecting my guns, came out to ask if they were target pistols. I ended up giving him a five minute introduction to Bullseye at the end of which he seemed interested so I invited him to the Phoenix club for the regular Tuesday night league. You never know where you might make a convert!

Depending on the competition, I will take either of two "kits", minimal or maximum. (The minimal kit is shown above.)

For a minimal kit, I take only my 22 and ball guns, and both with just iron sights. I can shoot a full 2700 and leg match with just those, albeit with less than stellar scores -- but it *is* good practice, you know? These two guns and the associated "stuff" will all fit (barely!) into a Pelican 1400 case. I can pack that and the ammunition case and also a couple of days of clothing into the suitcase. (It is a tight fit and may push the suitcase weight limit -- you'll want to check the weight on your bathroom scale so you know what to expect at the airport. [Ticket counter agents do occasionally seem to forget to check the suitcase's weight when they have to do the unloaded firearm thing but you don't want to rely on that oversight.])

Note, however, there will be a minimum of padding in this "cramming". If your guns are pretty, you may want a bigger case. My guns aren't. They just shoot real good. (But I do fit scraps of padding around the guns where there is metal-to-metal contact [but which is not shown above].)

And when packing the suitcase, put your clothes on the bottom and the gun cases on top so they can be opened easily for the required inspections at the airport.

While a Pelican 1400 is good for one or two guns without red dots, for a "maximum kit" with four guns, some of which may have red dots, a Pelican 1550 case is required. (And you'll need a whole suitcase just to conceal the Pelican 1550 case with the ammo case going in a second case inside a second suitcase. As I said, most of the time I travel with the "minimal" kit and now you can probably understand why.)

Here is a detailed list of what I take in each of the two locked cases.

Locking case #1 (Pelican 1400 or 1550, for the "minimal" or "maximum" kit respectively) contains the following:

Business or personal identification card (inside this container);
22 handgun as follows:

S&W model 41 (with/without red dot);
Folded zip-lock baggie large enough to contain S&W model 41 (in case of rain);
Empty chamber indicator in place in S&W model 41;
Two (2) magazines for S&W model 41;

[Maximum configuration only] CF handgun as follows:

Center fire handgun with red dot;
Folded zip-lock baggie large enough to contain wad gun (in case of rain);
Empty chamber indicator in place in wad gun;
Two (2) magazines for CF gun;

[Maximum configuration only] 45 "wad" handgun as follows:

SA "Wadder" with red dot;
Folded zip-lock baggie large enough to contain wad gun (in case of rain);
Empty chamber indicator in place in wad gun;
Two (2) magazines for wad gun;

Ball handgun as follows:

Ball gun;
Folded zip-lock baggie large enough to contain ball gun (in case of rain);
Empty Chamber Indicator in place in ball gun;
Two (2) magazines for ball gun;

Two (2) spare batteries for red dots;
22, CF and 45 snakes;
Scoring overlays;
22 chamber brush (25 cal brush with right-angle bend);
Ear plugs (custom or "foamies");
Clip-board for score sheet;
Roll of buff pasters;
Personal score/training log book;
Baseball cap;
Clip-on, flip-down eye occluder;
Spotting scope [NG 20x33] with eyepiece and primary lense covers in place;
Legs for spotting scope;
Pedestal for spotting scope;
Shooting glasses;
Toothpicks (for S&W model 41 bolt-face cleaning after the NMC);
Stopwatch;
Staplegun;
Refill staples for staplegun;
Small screwdriver to adjust sights (check fit to adjustment screws on all guns listed above);
Tightly-closed bottle of gun oil; and
Padlocks and key(s) or combination [with which to lock this case].

Locking case #2, the ammunition box, contains the following [Winchester Pistol Case WGS-7701 with most of the foam removed]:

Business or personal identification card (inside this container);
Dillon hearing protectors and 4 replacement AAA batteries;
100 rounds of 22 ammunition in factory-original packaging;
100 rounds of CF ammunition in plastic reloading boxes;
100 rounds of 45 ACP "wad" ammunition in plastic reloading boxes;
50 rounds of 45 ACP "ball" ammunition in plastic reloading boxes; and
Padlocks and key(s) or combination [with which to lock this case].

NOTE: This quantity of ammunition gets very close to the airline limit of eleven (11) pounds. Check the weight of the ammunition before leaving home and make any necessary sacrifices. You may be able to purchase the 22 ammo there but, if you're shooting something exotic, line up your source before going.

In summary, I usually travel with the minimal kit and shoot iron sights only. With the 22 and the ball guns in that configuration, I can shoot a full 2700 and a leg match. Ammunition goes in a second, locked case, and both locked cases (guns and ammo) then go inside (on top of clothes, etc.) an ugly, unique-looking suitcase.

When I open the suitcase, the gun and ammo boxes are on top. And when I open the gun box, the guns are, again, on top.

I've travelled on business trips and, on my own time, competed at local events while "out" quite a few times. I've always had a wonderful time. Bullseye shooters are always pleased to have someone from out of town. They know you've made an effort to be there and they appreciate it. They will want to see what you've got, talk about how things work at different clubs, ask if you're going to Perry or not this year, and on and on and on.

And here's one final tip: Keep a couple of hours open in your schedule for after the competition. I often find that's the most memorable time. I can remember some really nice times in Massachusetts, California, Texas and Florida that all took place after the guns were packed and we drove a couple of miles to a different place to relax. And I regret not having that same extra time to relax with the Bullseye shooters in Georgia and Illinois because I had to fly out right after the match.

I call the time after a 2700 and a ball match, "the 31st target."

Make time for that "31st target". It just may be the best part of your next business trip.

Backyard 600

2008-06-13T08:11:00.008-07:00

First things first.

I called the City of Phoenix Police Department and asked if it was OK to shoot air pistols within the city limits.

"As long as you do so safely, yes it is," they said.

So I scouted out the backyard and found a good ISSF dimensioned air pistol range (basically a 35' long area) with a safe backstop (the 7' concrete block wall across the back of our property) and measured things out with dimensions from the web and a calculator:

	Metric*	US
Target face to firing line	10 meters	32' 9.7"
Ground to target center	1.4 meters	4' 7.1"

* See sections 6.3.8 and 6.3.9 at http://www.issf-shooting.org/rules/english/2006/23_technical_2005_2nd.html with some additional pistol rules available at http://www.issf-shooting.org/rules/english/2006/25_pistol_2005_2nd.pdf

I placed a small outdoor table with its rear edge along the firing line after making a permanent mark down low on the house's foundation so I can easily find the firing line again if the table is moved.

For the target holder, I use the Gehman Pistol Target Trap (see http://www.pilkguns.com/buildrange.shtml where you will find additional notes on range options). A while back, I also ordered 1000 Edelmann 10m Air Pistol targets (see http://www.pilkguns.com/masprlist.htm#edelmann) which is keeping me in good supply.

Double-check to be sure you get the pistol target holder and the pistol targets. Air rifle targets and their holder are a completely different size.

When the target trap arrived, I measured the box center to hanging screw hole and screwed a snugly fitting wood screw into the gap between two concrete blocks at the appropriate height. Hanging the target trap, I found the target center to be about a half inch low -- perfectly tolerable for a backyard range (in my opinion).

Also, since the target trap is about 2" deep, my firing line was now 2" too close. Okay, so I scooted the table back 2". Gee, that was easy to fix.

Then, to lessen the noise for my neighbors, I went to Home Depot and bought one package of "electrical putty" for less than a buck. This is basically a very sticky black clay which I smushed flat and stuck to the backplate inside the target box. It very effectively captures all the pellets and, more importantly, it significantly reduces the impact noise.

My range is along the north side of my home shooting eastward to the target hanging on the wall at the back of the property. My back is to the evening sun. The range is mostly shaded in the early evening by the roof overhang, two large queen palms (that occasionally drop dates into my AP box) and Moon Mountain that rises up a half mile to the west. Although it is hot in Phoenix in the summer, staying out of the direct sun often makes it tolerable. Such is the case for my backyard range.

I start shortly after dinner, no later than 7:00PM. I shoot six (6) 10 round targets for a normal men's AP competition and finish about 8:00PM which is just when the failing light would force me to stop anyway. (Adding two lights, one on the target and the other on the firing line, will be a later project.)

At the moment, I have the trigger on my IZH-46M cranked up to several pounds as I work toward a reasonable degree of trigger control. Yes, I'm intentionally choosing to shoot a difficult trigger. I have it set such that I can release shots cleanly, but only by doing everything right. Any flaws in grip, wrist, elbow or trigger finger pressure/movement direction or the dreaded "spasmo" jerk results in an obviously thrown shot. But when everything is right, the shot goes where it should.

"There, that's just like me. I can do this," I tell myself when everything works.

My normal shooting companions include a gecko that lives inside the block wall and eats crickets and black widow spiders, a Cactus Wren whose nest and chicks are in a hole near the top of the Saguaro cactus three feet to the left of the target trap but 25' up, a noisy black bird that sits high up in a tree and makes heckling-like squawks all through my practice which I've learned to accept as a test of my concentration, and the occasional neighborhood "mouser" (cat) that patrols my yard hunting for field mice. All these creatures are safe for various reasons although that bird does try my patience but seems to be smart enough to avoid standing in front of a safe backstop.

If you're in the neighborhood, give me a call. Bring your AP and target trap and I'll put another screw in the wall creating a firing point to the left of the Saguaro and then we'll shoot a 600 side-by-side.

You're welcome to come early for dinner, too.

See you in the backyard!

Cheap Glasses

2008-05-28T18:18:00.007-07:00

I'm cheap.

The less I spend on other things, the more I have for bullets. And as any Bullseye shooter will tell you, to get good, you have to push a lot of lead downrange and, as most of you know, lead is not cheap anymore. Gone are the days of three or four cent heads. Today, you're probably looking at eight to nine cents for a 200 grain LSWC, and if you buy in 5000 unit quantities, that's not small change.

So when I get a chance to save some significant bucks, I do it.

I recently came across what has to be just about the cheapest place for glasses. Not surprisingly, it is in the People's Republic of China and everything is handled through the web. You choose your frames and lenses through the web, enter your prescription through the web, and you order and pay through the web. And then about two weeks later, your glasses arrive ... via the postman.

The place is Zenni Optical (http://www.zennioptical.com/) and I decided to order a pair of glasses for iron sights both to see the quality of their work and so I'd have something specifically for shooting.

Since I would be entering the numbers into their website for my prescription, I didn't want to spend a lot of money only to discover I had done something wrong. This would be a "test pair" to see if the system, mostly me, would work.

A pair of single-vision glasses in Zenni's cheapest frames would be $8.00 plus $4.95 shipping, or $12.95. That's what I would try.

Of course, I needed an accurate prescription and that's not something I can do. For that, I needed a professional and, as luck would have it, not very long ago my work had taken me to the bay area and I made an appointment with Dr. Norman Wong who happens to also be a Bullseye shooter. If anyone knows what a shooter needs for his eyes, Norman is the very best in the world. (He let me shoot his Masaki 1911 a few days later at the Sunnyvale club, but that's another story.)

At Dr. Wong's office, after the most thorough eye exam I've ever had which included the fine tuning of my prescription on both iron and red dot sights "shooting" out the front window of his store, I had three prescriptions, one for my daily use (the progressives), another for a lense for use with a red dot and Knoblock frames which I said I was going to buy someday, and the third for shooting iron sights. (I shoot with my right eye even though I am left-eye dominant. Again, that's another story.) Here are the prescriptions (O.D. = right, O.S. = left):

Progressive

		Sph.	Cyl.	Axis	Prism	Base
D.V.	O.D.	+125	-100	90
D.V.	O.S.	+125	DS
N.V.	O.D.	+200	ADD
N.V.	O.S.	+200	ADD

Red dot for Knoblock shooting glasses

		Sph.	Cyl.	Axis	Prism	Base
D.V.	O.D.	+150	-100	90

Iron sight

		Sph.	Cyl.	Axis	Prism	Base
D.V.	O.D.	+225	-100	90

The shooting glasses I wanted would have single vision lenses only with the left eye focused at distance and the right eye focused on the front iron sight. I used the left eye progressive prescription without the "ADD", and the right eye "Iron Sight" prescription as follows.

My Combined Order

		Sph.	Cyl.	Axis	Prism	Base
D.V.	O.D.	+225	-100	90
D.V.	O.S.	+125	DS

Because these would be my shooting glasses, I wanted to be sure they would also function as safety glasses. I emailed Zenni Optical to ask about the materials they use. Here is their reply:

Dear Mr/Ms. Skinner,
All of our Single Vision, Bi-Focal and progressive bi-focal lenses are premium quality high index Polycarbonate composite polymer high impact resistance lenses with full UV protection, special strong anti-scratch coating.
Thank you for your interest in Zenni Optical.

That sounds good.

The last thing needed was my inter-pupillary distance, the distance between the centers of my pupils when looking far away. Zenni Optical's website recommended having someone make this measurement for you. It's not something you can easily do for yourself. I found a metric ruler since they wanted the measurement in millimeters and had my son do it and we followed the instructions on Zenni Optical's website. We measured 64 millimeters. (Later, I had the optical department at CostCo repeat the measurement. They came up with 66 millimeters, close enough to 64 that the difference does not matter, especially for the single vision lenses I was ordering.)

My Order

		Sph.	Cyl.	Axis	Add
D.V.	O.D.	+2.25	-1.00	90	0
D.V.	O.S.	+1.25	0		0

I entered my Pupillary Distance as 64 in the order for single vision lenses, no coating, no tint, and in the $8.00 frames. That went to the P.R.C. along with my credit card information on May 1st (2008).

My glasses arrived by USPS on May 13th. They came in a plastic case with a cleaning cloth, in a rip-open, marginally padded mailing envelope. The return address was in San Rafael CA which, I presume, is where my shipment entered the mail after arriving from China (by unknown means).

Of course, I immediately tried them on, showed my wife who then wanted Zenni Optical's web address so she could see what frames to get for her new pair of reading glasses, and I got out my 1911 -- checked to be sure it was unloaded -- and dry-fired a dozen shots to check the right-eye focus. Yep, the front sight was crystal clear, exactly as I wanted.

Since then, I've used the new glasses on the line a couple of times. The front sight continues to be clear as a bell in my right eye, and after a shot with the 45, I can peek around the blinder I wear on the bill of my baseball cap to spot the hole down in the 50 yard target through the left lense. Yes, I still use my spotting scope but as often as not, the left distance-focused eye is sufficient with the LSWC 45 rounds.

My next order from Zenni Optical will be for my walk-around progressives. Probably rimless but with the best frames Zenni has. For less than $50, it's going to be hard to go wrong.

But I must add that, by "off-shoring", I am continuing a trend that makes it hard on some Americans. I know because I've been on the dirty end of this same stick. Indeed, in 2002-2003, I was out of work for almost a year because the software industry in which I had been employed for 20+ years was deserting the United States. My job, and that of almost all other software engineers in the United States, was going to India, Russia, the People's Republic of China and a dozen other countries where engineers are paid significantly less.

Yes, I know all about off-shoring. But there comes a point when you have to ask, "What do I need to do to take care of my family?" And after a year with practically no income, I had to find that answer. I won't bore you with the details but, suffice it to say, there were some changes that I had to accept. And there were some realizations in the industry that helped somewhat as well.

Today, I'm still employed in the software industry but with some significant differences. And today, when and where I can, I spend each buck a lot more carefully.

So, now it's time to order some 200 gr LSWCs.

Yikes! Have you seen the prices?

In Recognition, Memorial Day 2008

2008-05-26T07:07:00.006-07:00

From those of us who have ...

... never known the horrors of combat,
... never had to find the courage to stay and fight,
... not seen the limp corpse of a friend who was just himself 10 seconds ago,
... not had to put our lives on the line "here and now",
... all our body parts intact,
... never been struck by a blast wave,
... never heard a bullet pass by,
... never had to stop -- kill -- someone who was trying to kill us,
... not been afraid to think of going home for what that thought might cause,
... and most deeply, from those of us who, in our extreme ignorance, simply have no way of imagining what you have gone through and for what you have given us,

We am truly, profoundly, grateful.

It is only through the sacrifices that you made, that the ignorance we enjoy, has come about.

Thank you.

Finesse the Trigger

2008-05-24T17:28:00.006-07:00

See that stack of rocks?

That's Steve Reiter, national champion Bullseye shooter many times over.

I call him a "stack of rocks" because if you finish your Slow Fire early and sit down to watch, he looks like an utterly immobile stack of rocks that's been like that for a couple of millenia. Nothing moves. The wind blows but nothing moves. A cloud hides the sun, nothing moves. A bird flies across the range but nothing, not even a muscle in his beefy, farm-boy arm moves.

Eternity.

Now there's no way I'm going to be able to stand that still. While I do have my better days when the wobble nearly stops for a second or two, when that happens, I so dearly want the gun to go "Bang" but, invariably, if I will it, I jerk it.

Years ago, Coach Pat had me hold the gun and do everything except pull the trigger. He did that. As a team, we shot a ten, two nines, an eight and a seven with five shots. Coach's lesson was that my "hold" was the seven ring even though my shooting (by myself) had a lot of fives and sixes.

He said, "Your problem is trigger control. Move the trigger straight back."

"Level and smooth," he would croon as I would try to follow his teaching.

So, I've learned to do a lot of dry-fire and to watch and see what the front sight does when the hammer falls. And recently, I've been seeing the front sight take a little bob downward. Sometimes I put the gun down, rest a moment and try again and it goes away. But other times, it's still there and ultimately I decide to stop because I'm obviously teaching myself to do the wrong thing. But what am I doing that causes it?

Not long ago, our car had a slight pull to the left. To compensate, we drove with a slight pressure to the right, not much, just enough to offset the left pull. The car goes perfectly straight as long as you keep up the pressure.

Pressing the trigger back on the 1911 and holding the gun really tight can end up in a similar situation. If your trigger pressure isn't perfectly straight, a strong grip can exert a counter-pressure and end up holding the gun perfectly straight.

But unlike the car, at some point the trigger hooks release the hammer. At that instant, the trigger floats free for a fraction of a second before bottoming out on the over-travel adjustment. During that fraction of a second, whatever unaligned force your trigger finger was adding is suddenly removed and the compensating force from your grip that was previously offsetting the crooked trigger pressure is released, and the nose of the gun twitches out of alignment.

Bang!

I once asked the members of the Bullseye-L emailing list how long it took, with everything in place and all lined up, from the time they committed to firing a shot to when the gun went off. Answers varied but the norm seemed to be somewhere between a half and a couple of seconds, no more than 2-3.

But when I watch Steve Reiter, I think it's longer, much longer.

Same with John Zurek. I know because I asked him what he was doing for the 30+ seconds I watched him routinely hold.

John said, "Movin' the trigger straight back."

Here's an interesting observation: The harder you grip the gun, the more it will mask a mis-aligned trigger pull, and you'll only know it when the hammer drops.

Oops, too late!

With a very strong grip, mis-aligned trigger pressure can't be seen before the hammer falls.

A gentler grip, on the other hand, will immediately show poorly directed trigger pressure; it will push the front sight away from alignment. Long before the shot breaks, you'll see the sights being pushed out of alignment.

Brian Zins says he "steers" the front sight with his trigger finger. He calls the sights his "trigger purity indicator."

A word comes to mind: finesse.

BassPro.com says finesse refers to "slowing down and using smaller lures, line, and rods."

And in Bullseye, perhaps it can mean using a less-than-crushing grip and finer "control" of the trigger.

Finesse the trigger.

Shiney Brass, More Xs

2008-05-16T13:55:00.006-07:00

Shiney brass makes for more Xs.

It works like this. A shiney piece of brass will press a smoother surface onto the sides of the bullet. When such a bullet is then fired, it becomes subject to external forces and one of those is the impact of photons being reflected from the target face.

The white outer rings, being white and therefore reflective, put pressure on the bullet in flight and tend to push the bullet toward the center of the target where the black center is exhibiting a lesser or, if you will, a "sucking effect" by its absence of reflected photons.

Shiney (smooth edged) bullets are affected more uniformly than dull (bumpy edged) bullets and, hence, bullets made shiney by shiney brass are more likely to strike the X ring.

Interestingly, the white of the "X" in the center of the X ring does, however, tend to deflect shots. That's why hitting the *exact* center of the "X" is so rare.

This is nothing new, however. The Lone Ranger knew of this property and, therefore, reserved his famous silver bullets for bad guys whom, as we all know, wear black and therefore attract shiney bullets.

Simple.

Hey, it's a joke!

Mindless Entertainment

2008-05-01T10:23:00.006-07:00

Shooters learn Bullseye much the same way they do any other sport. They study, they experiment, they practice, they talk to others, they get coaching directly and indirectly. They commit things first to memory and then to body actions and, if everything goes well, they become as proficient at the sport as their abilities permit.

But it is also true that Bullseye is significantly less physical than some sports. In Bullseye, for example, there is no running. On the contrary, Bullseye shooters stand for relatively long periods of time nearly motionless. And when they do move, it is what appears to be a leisurely stroll down to the targets and back. But this is not because Bullseye shooters are lazy or laid-back. On the contrary, that leisurely pace is very intentional. Bullseye shooters do not want to elevate their heart rates. The sport requires it. When firing a string, Bullseye shooters want as motionless a stance as possible to minimize their wobble and, in turn, improve their accuracy on the target. Walking fast raises the heart rate, increases the wobble, and worsens the shots. No, Bullseye shooters walk slow for a reason. They take it easy for their next shot.

But, Bullseye is very much like other sports in one key way.

Consider a world champion tennis player. They are certainly very physical running left, right, forward and back, stretching and stooping for each shot. But consider also that player's mental state while playing. Specifically, for a world-class player, how much self-talk are they doing once a volley begins?

Beginners do a lot of self-talk.

"Do this, do that, grip the gun tightly, focus on the front sight," are among the common self-talk statements that beginners use to train themselves in Bullseye.

And no doubt beginning tennis players do the same. "Spot the place where I want the ball to go, loft the ball high and stretch up for the serve, now execute a smoothly increasing swing," they might tell themselves.

But for the world-class tennis player, all of that is automatic. They've trained and practiced and everything they do has become completely unconscious. Indeed, it probably feels instinctive and the conscious mind simply watches as the ball is served and the volley played out.

In this, Bullseye is the same.

Indeed, many experts would probably agree that, as a given player's skill rises, all sports become mental games.

"Attitude is everything," some say.

"Visualize what you want," others recommend.

"Focus on the goal."

As the champion tennis player launches the ball up in the air to be served, his or her thinking has stopped. There is silence in the head. The body is on automatic. The eye sees; the body moves. It is a fully integrated machine.

The brain is only permitted to watch, not to act.

Think of sitting on the sofa and watching TV. The brain watches, it is entertained, but it does not participate.

Mindless entertainment, we call it.

At the upper skill levels, all sports have this in common.

Mindless entertainment.

In Bullseye, after the basics are learned, after shooters learn how to hold the gun, set their natural point of aim and move the trigger straight back to release the shot, an active, talkative, "do this, do that" brain is a hindrance. It messes up the shot.

The brain must be silenced.

Tell it.

"Please be quiet now. I'm going to shoot. Just watch. You're going to like this. This is going to be good."

It's OK for the brain to watch. In fact, it's good for the brain to watch. It likes to relax and be entertained. The brain enjoys the action and when the string ends, then it can become active and talk to the other shooters, score targets, notice that the body is thirsty and direct it to get a drink of water.

Bullseye must be intensely entertaining to the mind or we wouldn't keep shooting for all the years it takes to become expert at this sport.

Think of anything non-essential that you have, nonetheless, voluntarily done for years. Why do you do it? Because you enjoy it. It is amusing. It is entertaining. It has to be or you would have abandoned it long ago.

In Bullseye, the brain's recognition of improvement feels great. It likes it. And recognizing what caused some bad shots during a string can be amusing. I've had a lot of shots that made me laugh. I don't particularly like them, but I do enjoy them when they happen.

And the brain talking with the other shooters is a vital part of the sport. We are, after all, social creatures. We find it enjoyable to talk with the other shooters when we're not in the middle of a string, and I'm quite certain they do to.

But, when it comes time for the next string, the mind must again become quiet. It must not speak. It must not be active.

As with TV, the commercial is over and the program is starting again.

So, dim the lights and unmute the sound. Turn off the brain and watch the show.

Shooters to the line!

During a string, Bullseye must become mindless entertainment.

Maybe we should change the cadence:

Shooters to the line.

Brains, switch to silent mode. No talking inside or outside of the head.

Bodies, this will be your first string of Rapid Fire.

With five rounds, load.

Brains, be silent on the line.

Are the brains silent?

The brains are silent.

No thinking on the right.

No thinking on the left.

The line is not thinking.

[Targets face, the string is fired, targets edge.]

Make the line safe.

Make the line noisy.

Brains wake up, open mouths, start talking inside and outside of your heads.

Is the line noisy?

The line is noisy.

Go down, talk as you walk, score your targets, make noise, visit with your neighbors, cover up that mess and stroll back talking all the way. Enjoy!

Bullseye done well is mindless entertainment.

Silence on the line!

When Zins Speaks, ...

2008-04-22T15:44:00.005-07:00

Brian Zins has won the US national bullseye (Conventional Pistol) competition at Camp Perry Ohio more times than most of us have shot Xs in a single target. Understandably, when Brian speaks, bullseye shooters listen.

Not long ago, Brian wrote to the bullseye-l mailing list about his grip. He said,

From: Zins GySgt Brian H [mailto:brian.zins@usmc.mil] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 12:19 PM 
To: bullsey...@lists.lava.net 
Subject: [Bullseye-L] RE High and right 

Jack, 
        All shots that not on call are in some form or fashion anticipation. 
I would have to say that your problem is probably stemming from a grip 
issue. I will try to explain this the best that I can without actually 
having a visual for you to follow. 
Look at your hand 
The crease between the fatty portion below your thumb and pinky finger just 
above your wrist. 
The backstrap of the grip needs to go right between those fatty areas in 
that crease. 
Our hands are actually designed perfectly for shooting. As long as we use 
the shape of our hand to our advantage. If you put the mainspring housing of 
the gun on the either of the fatty parts, the gun will move in recoil. With 
a .45 anyhow, not so much with a .22. 
This will also help the gun align to your eye better without having to move 
your wrist to obtain sight alignment. 

Brian

Well, my 45 scores were dismal, repeatedly so. I had little to lose so I decided to try Brian's grip.

After a little futzing around with the 1911 in my hand, I found something that seemed like what Brian was describing. Being a methodical (my wife uses a different, and four-letter, word) guy, I wrote down the details:

Form the shooting hand as if you are about to shake hands with someone.
Using the non-shooting hand, grasp the gun by the barrel (never put your hand in front of the muzzle!) and then press the gun into the shooting hand such that it contacts the web between thumb and forefinger first, and as high on the backstrap of the gun as possible.
Still holding the gun with the non-shooting hand, wiggle the shooting hand to feel the "deepest" the bottom part of the backstrap can go in the grip -- the "life-line" across the palm forms a V-shaped valley and the backstrap of the gun should "nest" into the center of that valley. The goal is to place the backstrap in an area where there is a minimum of "meat" between backstrap and bone. Rigidity and the absence (or minimum) of padding are the desired characteristics.
Still pressing the gun in position, wrap the shooting hand around the gun and grasp it with the middle two fingers. In some hands, the middle two fingers grasp the gun very close to the second joint and, again, have a minimum of padding between bone and metal, and the fingers cross the front strap at about a 20 degree angle. The pads at the base of each finger (in the palm) are slightly in contact with the slab-side grip but exert little or no pressure.
As you raise the gun to shoot and move onto the target, move the trigger finger into the trigger area as far as possible. For some, the trigger will be touching that finger just outside of the farthest joint but right next to the joint. As before, the goal is to have as little pad between trigger and bone as possible.

When I do this, it feels very odd especially at first. But the sights line up more naturally than before and, when they don't, I know I didn't screw the gun into my hand correctly and I stop and do it all over. Eventually, the alignment is correct, the feel is right (odd!), and my whole hand feels "clamped" -- Brian's word in other postings -- around the gun.

It ain't goin' nowhere!

Dry-firing, the results are promising but in my inexperienced hand, not perfect.

On one hammer fall, the front sight will bob down. (That would've been a six o'clock 6).

On the next, the front sight jumps right and up. (Two o'clock something -- did I anticipate?)

Then, down and left. (Jerk!)

My hand hurts from the pressure I've been exerting on the slab-sided grip but cannot maintain. That's not what jerked the trigger -- I did that by trying to make the hammer fall when I "willed it" to get the shot over (and release the painful pressure!) -- but the lessened pressure made the front sight jump way down and left, not a 9, an 8 or a 7. No, that one probably was a weak 5 or, worse than that, a "Maggie's Drawers", a miss.

Take the gun out of your hand, I say to myself. Let the blood circulate for a few seconds.

Okay, screw it into your grip and try again.

Click! There -- it didn't move! (Or maybe I just wasn't paying close enough attention?)

Again ... Ah, a small jump that time, not a lot but it was there.

Come on, now, straight back. (I have to arch my trigger finger just a little to make that happen.)

Click. Yes, nothing moved.

By golly, this can work!

But again, my hand is aching.

After a few more dry-fire shots, that's all I can do that day. It's a strain gripping that hard.

"GTSOOI", I wrote on a Post-It and stuck it inside my gun box. "Grip The S%!* Out Of It."

As you may know, I travel a lot and occasionally shoot at different bullseye ranges when a local competition and my business assighments match up. But that's the exception, not the rule. As a result, training and practice for me, much less formal competitions, are catch as catch can.

So it was barely a week after changing my grip that I had my first opportunity to try it on anything other than dry fire and, as ill-luck would have it, it was a formal competition.

And the results were dismal.

In a moment of less than stellar judgement, I shared my frustration with the list.

... I also found that when I didn't do everything right, things got really, really bad in a hurry. the least little jerk seemed to take the round much farther away from "home" and, in more than one case, completely outside the scoring rings!

So now I'm "on the fence".

Should I keep at the new grip which, when it works is very nice, or should I fall back to the old grip which is more forgiving?

I received a couple of mildly encouraging replies and then, to my surprise, a personal reply from Brian himself.

(Can I say we're "buddies" now? Is one personal email sufficient?)

Brian wrote,

I would say stay with the new grip. The key is consistency and the grip may take a little getting used [to] but [in] the long run you will [be] much better off and more consistent. The reason things may seem to be more "out" when you make a mistake is probably because your hand is trying to do what it has done for so long and the combination of the two do not work. Give it time it will work for you.

All right, I thought. How long?

I decided to give myself three months, April, May and all of June.

Toward the end of April, I had shot a few times with the new grip technique, dry-fired a lot (50% of the days?), and more recently had noticed my hand feeling a bit less strained in the evenings.

I was quite sure that, accuracy aside, I was gaining a lot of grip strength. And one of the constants I had seen in other Bullseye shooters was that Master and High Master ratings often seem to go with upper-body strength.

Brian Zins is one tough-looking Marine. Woe be to he who doubts a Marine's strength.

John Zurek swings hammer, pushes a saw and hauls lumber as a carpenter five days a week and sometimes on weekends building his own place.

Steve Reiter grew up on a farm. He's no mouse-pusher.

They are all High Masters and they all have very good arm and shoulder strength.

Top bullseye shooters may be alike in other ways but, of this, I am convinced. If you want to shoot the 45 well, you need better than average, and possibly much better than average upper body strength.

In this day when mouse and keyboard dominate the skills used by many for 8+ hours a day, the 45 needs more, a lot more.

And I've also discovered that the Zins grip is utterly, maybe even "wildly", intolerant of fat-fisted, limp-wristed, bendy-elbowed shooters.

Steel demands steel.

Power demands power.

If you want to shoot a powerful steel gun, you have to back it up with power and steel. If you don't, the gun will run right over you and the shot will go the hell where it wants to go. You show the least little weakness and it's gonna get ya.

But if you show strength and resilience, it'll do exactly what you want.

Rule the gun!

When I GTSOOI, focus on the front sight, pressure the trigger straight back and get a (nearly) surprise break, it's going in the X ring or damn close to it.

And when the shot goes anywhere else -- and when it goes bad, it sometimes goes really bad -- I blew one of the basics:

Crush the oil out of the grips and make my arm rigid, hand, wrist and elbow;
Pour all my attention into the front sight for alignment and forget the wobble no matter how interesting it might be;
Add straight-back pressure to drive the trigger directly into the top of my nose; and
... bang!

When it works, it is magnificent!

And when it fails, oh brother, is it bad!

Sometimes I know which one of the basics I messed up. But other times the shot is almost completely off the target and I won't have a clue what I did wrong.

Imagine a target with 4 Xs, 3 tens, a 9, an 8 and a top right-hand corner of the target, way way way outside the 5 ring.

"Hey," I want to shout, "who's shooting on my target?"

But I know better. I am. It's me.

I'm coming up to the end of the first month of my three month trial. The good news is it's working. I can see the improvement, I can feel it working, and I have seen enough really good shots to know that I can shoot a "tenex" (10 Xs in one 10 round target) with this grip. It will happen. I will shoot it, and it will unquestionably be with this grip.

I shot the center-fire and 45 stages of a 2700 this weekend. I told the other shooters I skipped the 22 portion because my grandaughter was competing in the state finals in soccer which was true. (They won in triple overtime!) But it is also true that I am completely focused right now on the 45. I don't want any scores going to the NRA from any other gun.

I want my Outdoor Expert rating to be based on that gun, the hard gun, the real gun.

And its coming, its coming.

Patience and perfect practice. Dry-fire, dry-fire and dry-fire.

I'm writing this flying to Huntsville Alabama and my 1911 is in checked baggage, cleaned and lubed after the competition, it is ready for dry-fire every evening at the Comfort Inn.

GTSOOI, front sight, straight-back, ... click.

ADDENDUM:

Today, Bruce Martindale summed up grip pressure very nicely. He wrote:

... my personal concept on grip pressure is that group size, as a function of grip pressure, is a U shaped curve and maybe it has a third axis for trigger sear weight.

Too loose grip gives bigger groups (trigger motion and recoil induced). Too tight also gives bigger groups (lack of trigger control). You can not grip tight and retain fine motor control of your finger. So what to do? "Just Right" tension that gives you trigger AND recoil control).

How much is that? Well you have to figure that out by training with "too much" and "too little" then "just right". Call it the "3 bears" exercise.

Thanks, Bruce, that's perfect!

Oh yeah, my wife knows me, all right. (See reference to "wife" herein.)

Watchin' the Front Sight

2008-04-06T08:07:00.003-07:00

It's working.

Six weeks ago I removed the red dots from all my guns because, with the dot, I found the urge to snatch a shot as the dot approached the "X" to be irresistable. Invariably, I would jerk the shot elsewhere on the target. No amount of self-talk was able to sway me into an ignore-the-target smooth trigger pull.

So I removed the dot and starting shooting iron sights. And ever since then, I've been shooting -- not as often as I'd like because of work and travel -- no worse and sometimes better than before.

Shooting iron sights not only renders the bull a fuzzy, indistinct ball, it also focuses attention on the hand and what's happening there.

And for my purposes, that's exactly what I want. I want my attention back here at the end of my hand where all the important stuff happens. That's where the work is going on, that's where I am re-training, that's where the fix has to happen.

And in spite of appearances, the "X" is not out there on the target. Instead, the "X" might as well be right here at the end of my hand because that's where I do or don't shoot it. When the gun goes bang and the bullet leaves the end of the barrel, it's all over. Later, the bullet will get to the target but where it lands is predetermined. When the hammer fell -- and that happened back here in my hand -- I either shot an "X" or I didn't.

Target, schmarget. It doesn't matter.

Got your guitar handy? All together now, "He's got the whole world, in His hands..."

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

The simple fact is that when I'm shooting iron sights, it's easier to keep my attention focused on what I'm doing and ignore how the target wobbles around. My hand is shooting the shot, not the target. Forget the target.

"Talk to the hand, because the ear's not listening."

Yup, that's right.

"Talk to the hand," because that's what needs fixin'.

"Hear that, hand? It's your job. Hold the gun tight but keep that index finger loose. Bring it straight back -- you can feel a little arch in the finger as it comes back -- push it straight back into my nose, feel it pressing up near the bridge of the nose, right where the boney skull ends and the cartiladge of the nose begins. Here, let me tap that spot so you can feel exactly where you need to be pushing toward. There, feel it? Now, come straight back toward there."

Tapping the bridge of my nose before a shot looks pretty weird, you're absolutely right. But, let's walk down to the targets and see what they say.

(Good job, hand!)

No More Dots!

2008-02-21T09:47:00.008-07:00

It's gonna be the hard way, now: Iron sights and nothing but.

For weeks now I've had the growing suspicion that I'm snatching my shots when using a red dot. I will raise the gun, settle into position, think I'm starting the trigger and focus on the dot.

If that was really happening, I wouldn't complain, but it's not.

Instead, I'm convinced that I'm putting a little pressure on the trigger, initially focusing on the dot, but then I'm monitoring where the dot is sitting on the target and I've somehow trained myself to know when that dot is headed for a good position on the target and to then pull-off the shot at the right moment.

Sometimes, this works. In Timed Fire, for example, I have enough time for each shot that the recovery from the previous shot gets me back into right area and I can see when the dot will cross the X ring.

Bang!

But in Slow and especially in Rapid Fire, the results are dismal. A large proportion of those shots are jerked, down and left. Yeah, there are some good ones too, my "jerk" is sometimes timed well and close enough to straight back that I hit the center of the target, but there are other targets where everything just plain goes to hell in a handbasket. Every shot will land low and left. Boy, is that embarassing!

I want to say, "Please, don't anyone look at that target! And please, don't score it. Just give me a zero. Here, let me cover it up. Please!"

It's hard to say what exactly is trained to this, the conscious or the subconscious mind but, regardless, something in me knows, sends the order, and the trigger finger yanks way, way, way too fast.

On the other hand with iron sights, I simply cannot see the target as anything other than a foggy blob. I can show you about where my hold is in the sub-six area -- about one ring below the bottom of the black -- but when I'm holding, I really don't know when I'm there or a bit high, left, right or low.

With the dot, I know. But with iron sights, I don't.

With the dot, I yank the trigger. But with iron sights, the only choice is to either yank it at random [duh, why now?], or to simply build pressure and keep the sights in alignment until it goes bang.

I got my proof of the problem last Sunday. It came as I shot the 45 portion of the Desert Midwinter competition partly with a red dot and partly without. (See http://www.desertmidwinter.com/.) [I had been travelling on business the week before and that was the only portion of the competition that fit my "Gee, honey, I'm going to be out of town on Valentine's Day" in-the-doghouse schedule.]

Here are my scores:

Slow Fire #1:	89-1x
Slow Fire #2:	84-2x
NMC, Slow Fire:	82-2x
NMC, Timed Fire:	97-5x
NMC, Rapid Fire:	92-2x
Timed Fire #1:	85-1x
Timed Fire #2:	77-0x
Rapid Fire #1:	85-1x
Rapid Fire #2:	92-1x
Aggregate:	783-15x

The aggregate score is 87% [783/900] of the maximum and roughly in the middle of the Sharpshooter range of scores, my current outdoor classification.

You can see a very clear decline in scores over the three Slow Fire targets. I started well (89-1x) but then bad habits crept in (84-2x) and got worse (82-2x). Suddenly, the first Timed Fire looks great (97-5x) but the decline comes back in Rapid Fire and the first Timed Fire thereafter.

Then, something happened in the second target of the Timed Fire match. That 77-0x signals the sudden change and, thereafter, things got better, not worse.

Specifically, at the end of the first string on that target, the red dot on my wad gun had separated into front and rear components, both still in the mounting rings. The body of the dot was attached to the front tube but there was a quarter-inch gap between it and the rear tube. One of the rings was apparently a little bit less than tight and the impact of firing had literally pulled the scope apart. (It goes back to Larry's Guns today for repair.)

When it happened, I signalled a disabled gun and was allowed to switch to my backup, my ball gun with iron sights. But in the stress of broken gun and the line waiting on me, I forgot to put on the lense that lets me focus on the front sight. Without it, my eye will not focus on the front sight. So my sight picture was blurry and in that second string on that target, I dropped 10-20 points in what might have been my best target of the match. (See the TF target just above, and also the TF target higher up in the NMC for comparison. Timed Fire is MY target!)

But from there on with lense in place, I shot as well or better with the ball gun (shooting the wad ammo) than I had with the wad gun.

Pondering that, wondering why I had shot as well with iron sights as with the dot, was when I realized what I was doing different.

With iron sights, I have no choice except to pressure the trigger until the gun fires. My eye simply cannot bring the target into focus through that added lense and there's no way to know when to shoot or when to wait. Instead, once I'm in position the only thing I can do is keep the sights in alignment, add more and more pressure to the trigger, and wait for the gun to fire.

I confirmed the negative effects of the dot last night shooting the last two NMCs for Inland Empire with my 22. Although my scores were consistent and just about where they usually are with that gun at 275-5x and 275-7x out of 300 (91%), and in-line with my (indoor Expert) classification, I clearly noticed the relationship between when the shot was going and my semi-conscious expectation that the dot was about to move through the center of the bull.

That's bad, really bad for Bullseye. I can fix all sorts of other things but as long as I keep yanking the trigger, I'm just not gonna go very far in Bullseye.

Trigger control is really tough for me. No amount of self-talk has succeeded in a smooth accumulation of pressure when I can see, when I can predict, when the shot needs to go so it will land in the middle of the target.

I need to re-train my finger while keeping my brain out of the act.

Iron sights and the lense I use to focus on the front sight -- which blurs the target into a fuzzy ball -- are the perfect combination: If the brain can't see where the sights are on the target, it can't know when to fire.

So, for the next several weeks and months (years?), I'm off the dot. It's gonna be nothing but iron sights for a while.

I'll shoot matches with iron sights.

I'll dry fire with iron sights.

So, I took the dot off my 22 this morning revealing the patridge iron sights still usable thereon.

And the wad gun is gonna sit in the safe for a while. I'll shoot the ball gun with its patridge sights and use the wad ammo in it which seems to be both reliable and accurate "as is".

Patridge, whoever you are, I'm with you and your sights from here on!

Teach me.

"Level and smooooth," Coach Pat would croon.

I'm with you, Coach. Forget the friggin' target. The only thing that matters is what happens up here on the shooting line and no farther away than the end of my arm.

From here on its ...

Level and smooooth...

... and to hell with the target!

Practice: Moving the Trigger Straight Back

2008-01-26T08:24:00.000-07:00

Don't have an unloaded handgun to practice with? No problem. Here's how to practice moving the trigger finger straight back. You can do this standing or sitting, any time day or night. All it needs is your attention and a credit card.

Hold your arm, wrist and fingers the same as when you are holding the handgun.
Hold a credit card vertically in your hand between the point on your trigger finger where you place the trigger and the web between thumb and finger where the back of the gun normally sits. Only the trigger finger and the web should touch the credit card.
Check the alignment: You should be seeing the credit card "edge on". Eye, "front sight" and "rear sight", the vertical edges of the credit card, should all be lined up.
Focus on the near edge of the credit card and then slowly pressure the trigger finger straight back.
The credit card should stay perfectly aligned with the eye.

Do you also have a GripMaster exerciser?

Hold it upside down and low in the hand with the middle two gripping fingers on what are now the "top" two finger spring pads. Note that, as when holding a handgun, the middle joint of the gripping fingers, not the finger tips, will hold the GripMaster.
Then, add the credit card between trigger-finger-position and web similar to before.
Compress the springs of the gripmaster with the middle two fingers and, thereby, grip the "gun" (GripMaster).
Focus on the credit card as before and pressure the trigger finger straight back. You should continue to see the credit card "edge on" at all times.

Alternatively:

Hold the GripMaster normally.
Fully compress the middle two springs with the middle two fingers.
Practice pressing the trigger finger spring slowly but fully.
Note that the middle two springs must be fully compressed throughout this exercise. If they aren't, when the trigger finger spring is pressed, it will change the tension on the middle two springs and everything will move as you pull the trigger. Instead, you want everything to remain locked and still as you move the trigger. This is called "trigger finger independence".

FYI: If you are shooting 45 ACP 1911 or other large caliber handgun, you will probably want the "heavy" (9 lb. spring) model GripMaster (http://www.gripmaster.net). (Their webpage lists this model as appropriate for those needing to do "weapon retention".)

Negligent (Accidental) Discharge

2008-01-26T08:06:00.000-07:00

No, it wasn't me, thank the Lord, the NRA, most of the Bulleye shooters I know, and pure dumb luck when at a public range with ignorant novices and testosterone-pumped young studs all around.
Warning:

The linked web blog (below) is graphic.

There's blood, pictures of the wound, descriptions of the pain, etc..

And the guy is not out of the woods yet: Just because he survived the gun shot doesn't mean he's going to survive the wound.

The link: http://dishhead.home.insightbb.com/leg.html

Jeff Cooper's Four Rules:

All guns are *always* loaded.
Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.
Be sure of your target.

Someone Is Watching You!

2008-01-03T14:54:00.000-07:00

Inspiration is a great motivator.

I've shot Bullseye at a lot of clubs around the US and, in every case, there were better shooters than myself on the line. I've been whipped, and I've been whipped a lot.

For beginners, Bullseye can be a humbling experience. But if you swallow your pride and pay attention, it's a great way to improve your game.

And it may be surprising to find out that you learn not only by watching them, but rather by pulling yourself up because they are there and will be looking.

Pressure is a good thing. Accept it, forget it, and then shoot.

For example, when I'm standing between two great Bullseye shooters, I know that one of them is going to be scoring my target. When in that situation, you can bet your bottom dollar I will try my very best. I will focus every bit of knowledge, training and practice on shooting that shot. And when that shot is gone, I'll do my best to forget it and start working on the next shot.

Oh, it's also true that, from time to time I let my head get to me. I might think a negative thought such as, "What's he going to think when he sees how bad I am?" And I doubt if you'll be surprised to learn that when I start thinking that way, my shooting gets bad, then worse, then absolutely awful. Negative thoughts mess me up faster than bad ammo. With bad ammo I might get the occasional lucky shot where two errors offset each other and the hole ends up in the X ring. It happens. Sometimes you get lucky.

But when your head goes, when you start talking down to yourself, the shots are gonna get wider and wilder. If you can't get your mind under control, it's hopeless.

Bullseye is a head game: To shoot right, you've got to think right.

And Bullseye is a control game: If you don't control your thoughts, they'll mess you up.

I recently had the awesome privilege of shooting with only two shooters on the line, me and another shooter at an indoor range and he was one of, if not the very best Bullseye shooter in the world.

We fired two NMCs for the NRA Indoor postal, 22 and CF. He stood right next to me and fired a 599, one point short of perfection.

When the shooting was done and targets collected, we swapped. He scored my targets and I scored his and, yes, I really looked hard at that nine, hoping there was some way it would turn out to be a ten. But no, it was a nine. No question about it.

When I handed him the targets I said, "Sorry, but I have to score this target with one shot in the nine ring." He looked and agreed. No hard feelings. It was a nine.

On my way home from the range, though, I realized I was looking at this wrong. It wasn't important that he'd fired a nine. What he had accomplished instead was fifty-nine tens and Xs. Out of 60 shots fired in a half hour, he'd put 59 of them in the ten or the X ring. 59 tens!

Holy Cow!!

And you know what else? He puts his pants on the same way I do.

He's got brown hair and so do I.

He stands at the firing line and pours everything he has into each shot. I've done that, albeit with less consistency, but I know I can do it too.

And he's also a really nice guy, married, likes a good joke, sometimes shoots with a couple of day's growth on his face. I do all of that, too.

Role models are good.

Remember: somebody will be looking.

Focus, do your best, punch a hole in the X.

The Attraction of Bullseye

2008-01-02T15:22:00.000-07:00

Seven-eighths of the way through the first day of work after the Christmas and New Years holidays and it suddenly hit me why we like Bullseye.

It's quite simple: it's because it's simple.

To shoot an X, get good quality equipment and ammunition, stand in a stable position, line up the sights, forget the wobble, focus your attention on the front sight while maintaining the alignment and all the while moving the trigger straight back, and "Bang!", you'll shoot an X.

Now I know that sounds like a lot and, trust me, saying is a lot easier than doing but, nonetheless, if you do what it says in the previous paragraph, you'll shoot an X. And if you can do it again and again, you'll shoot X after X. It really is that simple!

But when I look at "real life", things are not so simple. Shooting an X in your day to day life is a whole lot more difficult.

First of all, there are an enormous number of rules to follow. I got a bunch from my Mom and Dad (which sometimes conflict), of course, and my wife has her own set, too. The state of Arizona has its rules some of which are dramatically different as of the first of the year (so don't be drinking and driving here, to mention just one change). Then there are the US laws to know and follow not to mention those I read or hear about on Sundays.

The boss seems to have his own ideas, too. Not always knowing what he has in mind, it gets a little confusing sometimes. ("Faith" is a useful concept in many places, not just church.)

And we all know that the customer is always right, don't we? Don't we??

Second, the rules in real life keep changing.

Everybody is up to date on all the US income tax changes for the year just ended, right?

New state and federal laws?

But thank goodness I've got a good strong moral foundation. That never changes, right? (Well, I vote Republican or Libertarian now but, yes, there was a time when I thought the Democrats really knew what they were doing. Oh but don't get me started.) Suffice it to say that, yeah, my ideas of right and wrong have been tested by the winds of time and there are a few bent reeds from all that.

Oh, life would be so much easier if we just had a rulebook, wouldn't it?

And I guess that's why I like Bullseye. There *is* a rulebook, and there *is* an easy to remember way of shooting absolute perfection.

A little memorizing, a little practice -- well, maybe a *lot* of practice -- and, voila, X after X after X.

Bullseye really is simple. Just do what it says and, "Bang!", there's your X.

So here I am now with a half-hour to go in the workday. I'm hunkered down in my hole in the ground and, you can bet your bottom dollar that after what's been flying back and forth already today, I'm not stickin' *my* head out. Nope, no way. I'm staying down here in my hole and I ain't comin' out no matter what.

Instead, I'm dreaming of something simple.

I'm mentally lining up the sights, keeping my attention focused on the front sight and moving that trigger straight back.

Bang!

An X!

Yeah, I could spend a lot more time shootin' Xs, a *lot* more time.

Why can't life be this simple?

Bang!

Another X!

Oh yeah. A fella' could get used to this.

I *like* simple.

Your Bullseye Gun as an Investment

2007-11-22T10:10:00.000-07:00

I've heard it said that the value of firearms increase over time, especially if they are cared for. But I also know that, over time, inflation causes prices to increase and things for which I paid a little years ago are now much more expensive. So I wondered, are my guns really holding their value?

A posting at the Smith and Wesson forum displayed a model 41 and its purchase receipt from 1958. The new gun cost $110.00 (before sales tax). See http://smith-wessonforum.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/520103904/m/6351058262.

Consulting the "Inflation Calculator" at the US Department of Labor (http://stats.bls.gov/), that's the same as $795.26 in 2007 dollars.

You'll almost certainly pay more than that for a new model 41 now and, even with a normal amount of wear and tear, my 41 has probably increased in value since I bought it new a couple of years ago. I am, therefore, confident I could sell it for more than I paid.

And while it is true that my 41 may not be accruing the best annual return when compared to other investments, it is also true that my 401(k) won't hold the X ring at 25 yards but my 41 will.

Shooting Strange Guns

2007-05-25T15:38:00.000-07:00

I travel for a living. My job often sends me out on a Monday and home again on Friday but sometimes there's a Sunday "out" or a Saturday "back" day. As such, it's difficult for me to shoot the Tuesday evening Nighthawks here in Phoenix. Worse, I often miss the once-a-month 2700s on Sundays when an outbound leg starts with a mid-afternoon flight.

So, I try to find weeknight leagues in which to shoot at my destination. In so doing, I shoot at a lot of different ranges, experience the occasional "unique to this range" rules, and most enjoyably, I get to meet a lot of really nice people.

On occasion, however, I travel to places that aren't particularly "gun friendly." That is, the local laws either prohibit or otherwise discourage me from bringing my own guns. And some airlines are even more un-friendly in this regard.

But even when gun-less on my travels, I still like go to local events. The people are still friendly and it's still a sport I enjoy even if I don't shoot. I look at the guns and talk with the owners, watch how the shooter's shoot (and note the consequent results) and enjoy my "night out" from work.

And as you might imagine, shooters offer their backup guns (and ammo!) to let me shoot on an almost unfailing basis. I'm more than a little embarassed to count up how often I've shot someone else's gun and ammo only to leave them a dirty gun and empty brass. (I do try to sneak a couple of bucks to the owner to make up for what I've consumed but, having cleaned my own 1911s many times, I know there's nothing I can do to compensate them for their time. I am truly grateful.)

But it does give me a chance to shoot a lot of different guns and, over that experience, I've started to form some opinions about how to adapt to different grips and triggers and, much to my surprise, I find that what's important aren't competition versus slab grips, dots versus iron sights or flat versus arched mainspring housing. But before I tell you "the secret", let me tell you the routine I've developed for shooting a strange gun in Bullseye competition.

First, with a borrowed gun, one of my cardinal rules is to leave the gun with the same adjustments as when I started. If I need six clicks up, I'm always careful to crank six clicks down before returning the gun. And the same for the dot size: I've started shooting with a big orange dot but I try to note what the owner prefers and put it back that way when I'm done.

But for a competition grip, that pretty much means I can't move the palm shelf up or down. There are no marks and it would be difficult to get it back to the original position. This means that "grip" is often less than ideal. Indeed, there is almost always some awkwardness and, in many cases, it's just downright close to painful. I've shot some competition grips where my (big) hand could only be jammed in as far as my knuckles while leaving most of my hand hanging out the back. Other times, holding the grips felt like hanging on to a 3" diameter piece of pipe with no contact above or below my hand. (If I can't hang on to the gun safely, I don't shoot. This has only come up once.)

Ideal finger placement on the trigger is often impossible. Indeed, sometimes even a "reasonable placement" can be beyond my ability to control. If I can't get my hand into the grip, odds are I'm just barely going to be able to reach the trigger with the tip of the finger. Or if the grip is like that of a broom handle, my finger will be all the way through the trigger guard and in danger of going well beyond the first knuckle.

All of that is noticed and dealt with before ever raising the gun to see how the sights line up with my eye. And in most cases, the gun is pointed off at some scarey angle or, at a minimum, at a target three or four positions away from mine. So I have to stop, try and adjust how and where the gun fits in my hand, and in some cases, horror of horror, I even have to bend my wrist to make eye, rear sight and front sight all line up.

Once that's accomplished (and I shuffle my feet so I'm then lined up on my target), it's time to learn the trigger.

"Learn the trigger." Now there's an understatement!

I have been utterly astonished at the variety of triggers I've experienced. Some guns have a lot of take-up, some have virtually none. Some have a long springy feel followed by a larger amount of resistance, others have virtually none. Some slide smooth as glass from there until the shot breaks, some feel like I'm pushing a red brick across a slab of concrete (fortunately there aren't too many of those), and some have virtually no movement whatsoever before the break. There are the "gee, was that even two pounds?" triggers, the "is the safety still on or something?" triggers, and the "ooh, that was nice!" triggers.

I carry half a dozen 22LR dummy rounds so I can dry fire the target guns of that caliber since you aren't supposed to dry fire many of them. And with the center fire guns, I always ask the owner, "May I dry fire it?"

But during a weeknight league, everyone isn't standing around waiting on me to learn the gun. Instead, I get a quick "here's how this gun operates" lesson from the owner and then it's time for the first Slow Fire target. I will use up several of that first target's ten minutes working out these details.

One of the hardest things to figure out during this time is how to move the trigger straight back. With different guns, my trigger finger lands on the trigger in different ways. Sometimes it is flat and at a right angle but, when the grip fits me poorly, sometimes all I can manage is a finger tip at a steep angle. Consequently, each gun requires a different way of moving the trigger finger in order to get that straight back direction.

Heavy triggers with big fat grips are particularly challenging because it's hard to get the trigger finger "around there" and flat on the trigger. Instead, if all that can be managed is a finger tip at an angle, mustering enough strength to pressure it straight back can require an inordinate amount of effort. And that has to be done over and over throughout the evening.

At the Sunnyvale (California) Gun Club on a recent Wednesday evening, I had the privilege of shooting a Hammerli 280 with iron sights (thanks, Liz) and then a Masaki 1911 set up for wad ammo with a red dot (thank you, Norman).

For those who don't know, the very, very, very best handguns are referred to not by their manufacturers but, rather, by the name of the gunsmith who worked on them. Well, Ed Masaki had brought this particular 1911 to utter perfection. His work is legend in the sport. Shooters wait years -- I'm not exaggerating -- for one of his guns.

The slide on this 1911 was bank vault tight and moved just as smoothly. Shooting the wad loads, the action was so silky I hardly noticed the recoil. If it hadn't been for the loud bang when the round fired, I would have removed my hearing protection just to hear the gun cycle.

Both the Hammerli and the Masaki shot magnificently that evening. I shot a (respectable for me) 531-7 out of 600 with the Hammerli. That's 88.5% with iron sights, well into my current SharpShooter ranking. I was happy with that.

Ah, but the Masaki was another story, I'm afraid. Perhaps I was over-confident. Perhaps I rushed through the preparations. Clearly, I didn't dry-fire enough to figure out that straight back motion because it seemed that after every shot, the gun would turn to me slightly and say, "You pushed me left on that shot." We (me and the gun) would hunker down for another shot but, again, the gun would sneer, "Nope, you flipped me a little bit left again."

And just as I was tempted to crank in 2-3" right on the sight, everything would feel perfect and we would shoot an X.

"There," the gun would seem to say, "you did me just right. See what we can do?"

But sadly, the repeatable fine control needed to shoot straight at 50 or even at 25 yards with that gun was beyond me that night. I knew it could be done, could do it every now and then, but doing it over and over again was more than I could manage that night.

So, what have I learned from all this, you might ask? Is it better to stick with one gun and learn to shoot it accurately before starting over with another gun? Or is there profit to be had in shooting many different guns and "dealing with" the issues and learning to shoot in spite of them?

What I've found is that in both approaches, the lessons to be learned are the same. Regardless of whether you want to shoot one gun or many guns, regardless of whether you prefer red dots or irons, slab or competition grips, roll or crisp or light or heavy triggers, the one (1) thing to be learned is the same.

The one (1) thing to be learned is to align the sights and move the trigger straight back.

Everything thing else can be adjusted, compensated, ignored, held funny, squished awkwardly, accompanied with long slow "effort noises" or whatever else might be needed.

Just align the sights and move the trigger straight back, that's all.

Everything else is minor. Everything else can be imperfect. Everything else is irrelevent.

Align the sights and move the trigger straight back.

Don't think, just do it.

That's it. Straight back now...

BANG!

There, see? You can do it!

Align the sights and move the trigger straight back.

Good.

Now, let's try it again.

(Thanks, coach!)

Consolidation

2007-05-07T07:47:00.000-07:00

The Learning Process takes place in a couple of radically different phases.

The first comes when we have some experience that ignites the quest for learning. When the interest is deep, that flame may flicker over time but it doesn't go out. Instead it may come and go like the phases of the moon.

For Bulleye, the spark that started me down this path happened a couple of years ago when a friend at work took me shooting. That spark manifested itself in a cowboy six shooter firing 357 magnum rounds. Boy, was that a bad choice for the beginner -- I was terrible and that huge explosion made it all the worse. Nonetheless, one of my best memories is a shot fired from that gun with my adult son behind me and the huge blast of incadescent gas. I heard him exclaim, "Woah!" and it had been a long time since Dad had impressed his Son like that. It brought back some forgotten father/son memories. And I cherished the moment for that.

The second phase of learning is when we actively take in new knowledge. This may come from books, from watching others, from advice read on the Bullseye-L list or from innumerable other sources. Studying takes place.

You name it and I've probably got it on my book shelf, or probably it's on loan to someone (and probably not coming back). Elmer Keith is there, so are Jerry Kuhnhausen and Robert A. Rinker. The Pistol Marksmanship Guide from the USAMU gets a re-read from time to time as does The Pistol Shooter's Treasury from Gil Hebard. And there are a dozen other books from shooters in related disciplines who all have something instructive to add. I've got the Bullseye DVD from the CMP and the more recent dry-fire practice DVD from Tillman Eddy. They're all good. They all have something to teach.

Training falls into this same phase. Whether you train with a coach who watches, suggests and corrects, or whether you train by watching yourself and, comparing your performance to others or what you've read, training is learning.

Every source of information, whether a book or an instructor, has a different way of teaching. I suppose there may be those who can read one book or take one session from a coach and then go and do it perfectly but that's not me. With all the distractions in my life including family and work, house and friends, taxes and television, Bullseye has been a long climb.

For me, I need those different ways of saying many of the same things, reading, watching and coaching, so I can get it.

Call me dense. Ok, I'm dense.

Call me stubborn. Ok, I'm stubborn.

But you can also call me persistent, dogged and determined.

Because I've always known that just getting it isn't enough. In Bullseye, you've also got to do it. And as I'm sure you all know, knowing and doing are two very different things.

Bullseye isn't a written test where you get a written score. Bullseye is about doing, about performing when it matters.

Moving from knowing to doing is where most of us spend a lot of time and ammo. And that transition involves an intermediate phase, the third in the learning process. This third phase has two activities, practice and consolidation. Practice what you've learned and consolidate it with what you are already doing.

Sometimes the consolidation is easy. The new skill just fits right in. Other times, a new skill wrecks what used to work and you have to go back and reassemble the picture with new answers.

Well, for the past several months, my progress shooting Bullseye has been difficult to see from the score card. Indeed, it looks like I've slid backward; my scores with the 1911s (both wad and ball, red dot and irons) have declined or only made, at best, no more than nominal improvement. And my 22 scores have not progressed to any substantial degree.

To the outsider and perhaps to those who stood at the line at yesterday's practice 2700 in Phoenix, my performance now is perplexing. It certainly was to me. My scores were down and some of what I used to do fairly well didn't happen. I was disappointed as my scores plummeted from CF to 45 even though I was shooting the same gun and, to no small degree, I was perplexed at my performance.

But, with a night's sleep to put things in perspective, I think I'm right about something I've been suspecting about my shooting. That is, for several weeks I've started to feel that I don't really understand "trigger control". I can tell you the definition but, to borrow a word from science fiction author Robert Heinlein, I don't "Grok" trigger control.

Suddenly, I know what it is that I don't know: I don't know how to control the trigger.

I have consolidated a lot of lessons and that's good.

All of the things I've been reading, trying, practicing, rejecting and trying something else before ultimately accepting what works for me, and then occasionally discovering that what worked at one level of ability becomes counter-productive later and that I've got to sometimes go back to the basics and re-learn old teaching for new lessons, ... all of that has been consolidated into a bundle I will now call "the basics."

I know how to stand. I know my NPA. I know how to grip all my guns, and each of my guns. I know where my trigger finger needs to be on each of their triggers and where I need to feel the pressure.

All of that knowledge is consolidated. When I go to the line and get ready to shoot, it all just happens. I know what to do.

And with all of those basics nicely packaged and in place, I now discover that I really don't know how to shoot.

Intellectually, I know how the muscles in my hand need to feel to move the trigger straight back, but I don't know. The "I" in this is the whole creature that is me: brain, bones, muscles, fibers, nerves and fluids. The brain knows but the rest of the creature doesn't.

The bottom line is that "I" don't know how to move that trigger straight back without disturbing the sights.

I can hit the "X" but when I do it, it's not through trigger control. It's luck, it's snatching the trigger at the right time and in the right way, but only rarely is it moving the trigger straight back without disturbing the sights.

I need to learn that.

And Bullseye isn't about doing it just once.

I've raised the gun, done everything right and shot an "X" on the very first shot of several matches. But to do that again, and again, and again for 269 more shots (or 299 if there's a leg match) is quite something else.

Some will say that the most important lessons to learn in Bullseye are sight alignment and trigger control. Having the basics somewhat in place, I am beginning to understand not only how vital those two are, but also just how difficult they are to master.

Knowing and doing are two different things. But I would add that doing and doing on demand are, again, two different things.

In this period of consolidation for the past several months, I've begun to suspect that "mastering" the basics is a good, valuable and essential first step, but no more than that. It's a good start.

What remains is to master sight alignment and trigger control, and to not do it just once or twice per target or match but truly master them and do them again, and again, and again, round after round, target after target, match after match.

My admiration of shooters in the High Master category has skyrocketed in the past few months. I now have a very small inkling of understanding of what they do and it is truly awesome.

Now when I watch someone who hits that 10 ring over and over -- Steve Reiter cleaned two slow fire targets yesterday -- I am at a loss for words.

I'm not being trite when I say, "Nice shot!" Instead, I am dumbfounded.

I know that everyone single one of those shots truly was a "Nice shot!"

The tasks before me are to consolidate the learned skills but then to focus on the front sight and move the trigger straight back.

Trigger control.

It's time for me to learn some trigger control.

So simple.

So hard.