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While at the range today ... I was making a run through the Bianchi
Plates. For those not familiar, it is shot on a Bianchi plate
rack. Six 8-inch plates spaced evenly on a horizontal plane that must
fall to score. You engage each target with one round each in eight separate
strings at 10, 15, 20 and 25 yards. You have fixed time limits of
6, 7, 8 and 9 seconds, respectively. You only get 6 shots per
string. Each target hit scores 10 points and you make two runs at
each distance. 48 targets equate to a possible 480 points. Your score is
simply how many plates you hit times 10. From standing, gun
holstered, hands at side or in the surrender position, an excellent
score is 400. Anyone above that is indeed a good shot.
I used this
stage as my first DrillMasters test recently with a few of my friends. Some made the magical
score of 400, some did not. An interesting observation was,
those that scored very high, indeed know how to pull the trigger and
hold the gun on the target while doing so. You can do it all wrong and
hit the plates at ten yards, but you can do it all nearly right and still miss at 25. It
is a very revealing drill. And humbling. The trick is to let the gun surprise
you when it goes off. This pretty much insures you are not jerking or
pulling the gun out of alignment at the moment of ignition. However, it
can be hard to tell if you are pulling. I am not talking about trigger
jerking, but something far worse. Let me explain.
Have you ever fired a shot that looked perfect but ended up landing
nowhere near the point of aim? We all have. What happens much of the
time here is what I call a "pull". It is generally caused by trying to
fire a shot, on demand, as the gun becomes aligned on the target. You see
the sights where you need them and then give yourself the command to
fire. The problem is, you should be telling yourself, instead, to
pull the trigger. A command to fire can be confusing to the
conscious mind, which tries to initiate a series of events that happen when you shoot.
But it gets them in the wrong order much of the time, or does more than
one at once. Let me run through a series of events.
First, the sight picture is attained, signifying alignment has been
attained. Next, the trigger finger adds pressure to the trigger. The
trigger is moved far enough to cause the firing mechanism of the gun to
function and the gun discharges, all while you attempt to maintain
alignment. As the bullet leaves the barrel, muzzle lift becomes
noticeable. As the muzzle lifts higher, the gun is pulled down from flip
back into alignment for the possible next shot. This order of events can
not be altered drastically without something going astray. At close
distances shooting slow, on easy targets, a timing mistake, where the
string of events gets out of order, which moves the gun slightly out of
alignment, may go unnoticed. If the difficulty of the shot is great, even
a slight movement may cause the shot to be bad. This is where the work
begins.
First, move the trigger without moving anything else. This is easier
said than done. Next, see the sight lift in recoil. This insures you saw
it through the ignition phase. Third, avoid trying to cause the gun to
return to alignment. You will tend to overcorrect and cause the gun to
travel back through alignment making the gun point low. Instead,
try to hold the gun on target through the firing sequence.
Expect to see some muzzle flip. Those that claim they can keep the
gun from flipping are terribly close to pulling. I know from my
own shooting experience, that I pull hard on the gun to return it from recoil, as I
do not try stop that flip. Speed comes from returning the gun to
alignment fast, not from stopping flip altogether.
This is a very basic, important technique, but it is the most common mistake I run across.
RL |
