"Successful Pistol Shooting" by Hickey

It was a struggle to stay with this five hundred page thesis.  If you took out all of the bashing that he does of the AMU's guidebook, I think you'd be left with maybe fifty pages.  It was however interesting learning about his theory that a very rapid shot process from raising the arm to bang, actually gives greatest accuracy.  There were a whole bunch of neurological reasons that I tried to follow but I know nothing about motor control and learning theory so I can't really tell if his theory is the real deal, but it does make pretty good sense.  Normally if you want to do something more accurately you slow down but repetition and the increased precision that this gives you will take care of that, leaving you to benefit in other ways related to less "signal distortion" when you do something faster.  
But he sure sounds bitter that the armed forces are not asking him to teach their shooters.

Just my personal opinion, but for me it was the only book on shooting that I've read so far that I got nothing of any real value from reading. Your experience or feelings may be different.  It just says what Brian and lots of others have said in a different way that seems to make the author happy with a whole bunch of extra words and opinions. 

CR

Horrible book but you can learn a few things from it.

If it was a pamphlet or a blog post, it would be worth a read, but I would probably complain that he says to make the trigger pull an automatic response to sights aligning, but doesn't really tell you HOW to make it automatic.

500 pages is indeed a struggle. I read it... once.

"Writing about shooting is like dancing about architecture."

That may be misquoted

So a friend was one of the "rifle shooters" that Sievers used to teach pistol at the Academy. That friend also had the highest expert qualification rate for his midshipmen of any of the trainers. Co-incidentally he had shot Pistol on base teams for several years, had read every pistol book available,  and spent time around Hamilton and other 2600+ shooters before being allowed to take up the rifle (he was short and couldn't reach the front swivel of the M1 without firmgrip). He was very good at condensing concepts into lessons. 

He had me read the book before we ever talked about the method. Like most of you, I realized that the book would have made a great pamphlet. Sight alignment and trigger control. The regimen works especially well at 25 yards. It's a good way to get to the level of being able to start the USMC Workbook, in my opinion. Pair it with blank target groups and other methods and it's even better.

For some info about the training that first year at the Naval Academy. The coaches had 30 minutes each day one on one with a midshipman. Four days were training and the fifth was qual. That was it.

I knew Art Sievers and he always harped on sight alignment and trigger control.  Of course he was very much a Pre-optics coach so it made sense.  That this book is a rant is both sad and disheartening.  

RIP Art.

Hey, he was right about sight alignment and trigger control. It works, every time.

He was less right about people and how to treat them. He was way less right about champions and how to make them in my opinion. Hamilton succeeded in spite of Sievers, Blankenship and McMillian did too. In fact it was pointed out to me that no one could name a National Pistol Champion who had exclusively used his method.