Anticipating recoil.

First topic message reminder :

Is there a sure fire way to rid one's self of anticipating recoil with the .45? I think I'm getting worse instead of better. Maybe someone can give me that one bit of advice that I have yet to try and it will cure this slump I'm in. I'm shooting near Expert scores with the .22 in training today, but couldn't break 700 with the .45 if my life depended on it. Toss the advise out there, verbally abuse me if necessary, I can take it, I need it. Thank you.

Obviously shooting BE is a process. It’s too easy unfortunately to get wrapped up on certain aspects, recoil being one of them. Recoil is a good thing! It means you fired the shot.
Why it’s a process? You got into your stance, you made sure your grip was correct, you took some breaths, you placed your finger on the trigger you raised your arm, you took up the trigger slack and started squeezing the trigger……….why? So the pistol would fire a shot into the 10 ring.
As I’ve said many times before you can slightly screw up your stance, grip, breathing, sight picture/alignment and still shoot 10’s if your trigger control is good.
I use an extremely short roll on my pistols. You need to have feedback from your trigger. No feedback equals good shots and bad shots. You need to know that your pistol is about to fire. Newbies get taught that the shot should be a surprise. I agree with that because it’s building a fundamental. But as you progress into the higher classifications you need to know when that shot is close to breaking. Back to the short roll. A good BE trigger will break quickly with no waiting around for the shot to break. The longer you hold the likelihood of a less than desirable shot becomes more prevalent, thus the faster breaking trigger. If you like crisp triggers it still needs to break fast. The short roll when squeezed fast just breaks fast. The roll felt when squeezing slower lets me know that the trigger is moving and I know it will break very soon. This gives me confidence! Repeat, this gives me confidence! I’m confident that the pistol is about to fire and I know my aim is true and I will be shooting a 10. If my aim is slightly off I will continue to squeeze the trigger and make a sighting correction to shoot the 10. So I knew what the 10 looked like and I knew what the trigger squeeze of a 10 felt like, but what did the 10 feel like when fired? It takes recoil to know what a 10 felt like. Recoil is your friend. When my pistol recoils I know immediately whether it was a 10 or not. Because I know what a 10 looks like and what a 10 feels like. So let recoil be your friend. I look forward to the recoil as much as I do squeezing the trigger because it is part of the process. So maybe if you look at recoil as part of the process instead of a necessary evil you will shoot better. Also using the hottest loads that give the best accuracy isn’t always your best friend. Shoot comfortable loads that still hold roughly 2” at 50 yards and you will have much less recoil to contend with and still be capable of cleaning a SF target.
Jon

I think that second quote above was me quoting someone else.

I know what "flinch" is, as I used to do it reliably.  Took a full box of hardball before I learned to ignore the explosion.

Two of my rounds today didn't fire until the second stroke.  Not sure why, but I was pleased that for both of them, my sights didn't move at all.  At least not that I could see.


Maybe I'm using the word "anticipation" incorrectly.  If any of you guys think back to your shooting before you got good, what was the difference between taking a dry-fire shot or a live fire shot at the range?  

My answer - dry-fire means nothing is going to happen, no recoil, no noise, no hole to look at afterwards.  It is totally "safe" - take the shot, then analyze what you did.  With live fire, it is "for real", so there seems to be more pressure on the shooter (me) to perform.  At least that was true before Cecil posted what he did.  Between Dave and Cecil, live firing now feels like dry firing.  Seeing the holes in a nice place reinforces that feeling.  

I totally agree with what you wrote - "anticipation is a mental concern".  The cure is in your head, not your hands.  



Regarding what you wrote about the 22, you're probably correct, in the text book sense.  Maybe when I go to a match, I'll eventually do better, assuming I start shooting one handed.  But that's not why I'm doing this.  I enjoy going to the range, hanging out with the people there, and shooting.  I *really* enjoy shooting the Salyer (wish I bought it years ago!!!), and while the M-52 is supposed to be so difficult to shoot, I'm loving every minute of it (more so after the help that got my targets looking at least reasonable).  In the two matches at HRPC I've done, I wasn't "competing".  It was lots of fun!  I treated the whole thing as a lot of controlled practice.  That's maybe not what this forum is about, but it's definitely what I'm about.  I would like to shoot my three Bullseye guns well (M-41, M-52, and Salyer).  At some point I want to start shooting my revolvers again, because that was also total fun and enjoyment.  ......gee, I hope any of that makes sense.  Hard to put my thoughts and feelings into print.

I haven't followed this thread except for an occasional glance. I've found that the recoil is an aid to set up the next shot in sustained fire.  With a firm hold, the arm muscles naturally reacts to the recoil and bring the sights back towards the target after the shot.  The key is to experiment with the correct load.  With too hot of a load, I often try unnecessarily more to get back on target.  With too light of a load, I often become too complacent and try to dress up the shot resulting in a less than optimum shot.

Mike38 wrote:Is there a sure fire way to rid one's self of anticipating recoil with the .45? I think I'm getting worse instead of better. Maybe someone can give me that one bit of advice that I have yet to try and it will cure this slump I'm in. I'm shooting near Expert scores with the .22 in training today, but couldn't break 700 with the .45 if my life depended on it. Toss the advise out there, verbally abuse me if necessary, I can take it, I need it. Thank you.

I think I got this thread off topic - the original question was shooting with a .45 and having problems because of anticipation.  

I was looking through The Pistol Shooter's Treasury recently, and one suggestion there was to just go to the range with a case of "hardball" and shoot it all.  I guess the concept is you can get used to anything if you do it often enough.

I tried it long ago, and it did work for me.  I got so used to the explosion and noise that I started to ignore it.  

If anticipation is all "mental", that would explain why the box of hardball worked so well.    

Mike, I'm not trying be a jerk but get 10,000 round of 45 downrange shooting one handed, it will help a lot. Mix some dry firing between range session for added benefit. I had a hell of a time with recoil my first 2 years and into the 3rd, last year stuff started clicking. This will be my 4th year and I had to get 500 rounds downrange to knock off the rust with the 45, I had limited big gun practice over the Winter. At the end of the day if your brain reacts negatively to recoil as most do you must condition it otherwise. I'm a believer that moving pounds of lead from your bore to the berm will help cure this.

Jon, I like your explanation about getting the shot off. I finally figured it's not about how long I'm holding that pistol in slow fire, it's following my mental plan. After follow through I get ready for next shot, relax shoulders and I breath, visualize, then I mentally say the commands and fire as soon as possible when at the command fire. This has put about 7 or 8 points on my .22 shooting 300s, somedays in practice I'll shoot 270s. I seem to spend most of my time preparing for the next slowfire shot than holding, although I think I'm aborting a little more too.
  Jon, I've never shot a roll trigger, but knowing when it's going to break would definitely have an advantage in slowfire as you've explained. Does a roll trigger affect the reset and do the hammer hooks have more length and positive angle thereby pushing the hammer back before releasing it? If a 3.5 lb trigger pull, is it at the end or up front on the beginning of the trigger pull?
 Stan

Making a trigger roll has many variables to make it roll; hammer hooks and sear angles/radius. Truthfully no two are exactly alike, so there is trial and error to get it just right. They can roll (creep) at beginning or middle of pull. Rarely at the end because it breaks. That’s why I call it short. A true roll that rolls entire length of pull doesn’t give much feedback. It just pulls smoothly through. A Pardini roll is like that.
My opinion anyhow.
Jon

CR10X wrote: .........I can't listen and think at the same time, I can't talk and think at the same time, and I sure can't drink and think at the same time.  So when I'm really focusing on driving the gun to the center of aiming area ..........I really am not even aware of the shot being fired until I see the dot start to life upwards from its previous motion, or the front sight lifting out of the notch ........

From my point of view, as an OK but not excellent shooter, this one thing Cecil wrote relates the most to my shooting.   Not that the other things may be less important, but without "anticipation" I'll be doing what I'm capable of doing, without it being masked by my messing up the aim because of the oncoming explosion.  Really focusing, to the exclusion of anything else, on the sights or dot eliminated my anticipation - no room left in the brain to deal with what's coming.

I noticed this yesterday, and as long as I followed that advice, I forgot about (actually, didn't think about) anticipation.

"Anticipating the Shot"

http://mentalfloss.com/article/58566/12-most-distracting-extras-movie-history

Ha! Smart kid!