Shooting my 586 at 100 Yards- Video- and I'd like DA Shooting tips

Nice shooting. Thanks for posting. I always enjoy watching someone shooting a revolver (especially in DA) well.

Dontkillbill said:

The question is do you stage your double action shots or do you smoothly run your shots?

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Smoothly. No (intentional) staging.

Dontkillbill said:

Might start a youtube challenge for long range

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Unfortunately for me, our rifle range is paper target and rifle only, and our pistol bays (also paper only) don't go beyond 50 yards.

I just posted this on another thread (the "it" being the trigger pull):

MrBorland said:

Start the pull and finish it smoothly. You can abort the shot if all doesn't look right, but mentally commit a smooth and complete pull before you start it. If the sights are aligned when you start, they ought to be aligned when the shot breaks. Do as Yoda drilled: "Try not. Do or do not. There is no try"

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Smoothly for me. Trying to stage throws the sights out of alignment. I start the pull slowly so the sights stay in alignment then speed up the pull as I pull through. By the time I finish the pull I've zoomed right past the final take up stage as if it weren't there and the sights stay in alignment. If I haven't messed up somewhere along the way that is. There's plenty of chances to mess up.

When I was doing a lot of shooting with a 3" Model 36, I used to fire some at 100 yards. A lot of holdover was needed, but I could usually keep them all in a silhouette target at that range, shooting DA off hand. It was less fun with a Model 28 because misses were less common. The best 100 yd. handgun group I ever saw fired (not by me) was under 3", shot off a bench with a Model 27.

Jim

After some staging and smooth pulls early on I found that I consistently did better with a smooth and full pull with no staging.

On the whole a full smooth commited pull will let you do so in the background while you're focusing on holding the sight picture.

For the brief time where I thought it was a good idea to stage the trigger I'd have moment of brilliance but lots of flyers. I later realized that by staging the trigger the tendency was to snap off the rest of the travel. And that sudden movement caused more problems than it cured.

So one smooth pull to the rear travel limit. And HOLD it back there through the whole recoil kick. Only when the gun settles down should you then ease up to let the trigger reset.

This last part applies to SA shots as well. It's simply that the trigger doesn't have as far to go.

I think you're on the right track with your trigger control.

I see you looking over the sights immediately after the shot breaks in an attempt to see the round hit. This plays havoc on a consistent follow through and is a common habit with many shooters. Just like holding your trigger through the recoil cycle, let the pistol/revolver settle back into your natural point of aim after each shot. Eventually you'll be able to call your shots and spotting every round won't really be necessary.

Hey, I just realized that your picture was actually a link to a video. Yeah, I'm not the sharpest pencil in the drawer today...

You look to have a nice follow through. So that part is good. But as pointed out above perhaps you're a trifle quick to check out how you did.

And remember what I said above about staging leads to tending to snap off the last bit? I'd suggest that it showed itself with the "7th" shot where you can see a little flinch going on. You may have a flinch but it's more likely that the tendency to snap shoot the last little big after slowly and hesitantly staging the trigger is leading you to flinch a little. Work on a smooth and moderately fast trigger pull. Try to make the full and smooth pull occur over about 1/2 a second. By forcing you to perform the pull a touch faster the idea is to force you to not be tempted to stage the trigger. It'll also avoid the hesitation I'm seeing in the DA pull.

Remember, you do want the trigger to move when it wants to move. You are there to smoothly build up the pressure. But I've yet to find a gun which stops and starts like you're getting. Hence why I'm suggesting you speed up the DA pull a little.

Grant Cunningham's book on the revolver has an excellent section on running the trigger. Rather than staging the trigger he suggests letting your trigger finger slide across the face of the trigger rather than "pinching" the trigger between the first and second segments of your trigger finger.

regarding left-handed shooting (am assuming one hand shooting):

a lot of dry-fire practice. don't overdo it at first as your trigger finger is probably not used to pulling a ten pound trigger (mine wasn't and i pulled something).

do a thr search on "eye dominance" if you have that problem.

patience is good as it will take a while to learn something new.

murf

wow- 6 at 50 yards, weak hand? Tough match.

Anyhow, I agree with Murf about dry fire. It's especially useful for getting over that odd & clumsy feeling of using a tool with your weak hand.

Weak hand shooting is the bane of many competitive shooters, mostly because they've built up mental luggage about it and/or don't practice it. The silver lining is that if you practice a bit, it can be your ace in the whole, and the more weak hand shooting there is, the more advantage you have over your competition.

On the weak hand stuff? Just concentrate on the basics. It'll be easier if you work on some strong hand only shooting as well. Swtich back and forth from cylinder to cylinder and maybe even shot to shot and concentrate on mirroring everything from your hand hold to your body stance and down to your foot placement.

It's funny but I quite often shoot BETTER with my weak hand only tasks simply due to taking a couple of more seconds and using a stronger focus on the basics of grip and stance just because I know it's my "weak hand". If I maintained the same focus when shooting strong hand only or two handed I'd be winning stuff a lot more....

Please spray the target white so we can see the hits and do some target analysis. The problem here is we don't know where you're hitting, only that you are hitting.

String 1: You are raising your head slightly after every shot. I can tell you are no longer looking at the sights because you open your left eye. Give that a two count after every shot. The fourth shot went vertically low, which is classic failure to do follow through.

You should see two sight pictures for every shot. Think "sight picture", "bang", "sight picture"--then raise your head to look.

String 3: Last shot was high and right. Sight picture is important! Make sure your point of aim on the target accounts for bullet movement vertically. I am not sure of that load's trajectory.

One trick I use for DA work is to tighten my support hand's index finger around the middle finger of the trigger hand. This seems to settle the sights through the DA pull.

You should see two sight pictures for every shot. Think "sight picture", "bang", "sight picture"--then raise your head to look.

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I'm not a fan of the "raise your head to look" technique if it means peeking between shots. Peeking between shots isn't one of the fundamentals or shooting, but it is a real accuracy killer, IMO. Just get a good sight picture and release the shot smoothly. Don't concern yourself with the target after a shot. Do the fundamentals well, and the target takes care of itself. Your mind is simply now on and only on executing the next shot well.

Don't forget a can of white spray paint so you can do some target analysis. You may need to adjust your sights a bit.

Is that a 5" or 6" barrel on that 586?

Nice job!

Dog gone it, I wish I had the knowledge and camera to post pics and video. Last week end my buddy bet me I could hit a target at 100 yds. with my little 2-1/2" 66-5 within 2 shots DA. My 66 has had some work, very smooth and clean trigger pull, rather heavy pull, but very clean. Well, I won that bet, and in fact hit the target center mass 6 out of 6 shots. But it wasn't really a fare bet since I know my gun well, and my 296 load just as well.

GS