Am I good?

[AKElroy]

Standard for a flash sight picture is to hard focus on the front sight (or when shooting a scoped handgun or rifle, on the reticle). When point shooting at near distances, one might focus on the target.

That's the right answer, even if he is from CA. As for groups, I will buck the trend here and say that you can shoot well enough for SD if you can achieve softball sized point of aim hits @ 15 yds with all of your centerfire carry choices (and carry ammo). I have bad eyes, on the downhill side of 40, and I typically achieve this shooting 100 centerfire rds 6 to 8 times a year. I do shoot my 22/45 much more than this, but that is about all the centerfire practice I require to keep softball sized groups. As for the basics of shooting, I think that all types of practice contribute to making you a better pistol shot. I shoot rifles, shotguns and rimfires more extensively, and just being exposed to the noise, kick, and trigger discipline regardless of the firearm being used will help. Shoot whenever, whatever you can & it will make you a better shot across the board.

 

[David E]

I've always gone on the notion that if I can hit a target reliably and quickly from 20-25 yards, then the same at 5-7 yards is a no brainer, so I practice at longer distances.

Many people make that mistake.

Just because you can hit at distance slow-fire does NOT mean you can hit fast up close.

It would behoove the well rounded shooter to practice long range accuracy as well as fast COM shots up close.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

I've heard when shooting handguns that you should focus on the target and allow the sights to blur slightly. I tried it, although it felt backwards, and my shooting improved significantly. Anyone else have thoughts on this?

Focus on the sights, let the target be a blur.

The reason is simple -- if you're off an inch on the blurred target at 7 yards, you'll hit an inch from your aiming point.

But if you're off a mere 0.1" in sight alignment (given a 6" sight radius), then you'll be off by 4.2" at the target.

 

[cchris]

Speed and accuracy don't mix. If you want to be a one shot guy practice accuracy. If you want to be fast then you practice speed.

I've found this to be a little untrue. The longer I take to line up a shot, the worse I do. The method that gave me the best shots at 25 yards was loading three mags with one shot each and practicing going through them as fast as possible while still trying to get the shot off accurately. I managed to hit all three within 5" of bullseye, better than when I was lining up my shots and taking my time.

For some people, it's instinctive. What an old football coach told me in high school I still find to be true. "You're thinking again. Stop doing that, stop thinking." And that's what it is. I start thinking about whether I'm going to overcorrect, and start correcting for if I overcorrect, etc. and the longer I take to shoot, the worse I do because it gives me time to think and I lose my instinctiveness.