I am not familiar with those targets. I use either the NRA Timed and Rapid Fire 25 yard repair centers or the 25 yard Slow Fire targets. They both have the same size aiming black of about 5.5 inches.
With my 22 I can usually avoid any obvious fliers and the groups are about 6”. I’ll throw a flier every now and then though, about 30% of my targets will have them.
With centerfire pistols like my Blackhawk and Canik the groups are a little bigger still but the fliers are much more frequent. Any string of 10 has a good chance of at least 2. See below.
View attachment 1106499
That was the last of my wadcutter loads for my Blackhawk; 10 shots slow fire. There is the flier in the left near the 8 and another that went low off paper in the 5 or 6 ring.
I knew both the wadcutter and 22 hole on the left by the 8 we’re off as soon as I heard the shot.
A piece written by Jon Eulette over at the bullseye-l forum.
Area Aiming; Accepting Your Hold
by
Jon Eulette 9/2/2022, 7:59 pm
This little lesson is geared toward sharpshooters and below. It does everyone good to hear it, but hopefully this can help the shooters who are struggling to attain a higher level of shooting.
One of the very important things we hear over and over again when shooting bullseye is accepting our hold. It’s really important foundationally and what I consider part of shooting the pure fundamentals.
So for our example, let’s say a shooter can assume a one handed bullseye shooting stance and extend arm and aim at the bull. And the shooter can keep the red dot within the bull/black. At 50 yards the largest black scoring ring is the 8-ring, and at 25 yards the 9-ring.
So worst case if we are shooting our worst hold yet still holding the black, this would equate to ten shot scores of 80-0X at 50 yards, and 90-0X at 25 yards.
Doing the math; three SF targets would equal 3x80=240 points at 50 yards and 6x90=540 points at 25 yards. The aggregate score would be 780 points. Making the Grand Aggregate 2340 points. Again assuming the shooter shot absolute worst score for their hold being in the black at each line; 25 & 50.
NRA Classification for a 2340 points is 2340/27=86.67 average score. Which happens to be Sharpshooter (85.00-89.99 points).
This is what I think most of us refer to as shooting our hold.
Ok so now let’s factor in the obvious….the trigger finger. We can shoot our hold but actually be shooting it because of trigger pulling error. For example if your red dot was aimed at 3 o’clock in the 10-ring but the shot ended up in the 8-ring at 9 o’clock, more than likely it was a forced shot that with good trigger squeeze would have been a 10, but poor trigger squeeze put it into the 8-ring.
So where am I going with this?
Most shooters just shoot and don’t develop and grow. Let’s just accept this as a fact and move on. By shooting the pure fundamental of accepting the hold and squeezing the trigger without affecting the hold/aim, you will truthfully shoot your hold. Shooting pure fundamental means “so what the gun is wobbling/moving, I’m just gonna squeeze that trigger and let it break without forcing the shot off”. Trigger squeeze failures can be attributed to really just not having a good trigger squeeze, or not accepting your hold and snatching at shots, or waiting too long and going beyond ideal time when you should have broke the shot.
So I encourage you to train at truthfully accepting your hold and breaking the shots without interrupting the aim from trigger failures identified above. This lesson is is basically an attempt to turn off your “now”thought process and create a “new” thought process. In other words, many shooters are mentally trying to do five things at once and they will never perform well. Keep it simple. Lift gun, aim gun, squeeze trigger, shoot gun. Pretty simple. Leave ego at home and just work the fundamental.
So in summary,that would be shooting your hold. If shots are out of the black in this case, the trigger finger is putting shots out of the black. It’s not the hold.
We all shoot errant shots, that’s ok. If you do this exercise and 95+% of the shots are in the black (if that’s your true hold), then you should see that it has been a positive experience for you. Keep working at it and I believe you will see improvements. Also shot plans should be simple and short. To the point of turning on a switch and turning it off. Very simple.
By the way, you will shoot lots of 10’s when accepting your hold!
Jon
