Observation of my shooting at IPSC

[Adam5]

I shot the weekly IPSC match at my local range tonight and made an interesting observation of my shooting, but I'll get to that in a moment.

First the funy part where I laugh at myself. At the first stage, which was 48 rounds, I drew, aimed, pulled the trigger and nothing. I then clicked the safety off and was off to the races. It was the first time that I competed with a gun that had a safety. I then killed my time by missing two sets of targets and having to double back to get them. I don't remember what my scores were, but they were not bad. The second stage was 20 rounds and I did fine, 15 A's, 4 C's and 1 D. The final stage was 8 stationary shots at close range, 6 A's and 2 C's.

I had a blast, literally, and look foward to doing it more often. I don't think I can do it weekly, but every other week shouldn't be a problem.

Now for the interesting observation of my shooting. I pulled off the longer shots more accurately than I normally do when playing at the range and concentrating on my shots.

Why?

At the match, I was paying more attention to my front sight than the rear. When I target shoot I concentrate alot more on both sights. Why would I shoot better when concentrating less? Could I be concentrating too much when just target shooting? More relaxed when shooting IPSC since I'm also thinking about my movements and what targets are next? Any other thoughts?

 

[yar]

You should not be concentrating on "both sights". In fact you should not be concentrating at all. You should see your front sight. The rear should be fairly fuzzy in the foreground.

There are two really good books dealing with ipsc shooting, sight pictures, and mental focus.

Brian Enos beyond practical shooting (real zen like a philosophy book not the easiest reading but good stuff.)

Saul Kirsch thinking practical shooting (easy read very relevant to todays shooting)

A whole new world will open up for you when you learn what you really need to see or the different sight pictures. On close or wide open targets you use a hard target focus and don't really even use the sights. For long or tight shots it's the more traditional front sight focus.

Once your brain gets wired for this it's subconcious. This is how the really smoking guys shoot so fast and accurately.

 

[SkydivnShooter]

Interesting that your first stage was 48 rounds. The IPSC rule book states the max round count on any IPSC stage is 32.

But personally, I love high round counts. When I shot L-10 I walked to the line with 61 rounds, and now that I shoot Limited, I walk up with 76 rounds.

Fun Fun.

 

[yar]

1.1.5.1 Level I and Level II matches are not required to comply
strictly with the freestyle requirements or round count limitations.

At local matches they can have higher than 32 shots required for the stage or more than 9 rounds per position (production and limited 10 guys hate this as it forces them to standing reload)

It nice when the stage designer complies with the restrictions as if it were a major match in most cases, but like you said it's always fun to "bend the rules" every once in a while.

 

[another okie]

If your eyesight is less than perfect, or you are older than about 16, or both (like me) your eyes may grow tired when trying to hold focus for a long time while target shooting. But in action shooting you are probably just finding the sights and squeezing the trigger, so your eyes don't have time to grow fatigued.

Another factor for some is that if you don't have a huge amount of upper body strength you may start wobbling or having trouble holding steady after a second or two. Again, in action shooting that's not a problem.

 

[SDC]

Adrenaline also does funny things that can distort your perception; I'm betting you can clearly remember things that happened during your run that wouldn't have taken more than 1/10th of a second, and that you would have ignored completely if it wasn't for the fact that you were amped up for your run.

 

[PPGMD]

Adrenaline also does funny things that can distort your perception; I'm betting you can clearly remember things that happened during your run that wouldn't have taken more than 1/10th of a second, and that you would have ignored completely if it wasn't for the fact that you were amped up for your run.

Hmm I have noticed that it was the opposite for me, I only remember short glimpses of my run on some of the stages this week.

From the buzzer until the RO said unload and show clear I only remember three distinct things, first was bringing the sight up and thinking "Boy the fiber sure is dark at night," next was running down the wall to the third shooting position, and finally sliding into the fifth shooting.

My run went fairly well, it was clean with 10 targets and a time of 20 and change. My highest hit factor yet.

 

[SDC]

I've had runs that seemed to me to be almost in slow motion, but turned out to be faster than anyone else's because of this. During my first ever bowling-pin match, I clearly recall seeing the sights line up on my target, squeezing the trigger, seeing the muzzle flash, watching the slide come back and the pistol rise in recoil, SEEING THE HEADSTAMP ON THE CASE as it came spinning back over my arm, then bringing the pistol back down onto the next target. A very bizarre feeling, almost like I was watching a movie of myself shooting.