Adjustments: The Yo-Yo Effect

Ever noticed how when something doesn't feel right, and you make an adjustment for the better, that the next day that adjustment doesn't hold water anymore? So you make another, and it feels right; and then tomorrow that one is no good too.

Well, I know how it feels. Change the weight, change the rake, adjust the side angle. Eventually I found that it made bugger all difference, and even felt worse after a while. I am not back to where I was, but a comfortable somewhere in the middle. It was worth doing, so that I knew how all the different options felt, and so that I feel more comfortable breaking the pistol down when needed.

There are two things I've found I need out of the grip. Enough room on the trigger finger so that it feels relaxed, and a comfortable consistent grip that points the right way. In my case I know that the grip molding does not fit me perfectly. Luckily it fits well enough that there is a way I can hold it that is easy to repeat, and comfortable (even though there is a gap under the knuckle are.) The rake is tilted enough to help stabalize, but not enough to hurt. The trigger finger has the room to move without moving the rest of the hand and pistol.

Oddly enough, my comfortable position ends up having the thumb pointing outwards from the direction of the gun, rather than smoothly down the grip. This is because I need the gun tilted to the right to adjust for the angle of my body facing the target. It is not actually bad though, because it removes any hope of clenching the thumb and putting sideways pressure on the pistol. I almost have a grip now that is firmly front to back, and the thumb and trigger fingers are relaxed and floating. It feels good, and shoots well, so I guess thats what counts.

My first measured 60 shot series

I tend I like just shooting away and measuring my outcomes on a daily basis. I just like shooting air pistol. I dont have time to compete at the moment so I hadn't bothered to see how I'll stack up.

Today I thought I'd give a 60 shot run a go.

Now Typically, a 60 shot competition is spanned over 105 minutes, and you shoot one pellet into each clean target so that you know exactly what to score.

I shoot at home and don't have the luxury of a target changer, so I opted for 10 shots per target, and used the "if in doubt, score low" method of judgement.

I also was kinda short of time, and also curious to see what the pressure of rapid shooting would do to affect the scoring, so I shot the 60 in 30 minutes. Thats roughly 4 minutes per ten shots, plus target changing times, and score counting. In effect this means that It was load, raise. tick tick tick... shoot. Load raise.... Its damn tiring, and I think a bottle of powerade on the side would be a good idea.

My focus felt good today, but at that speed with that many shots I definately felt the bad shots. Over 60 I had a number 8's, and 7's. My overall score was 550/600 which I am not going to complain at with the pace I pushed. Had my 8's & 7's been in the normal 9 postion ( saying 10 would be greedy) then my score would have been around 12-20 points up. Still, I didn't and it wasn't. My plan is to do at least one full 60 shot measure per week to build up a consistent competion style of shooting and scoring.

The Goal. I have been shooting with reasonable weekly practice for around 6 months now, and only for 1 month with a competition air pistol. I would like to set the goal of a 570 score for myself by the end of the year. It's best to set goals that push yourself hard without feeling impossible. All I need to gain this is a conversion of each of those rushed bad shots, and a maintenance of the 9's and 10's I'm getting now. Only time and training will tell.

Sedentary Shooting

Today I was trialling the use of Sedentary Shooting and Dry Firing. I got up and went to shoot today after finally feeling like my grip adjustments were good and my shots just weren't like they were yesterday. I could've started to play with the gun and sights, but I could see a never ending spiral if I went down that track.

I got a stool, and a length of wood the right length to hold up my arm and I took a seat. Resting comfortably on the stool, I placed my arm on the wood ( a little wobbly, so I still had to use some balance.) The sights were nice and clean against the target and I spent a good effort making sure the sight was spaced correctly and pulled the trigger with no muzzle movement. Of Course I got a dead centre bullseye. In fact, I went a few more and peppered the bullseye. If for nothing else, this was worth while because of the confidence boost I was getting. I now knew that the gun was setup just fine, no tampering required.

Next, After lining up a new target, I got rid of the block of wood. and sat comfortably on the stool. I lined up the stool to closely replicate the angle I use when standing. I raised the arm and repeated the test. It was a little harder to keep it as steady, but the shots were still grouping in, or just around, the 10. So my eyes are ok, and my arm was steady enough!

The next test, of course, was to remove the stool as well, so that I was back to the standing position that had dumped so badly on my shots before. This time I paid attention to how my upperbody was relaxed and positioned on the stool. Were my legs too stiff? I tried putting a bend in my knees, and letting my upper body get the same "feel" as it was when sitting. My shots were better.

The real test is getting through tomorrow and seeing if I can apply the same test for the same results ;) It seems like this is a never ending story of adjustments. At least its damn enjoyable to do it.

Keep your focus on the sights

Its a thought that I see repeated all over the air pistol forums; Keep your focus on the sights. I have found that it is completely true. If you can keep your focus on the front sight and keep the front sight perfectly aligned in the rear sight..... and keep that entire setting in the correct aim spot while pulling the trigger... you'll get a 10.

There is a catch though, that I discovered today, to knaw at the unwary shooter. What if you have focused everything, and the shot feels right, but still isn't grouping well. This was happening to me today at my home range. First thing I did was boost the light on the target to a 75W lamp. This is plenty bright resting the lamp 4 feet from the target. I sighted again, and heres the catch; How I ever thought that I was focused on the front sight before is beyond me. Now it was sharp enough to cut, and the shots started pulling closer together.

A while later when I went back for a second practise, to try out the new found lighting conditions, I found the second catch. Eye fatigue, and relaxation. The first shot was nice and sharp, and so was each succesive shot (so I thought.) I soon realized that I was just a little too comfortable. My brain wasn't telling me what was happening because it was gradual, but I worked out that while I was still looking at the front sight, and the front sight was looking good, I wasn't Focused on it anymore. My comfort zone was also telling me that my arm was nice and straight, with a locked elbow, and strong wrist. Along with the eyes, my arm had gradually lost it's edge, like a camera view that is a minute twist off the focal point.

A Deep breath later, and some rapid blinking also, and I focused. I locked that arm damn hard. Hard enough that I knew it, the same way I was gripping the pistol tight with the primary 2 fingers. Hard-Tight, but not painful tight. I raised that vice-clamp up to shooting position, and did the same workover on my eyes. I didn't just look and see the front sight, I tried to push my eye ball into it. Straight away I got a 10 when my brain pulled the trigger for me.

This is where I normally start to fade, feeling that everything was setup for a group of 5. Not so. This time I did that ritual, and told my brain vocally (in my head vocally :) Lock Arm! Lock Wrist! Raise! Lock EyeBall! Hold! Fire! Like a drillmaster it worked a treat and the shots pulled off in a very tidy group.

Summary. When those top shooters out there say you need to focus on the sights, they were not kidding. What they didn't mention, and its really hard to describe without a litany like what I just wrote is the following; FOCUS on everything about that shot and don't focus on anything else. Repeat 60 times.

Standing in the comfort zone

This is an update to my last post. I put the air pistol aside for a couple of hours so that I could refresh myself, and then got the good idea to stand infront of a decent sized mirror so that I could actually see things. I was looking for the following things.

• Where was my head and eye position.
• Where was my body pointing.
  
• Where was my arm pointing when it was most relaxed.
• Which direction was the barrel now pointing.

1. Head and Eyes. My personal belief is that the eye (I am right eyed/ right handed) should be directly face on to the target looking directly towards it without any head tilt or sideways deviation that can be avoided. The reasoning behind this is so that the eyeball is as close to centred in the socket as possible, removing as much muscular eye strain as possible by having it centered and relaxed. (There will be enough strain as it is focusing)
2. Body Direction. Ideally I would like to be perpendicular to the target so that my locked arm is directly out from my body. Like most sedentry computer operaters, my neck doesn't like to rotate 90 degrees anymore. Instead it ends up with a strain or a tilt to get the eye in line. I can cheat to get it there, but its just hard to keep it in the same position, and subconsiously the arm and wrist try to compensate. My Technique; Starting position is face on to the mirror. Keeping the neck relaxed I rotate my feet position moving anticlockwise towards the right foot first perpendicular position. Keep doing this until you cant move any more without straining the neck to keep looking straight on at the mirror. I found that my natural inclination is only around 10 degrees of perpendicuar. and I am quite comfortable.
3. Arm Position. This really needs to be done with pistol in hand. The goal here is to raise the arm, keeping it locked, and the wrist comfortably straight and inline with the arm (not the target) and when it is at target sighting height see where it is. The goal for me is that the right eye when facing firectly forward is exactly in line with the bullseye of the target. At this point I am trying to get the rearsights inline with my eye rather than the front sights. If I find that the position of the rearsights is not inline with my eye, then I readjust my feet, staying in the neck comfort zone, until a comfortable relaxed raising of my arm puts it inline with my eye. Results. For me I found that my relaxed arm position had my gun pointing off to the left so that I could not line up the front sights unless I made my arm position less comfortable, or by bending my wrist to the side. I wanted to avoid either.
4. Barrel Direction. All things being equal, I can make the assumtion that I now had a very natural shooting position with Feet, Eyes, and Arm, and my only problem was that this made the barrel point nicely in line with my arm to aim 5-15 degrees to the left of my eye position on the bullseye. This is where a match pistol comes into its own with grip adjustments. I am not a fan of creating massive tilts on the grip in relation to barrel direction, because of the sideways force on trigger pull. In my case I loosened it up and twisted the barrel around to the right hand side as much as I could to compensate for my arms left inclination. Note that the grips do not allow a lot of right tilt; Moreso they have a lot of left tilt. (not sure why). I tried my position again and lifted the gun. Hey Presto. I could lift the gun so that my arm was completely straight with no subtle wrist tilting so that the gun barrel pointed down the direction of eye, to sights, to target with almost no visible twitching of any part of arm or wrist.
   

In Summary. The main goal I have now is just not releasing the shot when I know it is not optimal. Its just too much fun, even on the not so great shots, but that doesn't help train a good habit. Each time I raise the arm I do the following.

1. Check body position.
2. Place head straight face on to the target with the right eye perfectly aligned to the Bull (well, as perfect as perceived).
3. Focus on the bull as I raise the relaxed arm to shooting height (This is so that I don't accidentally move the arm position)
4. Check the sights are comfortably straight with the eye and directly in line with the bull. (If the sights are not straight; STOP and adjust feet and body. If the Sights are straight, but not inline with the bull; STOP and move body until they are.)
5. When everything feels perfect keep the perfect picture until the trigger just happens to draw fire.

Finally. These summaries are a lot for myself, and I hope they help you. Remember that all these things are open to personal adjustment so that it feels right.

The best way to stand

Today I spent a good portion of time looking at my standing position in relation to the target. A lot of the time I will try a position that seems uncomfortable, yet gets a good number of accurate shots. At other times I'll try a more comfortable position, only to find the shots less well grouped. I sometimes think that its simply stiff muscles a lot of the time, and need to make sure that I am well stretched.

The position I seem to go back to the most is standing perpendicular to the target, feet positioned straight under the hips (not shoulders) with feet facing straight on. This is a very similar position to an Archery stance, which I am familiar with. This stance could be hard for people with stiff necks, because it required a full 90 degree neck turn to get the eye lined up with the target. Even a 5 degree tilt of the feet from target, keeping them parralel, helps alleviate this, but it means that the gun grip position must change to aim it correctly at the target.

One of the hardest things to remember is lifting the arm up so that it is aiming in the correct position without straining. I find it too easy to move my arm left or right to sight the target, rather than moving the feet (I'm talking about 1cm foot movements here..) The problem with this is that it then requires a wrist tilt to see the sights correctly. One exercise I do to get the correct line up in exercise is to line up the feet correctly and start rotating at the hips left and right with arms stretched out. As you lets the momentum fade, but keep your arms straight, you will eventually settle into your bodies relaxed aiming position. You can then move if this is not pointing at the target. It's a bit flamboyant, and not something you'd do all the time, but it helps train muscle memory for when you need it.

As far as where to stand goes, I find that the centre of target line passing through the centre of the ankles (and shoulder) is about the right place. Any adjustment to body angle requires moving to the side so that the firing arm stays straight down the centre. If you don't do this then I guess you end up needing to sideways tilt the gun, or your wrist (which I don't think is a good idea)

When I find my best position I'll update the post.

Tampering with the grip.

The LP10, like most top end air pistols, has an adjustable grip, allowing you to change the horizontal and vertical aligment in relation to the barrel.

I haven't had my gun long, so didn't place any thought into making any adjustments at all, until reading a post at Pilkguns about grip adjustment and Rake Angle: How to make your new gun user-friendly. I performed the test of holding the gun straight out in a comfortable straight arm straight wrist position, and the gun was aiming a good 35-45 degrees up from my arms and fingers (which were pointing roughly towards the target). This is when I really paid attention to what I was doing to get a good shot off with a straight head and eye. I was tilting my wrist forward pretty much as far as physically possible to get that front sight in line with the target. I also had to lift my arm higher to get in line with my eye.

I quickly got the tools out and did a beginners course in adjusting the grip. The manual didn't really say anything at all about what to do. It pointed at 6 screws and said adjust these to measure. Having adjusted pool tables to sit on unsteady floors in my time, I luckily worked out what to do with the 4 screws at the bottom. I left the front 2 alone, and released the back 2 as far as they would go, while still staying solidly attached, and then tightened the grip back on. Sure enough, my repeating the above test found that the sight was now more like a 10-15 degree incline from the arm. Shooting felt instantly more comfortable. My arm lowered at least an inch from before, which helps the shoulder, and my wrist doesn't ache as much. I am tempted to see if I can get any more leverage out of those screws, or even find a replacement set with 2mm extra thread on them.

Please bear in mind that I am 195cm tall, with long arms, so all the adjustments seem smaller to me because of the long arm to eye distance. A shorter person would feel like a lot more configuration was available on the Air Pistol.

I considered the option of adjusting the horizontal direction of the grip to adjust for possible stance changes, but opted not to. My opinion is that the more inline the arm is to the grip, trigger and barrel, forming as close to a perfect plotted line the better. This is an opinion based on trying to eliminate as much sideways forces as possible when tensioning the trigger. I have been trying all sorts of small adjustments in stance and posture and I found quite a few that all may be an acceptable position. Only time will tell if the most comfortable stance will require a left/right grip adjustment.

Opening up the sights

When I first opened up my Steyr LP10 I was pleasantly surprised with how well everything worked. So much so that I never really paid attention to the positioning of the rear sight. The Steyr LP10 has an adjustable width rear sight. As you will notice in Aiming The Pistol the perceived gap between the sides of the rear-sight front-sight is actually quite small. I had a gap on each side that was only around 1/4 to 1/3 of the perceived width of the front sight.

Today I was told on good authority by the New Zealand High Performance Pistol coach that I should open out my sights. He recommended that the gap on either side of the front side should roughly be equal to the front sight perceived width, as a minimum. (As seen above)

This basically allows more light to pass through to the eye, which will give a sharper contrasted sight picture. I definately noticed that the slight halo fog I had between my sights was gone, especially with my tired eyes today after no sleep.

I guess that the exact width is more preference than science, but science surely plays apart in how we see and focus our eyes on bands of light.

Results
I instantly noticed how much easier my eyes felt, a little more relaxed when focusing, and it was easier to tell that the front sight was horizontally centered (even though the gap was bigger). As can be seen from the image above, my grouping improved very much after the adjustment. Without embarrasing myself with a picture I can assure you that my groups were more like a spray across the 8-9-10 today before the adjustment. Thanks Ray for advise well given.


UPDATE:- Opening up the sights more.


Comparing this image to the one at the top you will see that the depth of the front sight, and rear sight blades is nearly twice as deep as the image above. The LP10 out of the factory had the rear sight depth set at the lowest setting, I have now opened mine up to the deepest setting. This lets a lot more light pass through the gap between sight blades, and it also makes it easier to tell if the front sight is bobbing up or down.