Aspects of air pistol technique?

[RobinC]

Best advice?

1.Beware advice given from websites, some is excellent, some is rubbish from people with no more experience than you, its definately a case of buyer beware!

2. Join a club with a good experienced coach.

Welcome to the sport,
Good shooting
Robin

[raistrick]

2. Join a club with a good experienced coach.

This seems to be the troublesome bit!

[Bjacobs571]

[CODE][/CODE]As a qualified pistol coach I agree; joining a club and getting some one to one coaching is the best option. On the web I can tell you what you should do but I see if you are doing it properly or what else you may be doing wrong.

[peteswright]

you want to grip the grip with most pressure on the third finger.
1 Press the ball of your second finger against the ball of your thumb as if they were wrapped around a grip applying some force. Now move your trigger finger (first finger)

2 Now press your third finger against the ball of your thumb as if they were wrapped around a grip applying some force. Now move your trigger finger (first finger)

you will feel with the pressure on the third finger your trigger finger feels much freer and moves with more control. This is why you should do most of the gripping with your third finger with a little force on your second finger and your little finger is just along for the ride. Do not apply any force with your thumb as this will move the point of impact.

when you pick up your gun push it into your shooting hand. With the other hand try to pull any loose parts of your skin (palm and base of fingers) around the grips. This will use the natural springiness of your skin to help grip the gun without applying excess force

Try using the lowest power £1 reading glasses you can buy (+0.5) as this will bring the sights into focus without totally blurring the target. you can also put translucent tape over the lens on the eye you are not using. You want both eyes open as your brain will interpret this as it being brighter and will close down your pupils making focusing on the sights easier. If you shut the non shooting eye your brain thinks it is darker than it is and open the pupil on your shooting eye. If you have an old broken camera you can take the iris out of the lens and attach it to your shooting glasses as this improves your depth of vision and therefore your sight picture.

At a lot of ranges the lighting is brighter at the targets than at the firing point so the sights will be silhouetted against the target. This is why target shooters don't use coloured sights. Some shooters will blacken the sights even more with a yellow flame (match or normal lighter) as this improves the contrast against the target. shooting disciplines which are shot outdoors and not under cover benefit from coloured dots white outlines etc as your sights are not normally silhouetted against a white target.

Focus on the sights as they are more important. If the sights are alined you can move the gun up and down 10mm and the pellet will still hit the 10 ring if the sights are misaligned by 0.5mm you will probably miss the black altogether

This is the first time i've come accross the advice to use the THIRD finger to apply most pressure on the pistol grip. Most say ALL fingers or just middle finger. I found THIRD finger worked best for me a long time ago, but put it down to how I used to hold cowboy guns when young (bad habit I thought). It just feels natural to me, (and does indeed free up the trigger finger) on picking up a pistol, to apply most pressure with third. All others touching but more relaxed. To get this verification from a shooting coach that I'm actually doing it right is brilliant. Made my day.

[Rickenbacker]

This is the first time i've come accross the advice to use the THIRD finger to apply most pressure on the pistol grip. Most say ALL fingers or just middle finger. I found THIRD finger worked best for me a long time ago, but put it down to how I used to hold cowboy guns when young (bad habit I thought). It just feels natural to me, (and does indeed free up the trigger finger) on picking up a pistol, to apply most pressure with third. All others touching but more relaxed. To get this verification from a shooting coach that I'm actually doing it right is brilliant. Made my day.

I learned it years ago, from a little book on 'pistol coaching' that used to be advertised and sold by the publishers of 'target gun'. Great little book, which sadly I've mislaid for years... but I must still have it somewhere...

Edit = And OMG - here it is! http://www.amazon.co.uk/TARGET-GUN-B.../dp/B001CK5RBE

[peteswright]

Thats three of us that do it then! ATB. Pete.

[Rickenbacker]

Thats three of us that do it then! ATB. Pete.

Seems we have an advantage!

Let's tell everybody else to grip with the little finger, and adjust sights accordingly

[JiriK]

Me too!

I remembered from old days that the little finger shouldn't do anything while shooting with a pistol. The rest of the fingers are in use. Two weeks ago i borrowed an old pistol shooting book (well, finnish print of it) "Pistolenschiessen Band 1" by Klingner, Glock and Mertel. While some of the book is kind of obsolete now as it was written in 1982, most of the actual shooting technique stays the same.

So i read. Then test this different gripping in practice. Shot my season best score even while having a slight 'flu..

What do we learn from this.. Not much. I bet most of my good performance that day was due to being more focused on triggering the pistol right and gripping same way all the time.

Btw, what do you guys think is the correct shooting position?
I see local beginners being taught to stand sideways to the target so line from pistol to shoulder to shoulder is more or less straight. I just can not do that.. I learned to find the position by looking elsewhere and lifting the pistol to ~shooting position. Then move my feet so pistol points to the target.

[peteswright]

Me too!

I remembered from old days that the little finger shouldn't do anything while shooting with a pistol. The rest of the fingers are in use. Two weeks ago i borrowed an old pistol shooting book (well, finnish print of it) "Pistolenschiessen Band 1" by Klingner, Glock and Mertel. While some of the book is kind of obsolete now as it was written in 1982, most of the actual shooting technique stays the same.

So i read. Then test this different gripping in practice. Shot my season best score even while having a slight 'flu..

What do we learn from this.. Not much. I bet most of my good performance that day was due to being more focused on triggering the pistol right and gripping same way all the time.

Btw, what do you guys think is the correct shooting position?
I see local beginners being taught to stand sideways to the target so line from pistol to shoulder to shoulder is more or less straight. I just can not do that.. I learned to find the position by looking elsewhere and lifting the pistol to ~shooting position. Then move my feet so pistol points to the target.

You could be right about focus on trigger and consistent grip. I think these aspects are the most important anyway. As for stance, I reckon its a personal thing because we all have different body shapes and eyesight issues. I Don't like the side on approach because I seem to sway more like that. I prefer a 45 degree stance, and have to line up taking into account the sweet spot of vision through my multifocal lenses, which makes me turn my head slightly more to the right than if not wearing glasses. For two handed shooting, I stand straight on, as in the isosceles stance, with weight slightly forward on balls of feet. ATB. Pete.