Anticipating the Bang

[jmonte345]

I'm a fairly new shooter so I'm always looking for tips to improve. Today at the range I randomly loaded my magazines with some snap caps to practice reacting to a dead round. I realized that I'm pulling the front of the gun down at the last second in anticipation of the recoil. How can I break that habit?

Thanks.

[Wolffire99]

Practice with the snap caps, safely of course, at home on a target, focusing on smooth trigger pull and keeping the sights on target. Pretty quickly it will bleed over into your regular shooting.

[7shot]

Your jerking the trigger, everybody has done it, or in my case still does it sometimes. Just practice what Wolffire said and you will cure that habit.

[jmonte345]

Ok.. Thanks for the tip.

[Bawanna]

I'd continue from time to time with your dummy rounds at the range also.

If you find yourself jerking or flinching or whatever you want to call it when you recoil with no bang I advise calling it a day.

Do the dry fire thing at home. Bring a 22 or something to shoot for a bit and maybe come back to the Kahr or whatever your having the issue with.

Like 7shot said, we all do it from time to time. Good days and bad days.

Move forward and better, not backward and develop an even worse habit.

[Barth]

Dry fire with snap caps making sure you have a smooth squeeze
and keep the sights on the target is great.

But for me just plain range time is the answer.
Lots of short, high quality, focused range sessions are the best.
Focus, take your time and visualize the bullets hitting the bulls-eye.
Eventually shooting will become as natural as breathing.

[jocko]

dry firing is good but wheu also know that no BANG thing is gonna happen, it is a no brainer to do all things right. IMO u just cannot beat a half dozen snap caps in with 30 live rounds and someone loading ur mags for u and u not knowing what if any snap caps are in the gun. This will show u big time ur shooting errors. and also when u hit that snap cap with a no bang thing, then u have the TAP, RACK AD BANG drills to do, so u are realy doing two good drills at the same time.

Dry firng is a good trigger drill but it will not show ur shooting errors like a mysterious snap cap in the magazine will do. One does not realize the jerking process when the bang thing happens but ur really just anticipating the bang thing and that is what cause jerking issues. With just dry firing, u are anticipating NADDA, NOTHING.. Just sayin

[Longitude Zero]

Continue using snap caps. Do not stage the trigger instead once you start the trigger pull it is a continous non stop motion until the guns fires.

If you do it correctly you should be surprised when the gun goes off.

[Goldstar225]

Mix dummy rounds with live rounds in the magazine. If you have a shooting partner have him or her do it for you so that you have no idea when the dummies will come up in the sequence. Accurate shooting is about concentration and focus. Do your very best keep sight alignment perfect when you do drop the hammer on a dummy. Start with a high ratio of dummies to live rounds and as you improve, reduce the ratio.

Don't try for a high round count, go for the best acuracy you can and stop shooting when you cannot maintain your concentration. Shooting beyond that point will ingrain bad habits. It will be far better to shoot 50 quality shots than 100 poor shots.

[air8]

When by myself, I put the number of rounds in a box--minus the number of snap caps I have. Then put the snap caps in there. And without looking load the magazine. Of course be sure to feel for the rim of the bullet to be sure it goes in the right direction.

Load and make ready then see how it goes. I surprise myself quite often. And it's hard to tell if I'm flinching until I do this exercise.

[dkmatthews]

Obviously, the overwhelming opinion is the use of snap caps mixed in with live rounds.

I second the suggestion from Bawanna to take a .22LR pistol to the range for pure trigger practice. That's exactly what I do when I find bad habits creeping in to my handgun shooting. My Browning Buck Mark gets me back to the basics and it doesn't take long to start getting VERY tight groups. Then when I pick up the 9mm or the .40S&W or the .45ACP, I'm back to a much higher level of consistency.

[Bill K]

Some of us respond better to "negative" feedback. Every time you jerk the trigger you owe yourself 10 post shooting session push ups or for every 10 trigger jerks you do the week's grocery shopping. Something like that. Or... just suck it up and SHOOT LIKE A MAN! :D

BTW, shooting for decades and from time to time can still be a problem for me.

[Bawanna]

Some of us respond better to "negative" feedback. Every time you jerk the trigger you owe yourself 10 post shooting session push ups or for every 10 trigger jerks you do the week's grocery shopping. Something like that. Or... just suck it up and SHOOT LIKE A MAN! :D

BTW, shooting for decades and from time to time can still be a problem for me.

Me too. I think that is what makes the difference between good days and bad days. Long as the good days hold even or better than the bad days I figure we're ok.

[ltxi]

Practicing with a gun with a good, clean break trigger helps.

[jmonte345]

Thanks for all the tips. I'll be taking my snap caps to the range with my on my next trip.