Exercise: Fire when You See It

Summary: A decreasing par time exercise where you build in urgency combined with the patience to ensure you see the sight picture you need to see before shooting.

Rounds: 150 to 200 rounds
Dry: Varied, but expect at least 100.

As with all of our targets, their use is only limited by your imagination. Identify what skill you want to sharpen, then select one of the TPC targets. All it takes is a clear vision of what skill you want to sharpen, some creativity, ammo, and quality time to focus.

The See What You Need to See 2 (SWYNTS2) target is great for Trigger Control and Visual Patience. There are instances when engaging targets where we self induce a pressure to fire the shot even though we don’t yet have an acceptable sight picture. We fire the shot because we feel that we need to “start shooting now” . The discipline that we want to instill is to fire the shot only when you have an acceptable sight picture.

Setup:

SWYNTS2 target at 5 yards

Timer

Sight Picture Requirements: (also shown in image above)

Large Circle: Sight Picture (eyes, rear sight, front sight, target) can have a lot of variation

Medium Circle: Sight Picture needs to be closer to perfect (equal light, equal height)

Smallest Circle: Sight Picture needs to be perfect

Horizontal Stripe: Equal Height

Vertical Stripe: Equal Light

Drill 1:

Gun starts empty, hammer/striker back, held at compressed imminent threat.

At start signal, present the gun on large circle

When you see an acceptable sight picture, break the shot and hold for 2 sec (follow through)

Repeat this until you can break the dry fire shot within the acceptable margin of error five times in a row

Repeat for each of the 5 different target size/shapes

Drill 2:

Gun starts empty, hammer/striker back, held at compressed imminent threat. Timer set to random start.

Repeat the above starting with a 2 sec par time.

For each successful 5 runs, lower the par time (1 to 2 tenths)

You now have a baseline time for each of the target shapes

Drill 3:

Gun starts loaded, hammer/striker back, held at compressed imminent threat. Timer

Set the par time to your baseline time +0.5sec

At start signal, present the gun on large circle

When you see an acceptable sight picture, break the shot and hold for 2 sec (follow through)

Repeat this until you can hit the target five times in a row

Lower par time (.1 to .2)

Repeat this until you can hit the target five times in a row

At some point, you will be shooting at the Speed of Breaking. Back off the par time and confirm your Speed of Performance (speed of success)

After confirming speed of success on the target, repeat the process on the next target shape.

Variations:

Start from the draw

Strong Hand

Weak Hand

Each drill should be done with a focus on the process.”Think, Don’t Plink”.

Evaluate the result. If the result is as expected, continue to re-enforce with reps.

Start with the Speed of Learning (25%). When comfortable, shoot at the Speed of Grooving (50-75%).

Then shoot at the Speed of Performance (85%-98%). To raise the level of your comfort zone, shoot at the Speed of Breaking (101+%).

Journal Time:

Write down what you did and also what worked.
Write down what you’d like to try that you think will help an issue you hit.
Write down any tools you may like to add
Write down questions for a shooter better than you are, or for an instructor/coach

Have fun! You are on the range getting better!