Aiming and Sight Picture

All shooters start out thinking you can hold the point of aim perfectly still and therefore can shoot exactly where you are pointing the gun. Reality is a bit different than that. I cannot hold the gun perfectly still, in fact, to me, it appears as though that red dot is in hyper mode bouncing around like crazy. It is very natural for us to think we can hold the point of aim perfectly on the 10 ring but reality is that you cannot and you have to accept it. In this case, you have to accept that red dot bouncing around.

As an experiment, I put a laser bore sight in the gun and aimed down range while someone else watched what the dot was doing. At 150' the laser dot was moving about in an area similar to the size of the 10 ring. What I was seeing with the scope's dot looked like I was bouncing around the entire black on the target.

The good news is that it doesn't matter that it does bounce around. If you can hold steady enough to keep the dot in the black, chances are really good you will shoot nines or tens on a regular basis if you don't jerk the trigger. This is especially true if you have a relatively large red dot in your sight.

Nearly all shooters think they can pull the trigger the instant the red dot is perfectly centered on the 10 ring, but I don't know anyone that can do it and get a shot in the 10 ring all the time. This type of shooting creates a problem of trying to "grab a 10". You see the dot there and you instantly pull the trigger expecting the shot to be a 10 but reality is that you forced the shot to happen very quickly which in most cases is a jerk on the trigger.

To this day I fight this tendency off and try to only shoot with area aiming. If the red dot is in the area of the center of the black I continue the pull on the trigger till the gun goes bang. If the red dot wanders away from the black, I force myself to bench the gun in slow fire. This is when I am most consistent and can achieve the highest number of 10 shots. That forced reaction to the "perfect position" is tough to beat and requires a lot of training to break yourself of that.

When aiming, you want to focus on the target (with a red dot sight) and you want to do your best to keep the red dot in the black. It is not that difficult to keep the sight in the black, it is very difficult to keep it in the 10 ring. But, as mentioned before, don't concern yourself with that. Your red dot is probably bigger than the bullet (at distance) and therefore, your hold is better than you think!

How does this affect the score? Being that most people can hold the point of aim in the black, it shouldn't affect the score much. The problem is with trying to hold the point of aim perfectly in the 10 ring and then trying to grab the shot with a quick jerk of the trigger.