re: classic .38's....a glitch?

Folks,

I can at least congratulate myseflf on having two Army Specials, and one Officers' model, all on the same frame with what you tell me are interchangeable parts. So, with that combination, I should be able to keep at least one gun shooting for quite some time.

And as you say, there is nothing to stop me getting a vintage SW targeter llike the k-38 at some point down the line.

The problem with qualified work seems harder to fix. As I said in the last pf my posts, I better move closer to Ribbonstone! heh, heh.

And now, I have a general question about dry firing: I always thought dry firing was OK in a centerfire piece. I understand the problem with rimfire, but I was under the impression that dryfiring my revolvers would do them no harm. And then, the other night, another shooter told me that I should not be doing this without a "snap cap" in. Now, wouldn't contact with a snap cap actrually put MORE milieage on the firing mechanism than just falling in the empty chamber?

This is important to me, because I am routinely loading three and shooting six, in order to fight the flinch.

What is your opinion?

Regards,

Gordon

Jack,

I will definitely invest in a set of snap caps then.

As per sights, the lesson I have learned, is that the sight picture is more important (within reason) than where you are aiming on the target. In other words, if you have the sights lined up perfectly, but the gun is wobbling all over the center area of the target, you will still score better, than if the gun is perfectly still, but the blade is up or down a noticeable amount in the back groove.

And the application of this lesson, will be for me to pay more attention to the exact placement of the blade, while moving the trigger, rather than worry about exactly where the gun is pointing.

Naturally, both aspects are important, but I believe Ihave been mistakenly giving too much attention to keeping the blade on the bull, and not enough to keeping the blade properly aligned in the groove. I believe this explains a lot of my low scoring shots, even when I felt I had a decent bead on the bull.

Time will tell. And luckily, there always is a next itme.

Regards,

Gordon

P.S. "What good eyes can see..." When you consider the math of the the situation, it is a small miracle that any of us we get anywhere near the target, let alone right in the middle.

Jack,

"I explain that they won't hit if they chase the bull with the front sight and ignore the rear. They should lock their wrists and concentrate on sight alignment first and the bullseye second."

This very well put, and it confirms what I have been figuring out for myself. I think my confusion sprang from the constant repitition of the first principle of focusing on the front sight. This is perfectly true, but it invites an ignorance of what comes second: the REAR sight. Your formulation is much more complete,and if I may paraphrase comes down to this:
1. focus on the front sight
2. place the front sight in line with the back
3. find the bull.

This explains a lot, because I have been shooting groups that are much higher than they are wide. So I seem to be centering side to side without too much concentration. But I think I have a tendancy to poke the blade out a little, and obviously to varying degrees, in order to see it clearly. On some targets, the result is an almost straight line of hits, right through the centre of the target, from below the bull right up to the top of the rings.

With this new understanding, I am hopefull of getting a much better result. (hope springs eternal)

But I don't aim at six o'clock, as you do. I am experimenting with a center of the bull approach, which I find less stressful. The blade isn't moving from white to black, which I find nervewracking, but stays within the black. All over the black, of course, but still, in there. Logically, if I can keep the sights aligned as we have been discussing, I should be able to keep my shots in there too.

It is interesting that you should say this about a successful shooting session:

"considering that rapid fire isn't easy means that a High Master can't lose many points in slow fire and has to clean timed fire"

What strikes me, is that you seem to expect the best result from timed fire. That is certainly true for me personally. Last friday, I shot 89 timed, 83 rapid, but only 63 slowfire. And yet this is not the way the Canadian Shooting Federation sees things. On their badge/reward qualifying scheme, they always expect higher scores in slowfire.

For instance they call "expert" 94 slow 90 timed, and 86 rapid.

"Master" is 96 slow 93 timed and 88 rapid.

For the time being, my groups are just too big to score high in the smaller slowfire rings, but more forgiving on the timed/rapid target. The time I have to shoot doesn't seem to matter. More time just doesn't equal smaller groups.

And one more question: In another thread going on, people are talking about "ghost rings". Is there some reason why aperture sights are not more popular among handgun target shooters? Are open sights actually better (in opposition to experience with rifles)? I mean, is it just impossible to get a good tight aperture view at arms length?

Regards,

Gordon

Rib,

"with a rifle you have something to keep you face plasterd in the same place (a stock). With a handgun, there isn't anything to keep yur head in position."

Wow. This really cuts to the difference with a handgun. With the head effectively "attached" to the stock of a rifle, and the eye virtually at the same spot as the receiver peep sight, there is a sighting line of only two points: the front sight, and the eye/backsight. But with the handgun, there are THREE points that have to be on the line: front sight, back sight and eye.

The hangun line is from the eye to the front sight, which are the end points, but the rear sight has to be brought into line in the middle. This is like shooting an imaginary rifle with a joint in the middle of the barell, where it would be the shooter's job to make the jointed tube into one straight line, in order to shoot.

This also explains why I've found the advice to "lock the wrist" to be confusing. The line of the shoulder, to the muzzle is not the same line as the line from eye to fron sight. If the gun were a perfectly straight extension of the arm, the eye sight line would not lline up, because these lines are different. So the wrist HAS to make up for the difference, both side to side and up and down.

In any case, the wrist doesn't actually "lock", the way the elbow or knee do, in a straight extension of the limb. What we are really talking about is just immobilising the wrist in a rigid position, like a tennis player.

So now, I see my aiming routine this way:

1. Focus on the front sight
2. Raise the arm straight, more or less on the bull, while placing the rear sight precisely in line.
3. fine tune the bull, by using the wrist to maintain the sight picture as the rigid arm moves slightly up down and sideways.
4. when the whole picture is right, freeze the wrist.
5. squeeze off the shot.

The goal with the wrist, then, would be to find the position which feels closest to straight in line with the arm, but which, first and foremost, still produces the perfect line of bull-front-back-eye. But not to line and lock the wrist on the arm before the final sight picture is acheived.

All because, while the line of the rifle stock and the sighting line are essentially the same, the line of the arm and the handgun sight line are two different lines intersecting at the hand, where the ball joint action of the wrist is called upon to make the final ajustment.

Thanks for making me see this.

Regards,

Gordon

Hello again folks,

As usual, lots of good advice in those posts.

Concerning arm to body angle: straight out sideways would be perfect if our arms were really straight, but they aren't. When you lock your elbow, or your knee, for most of us the joint goes past the straight position. So, with the elbow locked, the arm, is crooked and you should be just sighting down the line of the forearm. To do that, the arm will be less than 90 degrees, with the deviated forearm pointing back to where a really straight arm WOULD have pointed at 90 degrees.

And then there are other anatomical considerations. Jack: I'm sorry to hear you have shoulder trouble. I do as well, and I simply can't hold at 90 degrees. As a matter of fact, my best spot is even less than 45 degrees, and so I do have to cheat with the wrist a little ("monkey wrist" as Ribbonstone says).

Two handed, I like the rifle-like, cross-body grip you mention, probably because I have more rifle experience than handgun, but I'm getting more and more longsighted, and I am getting to like it better when the sights are farther from my face.

I have been doing a lot of one hand bullseye type shooting, simply because I (complete hazard) joined a club with a tradition of active members shooting shoulder to shoulder. On any given night, we practice however we want, with whatever we want (or just sit around shooting the breeze), and then, when emough people have shown up, we shoot three targets of .22, slow timed and rapid, and then for those who wish to, three more targets of center fire.

This only takes an hour or so, even if we need more than one group to get everybody into the twelve lanes. And afterwards we go back to free range and tall tales.

A number of guys just shoot those targets to maintain their skills, more or less painlessly, year after year.

And it all adds up. We tally scores all year long, and then, have a party and award each other trophies. Lots of trophies. Four classes: A, B C and D. First and second place in each class, in both rimfire and center fire, plus first and second in agregate of rimfire AND center fire, ALSO in each class... That works out to 24 trophies. So, the chances of anybody working their way up the ranks without ever getting ANY trophy are pretty slim. heh, heh.

And that is without counting how the class system works. Because once you qualify for a higher class, there is no turning back. Thus, there are a lot of guys in "A" class who have seen better days, and are now shooting lower, but are not eligible for lower classes. So, most of the trophies are going to people who really CARE about trophies, which is to say the up-and-comers (who are out practicing while more reasonable people are hobnobbing in the club room)

As I say, I found this group by accident, but I am really glad I did. This particular kind of relaxed competition, and just the ritual of shooting together, provides a special kind of social glue to an ordinary evening at the range.

This Friday night, my best targets were both timed fire again. 80 with the .22 and 73 firing my four-and-a-half inch Colt Army Special. 73 is not a competitive score, but I still take some satisfaction in the notion that I can put 10 shots on paper, with 9 scoring, in two strings of twenty seconds, using an eighty year old revolver with fixed sights.

Unfortuneately, I just wasn't quick enough to get all 10 shots away in the 10 second rapid strings. Maybe I didn't mention this, but I am shooting strictly single action: cock, sight, bang! cock sight, bang! This really requires good timing.

Lot's of fun.

Regards,

Gordon