The Old Dog Adage

I have to say that I’m very excited about learning new things. Well, maybe not at the time when you count my frustration, but afterwards I’m pretty damn excited.

Practicing flawless technique

I was literally dancing around the range recently when I figured out how to use my Trijicon HD Night Sights. I have pretty much gone to these exclusively for all duty/carry pistols, in fact the new TRICON ProCarry comes with these awesome sights. One of my hold ups were their accuracy at distance. Before I went with them I saw plenty of them come through our classes and students would struggle with their work at the 25 yard line. I understand many shootings don’t occur at those distances, but that doesn’t diminish the need to be good at distance. So, it was a leap of faith when I went with them figuring I would eventually figure them out.

True sight alignment issues

We all know that to achieve proper sight alignment you need the top of the front sight to be flush with the top of the rear sight. I am still amazed as to how many people don’t really understand that idea. They hear top of the front sight and they think and do the top of the dot. This will produce shot groups that go high on the target. It is also one of the simplest student errors we can fix, correct the error and presto the student is nailing it and much happier. However, with the HD sights we didn’t always get the same results.

The old dog adage

During my demonstrations I have learned where to “hold” the top of the front sight to achieve shots exactly where I want them. It didn’t take too long and once I had that figured out I have used that hold every since for just about all sight pictures…except for shots at distance. When I get back at distance I would try all sorts of things, but hitting smack dab in the middle of the target zone proved to be difficult to do consistently. When folks are shooting from the 25 yard line it is no secret their shooting errors are very pronounced. Honestly, that is a major reason why we do so much shooting at distance and why we will continue. It works to refine your technique to the point it is flawless. You cannot have a shooting error and consistently hit the target zone, especially on command.

The path begins with diagnostics

When we perform diagnostic drills at the 25 yard line we try to eliminate all the common shooting errors. As mentioned one of them was the incorrect sight picture. While it is a simple fix, the task is a bit tougher when you add the remaining common shooting errors. Often times the students forget about their sight picture because they are so fixed on their grip, their mount, their trigger management, etc… I actually stumbled on this epiphany during the class, for whatever reason I was looking at the small tritium vial in the center of the bright dot. My vision was fixated on that feature and then I superimposed this on the target. Reduced targets are always fun, but it worked. So, I figured I would try my luck at the 25 yard line and much to my surprise it held true.

Your mileage may very

So, the moral to this story is an old dog can learn new tricks and much of the sight issues we have seen are now correctable with a slightly different point of aim. Truthfully, I’m still aiming on the target, the center to be exact, I’m just using the tritium dot to make that happen. Your mileage may very, but I had another student in the class with the same sights apply the same technique, with the same results.

Just when you think you know it all, you come face to face with how much you really don’t know.

"True wisdom is knowing what you don't know." Confucius, Chinese philosopher