Exercise: Visual Patience (to the edges)

Summary: Build your ability to see the sight picture you need to see
Rounds:   150 rounds, 150 dry
Time:  30 minutes
Needed:  Visual Patience 3 Bars Target  (3 of them)
Distance: 3 to 7 yards depending on skill. 

Once you get past basic fire control issues (stance, grip, trigger),  advancing your shooting becomes a mental and visual task.  This exercise builds visual recognition of what you need to see and the mental processing to wait to see it.

Look at the three targets on the single page.  To hit the White Bar in the left most target, what sight picture do you need?  Centered left right perfectly, any height.  How about the targets on the right?    The inverse… perfect up and down, and any left and right visible through the rear sight. 

The challenge is to present, recover from recoil, or transition to each target, ensure you (As broadly as you can) the sight picture you need to see to make a hit, and calmly deliver the shot, and so on and so on.

First do it from just presenting. Then do it on the same target from recoil. Then transition from target to target. ALWAYS AT THE SPEED YOU CAN DO IT RIGHT.  

Visual_Patience_key-sight pictures

Procedure:

Dry – Present 20 times to each target. Ensure you see a valid sight picture for each target. Release the shot. Be honest…  A good rep is presenting with sights aligned, seeing what you need to see, pressing the trigger and keeping the sights in the target.  Now do 20 good reps on each target  before moving on to live fire.

Step 1 – Live Fire:  Present 10 times to each target. Ensure you see what you need to see. Release the shot. Follow thru and end the rep with the sights you need to see BACK on the same target, and the trigger prepped and ready to deliver another shot.   Do this for each target.   30 rounds.

Dry Fire: 5 on each target to warm down from shooting, as last procedure.  5 perfect in a row. Start at 1 if you miss a rep. Do things right.

Step 2 – Live Fire:  Start on a new target. Do Step 1 Live Fire… add in a 2nd shot once you see what you need to see.  The rep ends with you BACK on your sight picture and the trigger prepped for a 3rd shot you do not take.  10 times per target.  60 rounds total.   Do this at the pace you can do it right 90% of the time.

Dry:  Put up fresh target.  We now work on transitioning from target to target. Do 20 from vertical to horizontal. Horizontal to Horizontal. And Horizontal to Vertical.  Do them properly. Be honest. Take your time. DO IT RIGHT.

Step 3 – Live Fire:    Start on target, without firing, move to another target, see what you need to see, release shot, find sights, end with sight picture reacquired, and trigger reset.   Do this 10 times on each type of transition (Horizontal to Vertical, Vertical to Horizontal, Horizontal to Horizontal). 
30 rounds.

Step 4 – Live Fire:  Do Step 3 Live Fire (5 times per target), but take the first shot, then move to the other target.  Only do this if you are succeeding at the past steps. If not, fix them and conserve your ammo.   30 rounds. 

Dry – Do a mix of what  you’ve done dry so far in perfect 5 shot sequences.  Mix it up. Do it right. 

Journal Time – write down what worked. Write down things to try. Write down tools you may need to bring next time. Write down questions you might ask on our forum, to better shooters.  And write down any training you might seek out.

Notes: 

– bring a calm mental focus and a very relaxed body (especially the core). Tension messes up vision and mental processing. 

– if you are missing due to trigger pull,  feel free to step closer (no closer the 3 yards), or to call an audible and fix that fire control fundamental with these rounds and time instead. 

– take your time. Think Don’t Plink.  Get the most out of each dry or live rep.  

– have fun, smile, enjoy the moment out here on the range, getting better, seeing friends, and leaving life’s other issues behind

 

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