range report - 4/14/11

My first real range trip, previous two trips were to check out the functionality of the gun and verify that it would eat the ammo I fed it. I tested SK, Eley Orange, Eley Pistol Match, Wolf Target Pistol, Lapua Center-X, CCI Standard Velocity, Remington Standard Velocity Target, and CCI Match Pistol. The gun fired fine with all of them, no misfires, no jams. The only issue was a failure to chamber the first round, which was easily fixed by re-racking the slide. This issue only occurred when a) I accidentally loaded 6 rounds into the mag or b) with ammo that didn't have wax on the bullets or c) when I failed to fully seat the magazine in the gun. So far I have had zero jams during a course of fire.

I did encounter one new issue in my trip, which was a user-issue of failing to let the trigger out enough for it to reset. The trigger on my gun is setup as essentially a single-stage trigger with around a 2lbs pull and very short travel. So during a course of fire, I failed to let the trigger return to its full-forward position. Just a thing I need to get used to; I'm not used to 'rapid' fire.

My objective for the session was to warm up and then shoot 16 targets at 5 yards with 5-shot strings each, aiming for small group sizes and not worrying about point-of-impact relative to the center of the target (although that was my point-of-aim). My average group size was 1.90", which I felt like was a pretty good result for essentially the 4th time I have ever shot a pistol.

The 5 basics of shooting are: stance, breathing, grip, sight alignment, and trigger pull. I will reflect on each.

Stance: I think I'm doing pretty good here, body 45 degrees to the target, knees straight but not tense. I distribute my weight a little bit more on my back foot than my front since I have an injury in my front leg right now, but it doesn't seem to affect anything. I keep my arm straight and not quite locked, inside of my elbow not quite facing up, slightly in.

Breathing: I am doing good on my calming breaths before shooting and on my inhale before shooting the string. I am having some problems breathing during the string. I exhale a little bit at the top of my lift of my arm as I bring the gun down onto the target. I'm having trouble doing something consistent during the string of shots; sometimes I blow slowly out through my lips which seems to work pretty good, but other times I'm focused on other factors and end up breathing out through my nose, and it seems like my air goes too fast. I have read that one has about 8 seconds of not breathing before the nervous system starts to tense the muscles and make the body shake, so I am trying to avoid that point. Next time out I need to focus on a slow steady exhale through my lips.

Grip: I've been told to take the pistol in my off hand and force it into my shooting hand hard, to lock it in place. I'm still working on exactly how to grip the gun. My thumb tends to want to cock down and kind of lock in place. I also need to adjust the palm shelf a little bit higher to make the gun fit tighter. I am getting a tiny bit of muzzle rise / twisting when I fire, so I need to work on keeping a tighter grip without being tense, that should help keep the gun straight, and should make re-acquisition of the front sight easier.

Sight Alignment: I've been focusing exclusively on the front sight after initial alignment of the front sight to the rear notch. After each shot I re-acquire the front sight and focus on its position. I let the target stay in the background and I don't focus my eyes on it, nor do I try to see my shots during a string, I stay fixated on the front sight.

Trigger Pull: I've read that this is something like 80% of shooting a pistol well. I put the edge of my first knuckle on the right edge of the trigger, so the first segment of my finger rests flat against the trigger. I focused this last session on establishing a good trigger rhythm. Basically I started letting my trigger rhythm dictate my shots (I know that sounds weird). But my procedure was basically: steady increasing pressure straight back towards my eye, focus on front sight, wait for the trigger to break, follow-through just slightly, and then extend the finger slightly to allow the trigger to reset and immediately begin pressure for the next shot. I noticed that my best groups were shot when I took a steady rhythm and almost didn't care where the front sight was relative to the target, just that it was centered inside the notch prior to the shot.

The trigger on the IZH is simply outstanding. The prior owner of the gun had it worked over by a gunsmith who did a great job; it breaks nice and clean with very little take-up, virtually no creep, and very little over-travel.

Here are some video's of me shooting:






My targets: