The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Gunset Training Group or its affiliates.
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It’s amazing how life gets in the way sometimes. I had intended on finishing this series of posts years ago after writing Part 1 and Part 2. Time got away from me and after almost 10 years, it’s time to finish this up. I’ll have to use different guns in the videos because I don’t even have that 229 anymore.
Here’s the best advice I can give to a shooter trying to use a laser as a sighting tool (or someone shooting a mini-red dot for that matter): don’t expect to be great the first time (or even third or fourth time) you go out and do live fire with it. Like any skill, it takes time to get competent with.
Remember that all of the fundamentals are still important, but a couple of them may need tweaked a little. Let’s do a quick review of the NRA’s Five Fundamentals of Shooting and discuss how adding a laser may change things.
First, Aiming is different, right? We don’t have a front and rear sight to worry about. All we have is a dot. Place the dot on the target and squeeze the trigger without disturbing the dot. Nothing complicated, right? For the most part, no. But I would advocate bringing the pistol up no higher than your chin. Bringing the pistol up to the “normal” height actually does more harm than good. The back of the pistol now interferes with finding the dot and also partially obstructs your target. And we shouldn’t be focusing on the dot. We should be focusing on the TARGET.
Second, Breath Control. Nothing changes here, but the laser doesn’t lie. If your breathing is a problem, the laser will let you know.
Third, Hold Control. What used to be called gripping the gun. This may change a little bit based on the laser you are using. One of the reasons I’m such a fan of grip style or Surefire DG switch style activated lasers if the intuitive nature of turning them on. There’s no extra step. Grip the pistol and the laser comes on. If you are using a different type of laser then Hold Control includes the extra whatever it takes to turn on your laser. Can you do that with one hand? Under stress?
We’ll cover Fourth and Fifth together. Trigger Control and Follow Through. Nothing really changes. But once again the laser doesn’t lie. You’ll see every bit of movement when squeezing the trigger and during follow through.
Trigger Control and Aiming are still the two most important fundamentals. But now it’s all a matter of watching your TARGET and placing the dot where you want it. Then squeezing the trigger without disturbing the dot. Once your start to shoot, you continue to focus on the target. With good fundamentals, the dot will come right back to where you had it the first time. When you start shooting multiple shots, it’s a matter of timing – the trigger breaks when the dot returns to where I want the bullet to hit. When I’m shooting a laser quickly, the dot never stops moving until I decide to stop shooting.
Up next, a trip to the range……