Some Coaching tips
Sight sizes
1. Aperture sight sizes
One of the most problematic issues “new” and some not so new rifle shooters face is choosing aperture sight sizes. Just remember this one general rule of thumb to guide you;
For the front sight bigger is better, and for the rear sight aperture, smaller is better.
The Rear Aperture (Diopter)
Most literature that you can find about rear aperture sizes will tell you that the correct range to work in is 1mm to 1.3mm. Not much of a range you say! So why so small? “If the target is dark, why can’t I just open the aperture up until it is bright enough?” Sure, opening up the aperture will allow more light through but it comes at a cost! Here’s why.
Coaches will tell you to focus on the front sight, that is really important but how do you focus on the target as well? The answer is you don’t have to because the rear sight iris does that for you. A correct sized iris will make sure that the target is in reasonable focus at the same time that you are concentrating on keeping the front sight in crisp focus.
The small size is a way to keep both the front sight and the target in focus at the same time. Quite simply, the smaller the hole the longer the field of view (focus). “Field of view” is the term that photographers use to describe the area that is in focus. For instance, a portrait photograph would be taken with a large aperture so that only the subject will be in full focus and everything beyond will be blurred. The large aperture gave a narrow field of view. Whereas a landscape photograph with some trees in the foreground and a mountain or lake in the background would be taken with a small aperture size so that everything remains in full focus. The small aperture gave a long field of view. That is all you need to understand because if you try to look deeper at camera aperture sizes and compare them with rifle apertures it gets very confusing. For instance the camera aperture sizes or “f stops” as they are called have weird numbers usually starting at f1.4 (largest) and going through to f22 (smallest). Yes the larger the number the smaller the aperture size on cameras! There is a mathematical formula to work out the actual size but it doesn’t matter, it is the principle that you must understand. The smaller the aperture the longer the field of view. The front sight and the target will be in the best focus. The problem here is the trade off with light. The smaller hole will let less light through! So you make it bigger so that you get enough light. (The new adjustable irises are good like that). Your scores go down and you can’t understand why? Maybe the target has gone fuzzy because you have inadvertently shortened the field of view by too much. You achieved your goal of getting more light but it came at the cost of poor target definition.
With the help of my stepdaughter who was doing a maths degree at University we worked out that to get 25% more area (therefore 25% more transmitted light) a 1mm diameter aperture would only need to be enlarged to 1.118mm. To get 50% more light a 1mm diameter aperture would only need to be enlarged to 1.225mm. If like a lot of shooters you use a 1.1mm aperture and open it to 1.230 it will transmit 25% more light. If you open your 1.1mm aperture to just over 1.3mm (1.347mm) you will increase the light transmitted by 50%, that is a big increase in light for just a shade over 0.2mm increase in aperture size. So you don’t have to go silly when the target looks dark and wind your aperture out to 1.5 or more like I have seen. Just keep it within the range of 1mm – 1.3mm and if the light is still not to your liking simply use a coloured filter.
This is still a “work in progress” as we are constantly looking at aperture sizes and aiming areas with the help of Scatt optical training systems at our Paralympic shooting training sessions. It could be that we might find out that we can get away with a slightly larger than 1.3mm aperture for 10 metre air rifle but for now stick to the tried and true guidelines and understand what changing the rear aperture size does to the depth of field/focus (and your score).
The Front Aperture.
Another trap for beginners is to think that by making the front aperture smaller and therefor closer to the black circle of the target, that it will result in accurate shooting. Logic suggests that this will work well but in practice the opposite is true. The closer the aperture ring gets to the black circle of the target the harder it becomes to properly define the distance between them. Your eye begins to play tricks on you and you cannot properly judge the distances and movement. The edges can distort, bleed or blend into each other. You spend too much effort on the sight picture and not enough on hold, aim, trigger and follow through. Some people think it is a good idea to hide any movement by reducing the size of the front sight aperture. Movement is caused by poor balance, not the size of the aperture! So, ask yourself just how do you expect changing the front sight size will improve your balance?
Your scores are dipping and you can’t understand why? Go bigger!! Trust me, your eyes will easily align two circles one inside the other if there is enough space between them to properly define them. As an example, New Zealand’s Mike Johnson, multiple Paralympic champion and World record holder in two IPC events, the 10 metre air rifle R4 and R5. Mike shoots with his front aperture usually set between 4.8mm and 5mm. That is much larger than the 4.5mm that most beginners will start with for air rifle, AND Mike shoots world records like that!
Dave
TIP
The photo above illustrates what a large rear sight aperture does to the depth of focus.
I used a large aperture in the camera for the photo. Note that although the front sight is in focus, the target at 10 metres and face of the shooter is out of focus. The large aperture has given a very narrow field of view (focus).
General Rule
For the front sight aperture, larger is better.
For the rear sight aperture, smaller is better
The Score can be very distracting
Target shooting by nature is result oriented, you fire a shot a hole appears in the paper target or on the monitor in front of you. It is very easy to become outcome focussed in target shooting. By that I mean that the score of each shot is very evident to the shooting athlete and tends to be what they focus on and think about. On paper targets, the shooter will glance through the spotting scope after each shot to see the point of impact, and easily do the maths to calculate the total score. On electronic targets it is even more problematic. The score is instantly in your face! It appears on the monitor in front of you the moment you fire the shot, and the computer also gives you a running total. How many times have you finished a match and said to your friends something like… “oh it was going so well until that 9.5 then it all turned to custard” And your friends will agree. They saw the score too. But what your friends did not see was your sight picture, your hold, your aim, they did not feel your trigger release or the follow through. But you did. You saw and felt all that. There was a lot of “evidence” for you to analyse so that you can make the next shot better.
In a nutshell, that is what you must do.
But it might take a big paradigm shift in thinking.
I have a quite good PowerPoint presentation on this subject which I can’t put here but it goes something like this;
When you start to beat yourself up for shooting a low scoring shot, your mind is distracted by that shot. Your mind stays in the past.
You must bring your mind to the present, to the next shot. That is the important one, right?
So how do you do that?
You must go to a component in your technique. Something that you can control
such as
- Your hold (balance),
- Your aim (in the centre of the target)
- Your trigger (must be smooth and straight),
- Your follow through (look through the sights for at least two seconds after the shot release.
Learn and understand the story that the sights are telling you about your execution of that shot.
- Your breathing. (to calm yourself).
- A favourite of mine is to focus on the front sight (should be in crisp clear focus).
Choose something that works for you and practice it. This will become your Rock, your Anchor, a way to bring your mind back to where it must be, the present, (The NOW!) To make the next shot a good one!
And likewise, when you are having a string of really good shots and you begin to think “I am shooting really well. I could win this match”. Where has your mind gone now? Your mind is in the future. You are thinking about being the winner. You must bring your mind back to the most important shot, the next shot! Otherwise, you won’t be winning anything.
If you have access to a Scatt for training, then you should learn to use it properly. Scatt will give you good objective data about your hold, aim, trigger release and follow through. This data helps you break down your technique into components and gives you baseline measurements of your technique components. Your job is to improve these numbers and graphs and therefor improve your technique.
Don't worry about the score on Scatt. The score is only a guess based on the speed of the movement being measured.
Learn something from every training session and match. Make a plan to improve your performance next time.
So you must stop being outcome focussed, which is hard when you are trying to shoot a score. But you already know don’t you?
The best way to shoot a good score is to fire a good shot. And to fire a good shot you must focus on your technique, your processes,
one shot at a time. That’s what the best shooters in your next competition will be doing. You should do it too!
Dave.
Training for match pressures
This a big topic.
Read my previous topic, "The score can be very distracting" first.
What does your typical training session look like? Do you get to the range and set up quickly then shoot a series of shots like you do in a match, then compare your score with a match? The only thing that really matters is the score at the end. Most people will do this. Then you go to a match and your score isn’t as good as you hoped for, maybe worse than your training scores. This is common too. So how do you make your training more challenging? So that it genuinely simulates a tough match. I’m sure most of you will implement things such as training in a different bay each time or creating some noise such as having a radio on for music. You can change the lighting and maybe the temperature. While these are good strategies, you are just tinkering around the edges of this issue. Let’s look at it more deeply.
What stresses do you encounter in a big match? Experienced athletes will tell you that it is not just the physical things like shooting on an unfamiliar range with a different appearance, feel and sounds, next to different people. It is also and perhaps more importantly the mental pressures that you must deal with. In a big match such as the national championships or maybe a trial where you must shoot a minimum qualifying score for something like selection for the national team or a pinnacle event such as the Olympic or Paralympic games. Shooting athletes who have been there will tell you that they had to deal with an elevated heart rate, the trigger felt too heavy or too light. The rifle wouldn’t keep still. The sight picture looked different. Things seemed to be spiralling out of control. You cannot duplicate all these things in training; there are too many variables. How do you know the exact pressures that you will be faced with, and train for them? The answer is that you don’t know the exact pressures that you will encounter in a big match. There will always be some unknowns.
The skills that you need in your skillset toolbox must be able to give you the ability to confidently deal with unknowns.
Differential Training
There is a concept called differential training that emphasises adaptation and variability over repetition. I first learnt about differential training at the ISSF B coaching course in Finland in 2017. I saw it being used just after that course when I spent a few days with the Swedish National junior shooting squad at their base in Savsjo Sweden. I was there to observe and work with their National Coach, Leif Steinar. I think that this type of training is something that every shooter with high aspirations must do.
In differential training the shooting athlete must carry out the same skill in different ways, usually with different degrees of difficulty. This encourages the athlete to adapt to a range of situations and challenges, rather than mastering a single, specific type of movement. By encouraging athletes to learn from their mistakes through variations, differential training stimulates critical thinking and improves overall learning. It also takes the boredom out of training by turning it into a fun time.
Examples of differential training in shooting.
Training for hold (balance)
Can be varied by dry firing with Scatt (or live fire) without shooting jacket, shooting pants, boots, using foam pads to stand on, or any combination of these things.
SH2 shooters could use a weaker support spring.
SH1 shooters could put their tables or wheelchairs on an unstable surface such as a high-density foam pad.
These are some ideas. You might have more. Maybe 20 shots for each variation.
The important thing is to always finish your training, the last 20 shots, in the correct setup.
Training for Aim.
The eyesight has been tested; work has been done on front sight aperture size options. Scatt has been utilised, and the best combination of sights has been decided on.
One of the problems is that shooters often take too long aiming. As described earlier if the balance and approach is correct then the hold will be easier to manage allowing plenty of time for the aiming process. The problem is that after only a few seconds the eye begins to get tired making the aiming less precise. You don’t want to be having long aiming times for sixty shots!
Training strategies for aim include such things as;
Time limit. When the aiming has started the coach is using a stopwatch, calling stop at 15 seconds if the shot has not been fired.
Shooting from a longer distance.
This makes target appear smaller, the front sight appears larger. 20 shots at 11 metres, 20 shots at 12 metres and the last 20 shots seems relatively easy at the normal 10 metres.
Shading, how far off do you have to aim to get a nine? This changes the perception of trying to be too precise with the aim at the expense of the hold and triggering.
Training for Triggering
The hold is good, the aim is good, all the shooter must do is pull the trigger. Not quite as easy as it sounds. The triggering must be consistently performed in a way that does not disturb the hold and the aim. The triggering must be timed precisely to the best aim and hold combination. This means that the shooter must have absolute and precise control of the triggering under all kinds of conditions. In hot weather, in cold weather, in stressful competitions and finals.
Triggering variations should include.
· Dry firing on a blank target
· Dry firing from a bench with the lights off so there is no other stimulus. Only the trigger.
· Dry firing or live shooting (or a combination of) from a bench not using the sights but only using scatt trace to aim with. This way the shooter gets real-time feedback on the triggering.
· Timing the triggering to a count e.g. “one, two, three” Bang!
· Experiment with different trigger finger placements
· Changing the trigger tension(release weight)
One example of differential training. Shooting from a longer distance.
This makes target appear smaller, the front sight appears larger. 20 shots at 11 metres, 20 shots at 12 metres and the last 20 shots seems relatively easy at the normal 10 metres.
Coming soon
Is Periodised training relevant for shooting?