I find that familiarity with any firearm helps but especially with a pistol. My pistol is for self-defense if needed or if I might happen to run low on ammo for my long gun, till I can get more ammo. Pistols are like any other firearm they need to fit you properly, be held properly and aimed properly. I shoot with both eyes open and practice with a brock string to keep my eyes working correctly for my pistol, rifles and shotguns. I also believe in dry practice (no ammo any place close to where I am practicing). A friend of mine Mike said that after he retired from the SEALS he didn't pick up a pistol for 10 years but that when he did it came back pretty fast, but he did need to work at some of the things he had lost with time. Muscle memory is one of the things that will degrade with the passage of time not doing something.
Ramblings and Such From Hunting Coyote
- Thread starter DSheetz
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I actually use a modified Weaver stance. The offside hand is my support hand I use equal pressure in my grip, but I don't grip so hard that it makes me shake, it is pretty tight though. I have good grip strength but if I didn't, I would exercise to strengthen my hands and fore arms.
This is my Brock string, the yellow bead is set close to the distance that the front sight would be on my pistol when aiming it. I fasten the loop to something stationary hold the end on my nose and look at the different beads to get my eyes to focus clearly one at a time you will see the string form an X at the bead as you move from bead to bead with your focus. I use it fastened higher than my line of sight, lower than my line of sight and to the side of it as well. It teaches my eyes to focus as well as work together with both eyes open while looking through your scope, open sights, your pistol or shotgun or red dot sights. And exercises you eye muscles. Just in case someone hadn't heard of one or seen one I thought I would post a picture of mine. I made mine but they can be bought as well. It's a scary place if you get to looking around in my garage or workspace you might find things that nobody has any idea what they are or what they will do. My daughter needed some stiff wire when she was in college, and I had some springs for a lawn mower return spring that she took to the instructor who asked her what it was then told my daughter she wanted to visit with her dad about figuring some other things out and could see come see his collection of stuff lol. I built some firing pin springs for a very old double barreled shot gun for a guy one time when he couldn't find any, from some spring steel that was in my garage, I did tell him that they didn't come with a guarantee, but they are still working. That is the kind of thing I do for fun just to see if I can.
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Thanks for showing this Dave. I had no idea what you were talking about with the Brock string. Not sure I do now lol. I understand the premise but lacking the full picture at the moment lol. I've never been able to leave both eyes open with any success. Had an olympic trap shooter explain how to figure out wingshooting with both open but never got the hang of it.
74 Honker this shows the string hooked to a doorknob so I would be looking downward at the beads. I put the end of it on the tip of my nose, then with both eyes open I look down the string at a bead, keeping both eyes open I focus on that bead till I see it clearly and the string forms an X with the bead at its center then I look at a different bead till it does the same thing. As with all aspects of what we do if it's working for you, it's not wrong to close one eye, it's just what works for you. This is just what I was taught so as to keep both eyes open and view my surroundings while shooting, so as not to be surprised by the unwanted appearance of something. It also helps me to have a well centered sight picture not like looking at your fingertip pointing at a target with one eye then closing that eye and opening the other just to find you no longer are pointing at what you once were. Again, as with sighting your rifle or setting up your scope if its working for you that's just the way you do it and its not wrong for you. If it works for you to set up your scope by leveling it with a fence post from your kitchen table, then that's what works for you but if I set my rifle up in a vice level the action then set up my scope find my eye relief then use a string and plum bob to true up my cross hairs (reticle) then that's what works for me. It's a lot in how we learned how we want to do what we want to do that makes it work or not work for us.
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That's a very interesting approach. There is definately an advantage to the both eyes open way of sighting. A new or young shooter would benefit greatly if taught this early on. Hard to change old, ingrained, bad habits lol. The olympic shooters method was to set a jug out 20-30yrds and without hesitation, mount the gun and shoot while keeping both eyes open of course. You keep doing that repeatively until you hit it everytime without thought. This
practice teaches the hand eye coordination and muscle memory to match it. While this will work wonders for accurate wingshooting I think your method would be best since with wingshooting most all focus is on the distant target and your method also incorporates close up crosshair or sights AND the distant target at the same time.
practice teaches the hand eye coordination and muscle memory to match it. While this will work wonders for accurate wingshooting I think your method would be best since with wingshooting most all focus is on the distant target and your method also incorporates close up crosshair or sights AND the distant target at the same time.
Mine works indoors also and you don't even need a firearm to practice it. Any place you can attach a string and carry one works for practicing with it. The method you described is how I double check my scope to be sure it is mounted correctly for me as well as how well my pistols are fitted to me, I just close my eyes pop them up into the shooting position, open my eyes and see what my sight picture is through the scope or my sights. It is hard to change the way we do things and if it's working for us the way we are doing it is there really any need to? It is interesting to learn new things for me and if a younger person learns some way of doing something and then can do it more to their advantage, I am then happy with myself even if I don't know they have.
This is my favorite cat set site on this ranch. The ranch is 65000 to 70000 acres, and this rock pile is setting in the middle of a pasture and any cat coming through the area will have to come visit it. There are a couple of rock over hangs that have the west end rocked up as wind breaks where the Native Americans would stay there in the winter, they have fire pits out in the front of them but still under the over hangs. It's nice to visit them but I don't bother them. There are good places to make the cat sets that won't disturb the sites. From the tools and points left there they were good craftsmen and took pride in their work. I see no need to mess with them I just like to look at them and figure that not many people will take the time to climb around there. I have taken 6 adult cats there in one season and averaged 3 per season. One time that I have written about before, I went up in there to look at the set site and there were a couple of younger bobcats playing that came running towards me one of them got to about 20 feet of me before it noticed me the other one jumped on a tall rock farther back from me, we had a 10- or 15-minute stair down. I enjoyed it, they left in a hurry when they left.
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This is my coyote bone pile from the last year I worked this ranch it had 100 coyotes in it for that years' work, and in the last five years has dissolved back to the earth pretty well. I have always been amazed by how good the grass grows in and around these piles for a few years, we have pretty thin and poor soil here. It is at a junction in the two-track road near the end of my travels on that ranch at the end of the day and a good place to leave them for the rancher to see so that I could get paid for each coyote that I took on that ranch. I'm back out there working it again just a little older and slower than I used to be. Tomorrow I will get shots in my neck and lower back from where I broke them in 1997, the shots usually stop them from aching for a few years and I will be good to go. I am lucky that they work for me, where some have problems all of the time with theirs.
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Walt and I got a call to go out and see about taking care of a couple of coyotes for a guy. Normally I wouldn't think of posting pictures like these, but this shows an old male in the first picture and a yearling female in the second one. This is what our coyotes look like in mid 90-degree temperatures with hot winds blowing 15 to 25 mph in less than three days. The older female was pretty much eaten by buzzards she was around two years old the male looked to be 3 or 4 years old, and the yearling was last year's crop probably from the old female. They don't do well in a snare in the heat that we have been having but in neck caught snares they don't live long anyway, you are there to make them into good coyotes that aren't bothering livestock. The rancher is happy the sheep are calmer.
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I have a few pups from this spring running around in another place that the adults are gone from now. they are running around near a rattle snake den, so I want them before September when the snakes start to come back to the den or wait for cold weather when they are denned up. Gene and I visited the other evening he retired last month from control work for the county, he told me that the few dens he took this spring averaged 4 to 5 pups per litter. I did see a rabbit today there aren't many of them here again this year but still tons of grasshoppers. The pups are starting to hunt with the adults now it is after all late August, I don't know where the summer went, and I am hopeful that we don't have as much wind and snow this year as we did last year.
