Eas Ko) WA ALS « > Part 1 of a 2-part series STORY BY BRIAN ZINS | PHOTOS BY JOHN PARKER ‘ome of what you're about to read may sound contradictory to other lessons that have been taught in the past. By no way am | suggesting they are incorrect. | am merely giving my approach to learning precision pistol—and what | do as a shooter. Brian Zins is a 12-time NRA National Pistol Champion, and considered one of the greatest pistol shooters of all time. TRIGGER CONTROL Trigger finger placement really counts when the shot breaks. Now don't get me wrong, stance, grip and aiming are important but keep in mind that you can have a perfect grip and hold perfect sight alignment all day long. It only counts when the gun goes bang and only one action causes the gun to do that—pulling the trigger. You can hold the gun upside down, squeeze the trigger with your pinky, and align the sights to the target in a a Editor’s Note: Brian Zins is clearly one of the greatest pistol shooters of all-time. His unprecedented twelve national championships is a record that may never be broken. Brian's thoughts are especially valuable because he doesn’t always follow the traditional techniques.Ml as mirror and shoot tens as long as you don’t jerk the trigger. However, please *do not® try that at home! Aside from that, this is what | was taught and this is what | do. Please keep in mind it is only one way, and not the only way—but | have had pretty good results with it. Also, this is for a trigger that has at least a little roll—which is my preference. First, let's look at trigger finger placement. ‘And remember this is an article on precision tol shooting. If this were an article on free pistol or air pistol, it would be different. International shooters, please don’t unleash the hounds on me! Now, where should the trigger make contact on the finger? The trigger should be centered in the first crease of the trigger finger. Why you ask? We have always been taught to place the pad on the trigger. If you have a trigger that ‘weighs in-between two and four Ibs., that is enough weight to move the fleshy part of the pad of your finger. Try it! Get something that ‘weighs at least two Ibs. and has a tip or point onit the size of a pen, or just use a trigger. Put your hand on a table or desk, palm up and slowly lower the weight onto the pad of the finger. It moves a lot. Now lower the weight onto the first crease of the finger, right on the joint. Sure it moves, but a whole lot less than the fatty, fleshy part of the finger pad. Now, after having conducted this little experiment, think about pulling the trigger with the pad of the finger. The first part of movement you feel is flesh and fat moving out of the way. This is not part of the movement involved in trigger control. ssusaone | vanuany2017 29Peat cy For example, have you ever been shooting well and in slow fire you start to get “chicken finger?” The trigger starts moving and then it stops and feels like it weighs 30 Ibs., or did it move at all? Maybe what you felt was the flesh moving out of the way because you were shooting well and didn’t want to screw up the match, so you are really in tune with what you are feeling in the trigger. Now think if the trigger were placed at the crease or first joint of the trigger finger. When the trigger moves, what you are feeling is, really the trigger moving. Let’s go even deeper—take a pen or a pencil and start tapping the fleshy part of the web between your trigger finger and the thumb. Keeping the same intensity, move the tapping up to the large knuckle on your trigger finger. Feel the difference? The flesh acts as a shock absorber to the tapping where the tendon in the joint is more of a conductor. | know what you're thinking—why do | want to feel that? Because it is that important to be able to feel every little movement of your trigger so you Trigger control is merely a reaction to what the eye sees. know that you are squeezing the trigger and not jerking the trigger. Types of trigger squeeze—when | was in Boot Camp they taught us about trigger control before we went to the rifle range. | now look back and realize they were, well not wrong, but mistaken (just in case | run into my old Drill Instructors and by some strange twist of fate they read this article). The Marine Corps taught two different types of trigger control: Interrupted and Uninterrupted And | still believe that there are two types: Uninterrupted and Wrong. If trigger control is ever interrupted in slow fire, the shot needs to be aborted and the shot started over. If trigger control is interrupted in a sustained fire stage, then we revert to our “key word” that triggers us to kick start our shot process. Sight alignment and trigger control—often when the fundamentals are explained, these two are explained as two different acts. In actuality, it's hard to accomplish one without the other. They have a symbiotic relationship.To truly settle the movement in the dot or sights you need a smooth, steady trigger squeeze. Trigger control is merely a reaction to what the eye sees. What? One can hold perfect sight alignment’ sight picture for a long time. Now, apply pressure to the trigger and what happens? Something moves, right? If this happens in a slow fire shot, what typically happens is we stop squeezing until everything settles down again and we start the trigger. It moves. We stop the trigger. It settles. We start the trigger. It moves and so on and so forth. From this we can see how the finger already acts to what. the eye sees. We do not have to train the eye to accomplish this, since it already does it. We need to make it work for us and get the finger to react at a more opportune time, before we have obtained perfect sight alignmentsight picture. Yes, | just said to start squeezing the trigger before you have obtained a perfect sight alignment/sight picture. Your sight alignment should be pretty close to perfect, since we have mastered a perfect, grip and the sights are aligned, not just to each other but also to the other eye as soon as the gun is raised. If not, we will master that soon. Before the sights or dot have settled into the center of the target, we should start our trigger squeeze, taking advantage of the pressure that is being applied to the trigger to help stabilize the sight. Continue to squeeze the trigger uninterrupted, using that pressure to help move toward and stay center and allow the shot to break. Therefore as it stands, | am not a big believer in the surprise break. | know when. my gun is going to shoot and what it feels like right up until it shoots. I really know my trigger and | have done lots of dry firing Sight alignment and trigger control hat relationship. symbiotic Ye can have a perfect grip and hold perfect sight lignment all day long —but if you jerk the trigger it all for naught. Pistols like to move in the valley formed between that, meaty portion below the little finger and the meaty part of the thumb. without looking at the sights—just to know what it feels like. This method has been called steering the sights with the trigger, but 'm not a fan of, the connotation that carries—it is more of a sight alignment/sight picture through trigger control concept. ssusaone | vanuany2017 3]Peat cy GRIP ISSUES 1am not saying that the grip I describe here is the only one to use. It is merely an option—it all depends on your hand size and structure. It works for me, and it has worked for many shooters that | have taught it to. And just to be clear, it is not unsafe for those who have questioned it, because the gun will move less with this grip. Hence, if you do use a grip that aligns the sights and gun up your arm to your shoulder, you are putting yourself at a huge disadvantage. A proper grip is a grip that will naturally align the gun's sights to the eye of the shooter, without having to tilt your head or move your wrists around in order to do that. Also, most importantly, a proper grip is a arip that allows the gun to return to the same position that allowed the sights to be aligned without having to search for the sights after each and every shot. Too many times | have seen, and | am sure most of you have done it yourself. Someone shoots and you can see the front of the gun waving around as they try to get sight alignment back. This is not a problem with recoil management, grip strength or position. This is a grip issue ‘As a result, if you line the gun up your arm and to your shoulder in order to align the sights one of two things must happen. Your head leaves a natural position in order to see the sights since they are lined up with your shoulder or you have to turn your wrists until the sights are aligned to your eye, but then the gun is no longer aligned up your arm. This was called “grip alignment.” Yes, back in the day they taught “grip A proper grip is one that will naturally align the ‘gun's sights to the eye of the shooter 32 sawuanrot7 | ssusaonealignment." Well, grip alignment as they described it is BS, just like Natural Point of Aim with a pistol is BS. But that's a completely different conversation. Two-handed shooters don’t even shoot with the gun aligned up their strong arm to their shoulder. Unless you have some deformity, and your head is growing out of your shooting side shoulder, why would you want the gun aligned up your arm to your shoulder? Now keep in mind, this is for a 1911 slab-style grip or a.22LR with slabs. Unfortunately, if you are using orthopedic grips—you can’t do this with them. USING ZINS GRIP My grip is simple, it's not hard to get into and once you get it, it will feel better, recoil will be better managed and the sights will always come back to alignment. If you rotate the meaty portion of your hand below the little finger behind the back-strap of the gun, every time you shoot, it will want to move off of it. It is just a squishy, fatty portion of your hand that cannot control the gun or offer any resistance to recoil whatsoever. The fatty portion of the hand there cannot be moved, itis just fat. Try to move it. The movement caused by making a fist does not count, because the rest of the hand causes that movement. The place the gun tends to move to is the valley formed between that meaty portion below the little finger and the meaty part of the thumb. So | ask—why not start with the gun in the place it wants to be? Unfortunately, even with a picture this is hard to describe. When done in person, | usually have to work individually with shooters to show them how to do it. The best and easiest way to get the proper grip, at least a good starting position as you may need to tweak it around a bit until it feels good, is with a holster. Put your 1911 in a holster on the side of your body; not in front or behind, but on the side ‘of your hip. Put your hands in the surrender position, like the action shooters form. Keep your eyes and head straight and allow your shooting hand to come down naturally to the ‘gun; don’t move it around—just let it come down and grab the gun. The fatty part of the little finger should all be on the right panel of the grip. Now, keeping the gun in your hand with the grip, assume your one handed shooting position. The sights should be pretty close to being aligned. If they are not then you need to tweak the grip a bit. Part 2 of this series next month will include aiming the red dot sight, forming a shot process, and handling anticipation. To learn ‘more about Brian Zins and his illustrious career, please visit him on Facebook. © ssusaone | vanuany 2017 33Pou OLS A Clinic on Precision Pistol FUNDAMENTALS, PART II STORY BY BRIAN ZINS AIMINGTHE RED DOT Before I get into my theories on looking at the target or the dot (not iron sights), let me share an observation—many shooters think entirely too much. This is not rocket science, because if it were, | would not be a shooter. Hence, 1am not smart enough to shoot badly. When Erich Bujung was the Olympic Pisto!Team coach, he always said, “No stinking 24 reonuanvan7 ssUisAgh thinking. The mind is a terrible thing to waste and in Bullseye on the firing line, the mind is just a terrible thing” Thus, | submit to you another way of accomplishing the goal of shooting better. Hearned to shoot under the guidelines that legends such as Don Nygord and the late Bill Blankenship wrote about. | learned from some of the greatest marksmanship instructors the U.S. Marine Corps had to Editor's Note: In his latest article for SSUSA, 12-time NRA National Pistol Champion Brian Zins shares his thoughts on aiming the red dot and anticipation in Precision Pistol competition. Read Part I here.offer. I can take only partial claim to the ideas presented here, as it was a collaborative effort of Andy Moody, Mitch Reed, Mario Lozoya, Chris Hill and myself. Our goal was to get Marines to shoot a 2600 as fast as possible because unlike the Army, the Marines do not get the luxury of staying on theTeam for life. Therefore, we came up with ideas to get Marines to shoot better and faster. use an Aimpoint Micro with a 2 MOA dot, not the match four dot, though that is an awesome scope and recommend it for anyone with failing vision. On a bright day my dot level is on about an eight, in order to have a small dot, Additionally, with a dot | am not a big advocate of the iris on my shooting glasses but with iron sights, that’s okay. Jam sure at some point or another you have thrown a ball to someone, right? When you threw the ball, what were you looking at? The ball, or the person or object you were throwing at? Let me explain. With iron sights, three items come into play. Front sight, rear sight and the target or aiming area. However, with the dot you have but two items in play. The DOT and the target. Before | forget, I do understand the difference between sight alignment and sight picture. Zins prefers ‘an Aimpoint Micro with a2 MOA, dot for Precision Pistol competition. 3 E 2 TARGET VS. SIGHT When I began shooting, Andy Moody and I were talking about looking at the target vs. looking at the sight. | was young and didn’t know any better so | tried it. Keep in mind this was my first year as a bullseye shooter. I then proceeded to shoot my first ever 100 long-line with my .22LR. Heck, it was my first 100 long-line period. The team captain called ‘everyone into a circle and asked me to tell them what | did during that string and if learned something. | told him I turned my dot down and looked at the target as opposed to the front sight. He about had a fit, but some learning had occurred, and not just for me. From that moment on, it became not so uncommon for Marines to look at the target. Here lies the problem. Many shooters that do not get the desired results are not truly looking at the target. To shoot a dot in Precision Pistol and to do it well, you have to either focus on the target or on the dot. Most are focusing somewhere between the dot and the target. This is equivalent to looking at the target with iron sights. It's not going to work. Be true to yourself when determining where your focus is. ssusaone | reenuany 2017 25oat OLS For me, I find that when looking at the target, accept the wobble of the dot more and do not get hung up on the trigger. NOTE: If you have a big wobble area this is harder to achieve. There are days that my dot may not sit as still as | like and on said days | will bring my focus back to the dot. If you have a decent hold you should be able to do this successfully. And if you have a big wobble, the true method of looking at the dot is great. Remember, that is how | learned to shoot. DOES YOUR DOT NEEDTO STAY CENTERED? Another question is does the dot need to stay centered in the scope?The answer to that is @ great big maybe. First of all, we humans like to see things correct geometrically. What | mean. is we like to see a circle in a circle ina circle. If we had change sitting on our desk at some Point or another we are going to stack it in the following order: quarter, nickel, penny and then ie. If you stack another way that just means you are little more creative than the average bear and good on you. So it makes sense to put the dot in the center of the scope. ‘Some dots you have to put in the center, or you will get some parallax and the dot is really not where you think it is. Andy Moody shot with the dot in the bottom of his scope because that is where it rested when he brought the gun to the target. Why fight it? Why muscle the gun to the place you want it to be as opposed to allowing the gun to rest. where it wants to be? Overall, please keep in mind that when it comes to shooting pistols, | had the opportunity to learn from the likes of the earlier mentioned Marines—along with Steve Reiter, Doc Young, Jim Henderson and Jimmy, Dorsey. | try to relate what | have learned over my career, and shed a different light on it. ANTICIPATION ... EVERYBODY DOES IT Yes, everybody. In some form or another practically every bad shot that was not a grip oF position issue was a form of anticipation. Jerking the trigger is in essence anticipation, bucking, heeling and flinching. All of these are forms of anticipation. The problem is | don’t feel anyone has truly addressed the issue of how to correct Similar to a lot of things when it comes to shooting pistol, coaches could tell you what you were doing wrong. They could even show you what you were doing wrong. Remember the “Ball and Dummy drill?” Put a dummy round mixed in with the live rounds and show the shooter that they are jerking the trigger or anticipating the recoil. | remember that ‘The Shot Process is a mental checklist that ensures you are doing the same thing every time in order to shoot 10s. PHOTO BY JOHN PARKER.Pu OLS une stares vuvecen uP Tea z 5 g Zins (second row, third from left with the 2015 United States Mayleigh Cup Team. one, | absolutely hated it and think that there is no place on the range for it. The shooter would see the sights go away and the coach would say, “See, you were jerking the trigger,” usually followed with, “Don’t do that!” Well thanks genius! It doesn’t take long to figure out that if you are jerking the trigger, heeling, flinching, bucking or closing your eyes and you are aware of it, that obviously you aren't doing it on purpose. So how do you stop? That's where ‘we seem to lose a lot of coaches—they can identify problems, but cannot fix them. Imagine this hypothetical scenario: Your mechanic tells you the Flux Capacitor on your car is broken. However, the mechanic admits that he doesn’t know where it is, or even how to fix it—if he could find it. Would you go back to that mechanic? THE SHOT PROCESS ‘There is a solution to identify a lot of these problems prior to them becoming shots in places we don’t want them to be. Welcome the Shot Process into your life. Get to know it and ‘make it your own little Shot Process and raise it however you see fit. After all, itis your Shot Process to cultivate and modify as you wish. Ifonly children were that easy, but what fun would that be? The Shot Process is your mental plan and checklist that ensures you are doing everything the same every time in order to shoot 10s. Everyone has shot a 10 at some point. A 10 that you shoot is no different than a 10 that Jimmy. Henderson, Steve Reiter, Phil Hemphill or myself shoots. The difference is that we shoot more 10s because we have a routine that we follow every time the gun leaves the bench. A lot of good shooters that took a long time to get good may not believe this. They may say they never developed a Shot Process, and they are just good, Well, the fact of the matter is that they did develop a routine and process over time, without really knowing it. What you need to do is actively develop that plan. Why would you wait and allow it to happen over thousands and thousands of rounds, when you can be in control of the development and tweak the plan as you need? 28; Feonuany 217 | ssusaoneIhave heard good shooters describe their Shot Process as, “Pick gun up, shoot gun, put gun down: While it is frustrating to hear a good shooter say that, that is practically my Shot Process now. | have been developing this process for 20 years, and still working ont. In the beginning, my Shot Process was long. | was told to write down everything I did in order to shoot one 10—from the time I put the gun on the bench, until the gun went into recoil. Just the part from loading the gun until the gun went bang filled one side of paper. Everything that | had to do in order to shoot 10 needed confirmation that it was correct. I would dry fire and ensure that everything felt good from feet, hips, shoulders, grip and trigger feel. Also, | confirmed the stage of fire Iwas about to shoot so | knew whether | was going to shoot slow fire, timed or rapid. You have to put on paper everything you need to do to shoot a 10. What you write down might include the following: How many shots you dry fire in slow fire, timed and rapid fire? How many breaths do you take before raising the gun? When do you breathe before raising the gun? Do you inhale the gun up and exhale to settle into the black or vice versa? NOTE: You really should inhale on the way up and exhale to settle into the aiming area. What are you looking at? Irons, the dot, the target if shooting a dot maybe? Do you talk to yourself as the gun comes up? What do you say? Is it a phrase or key word? Is it the same thing for all three stages of fire? It really should be, or at least really close. What is your visual focus on as the gun is raised? Are you looking at the front sight or are you looking at the firing pin? Did you straighten your arm prior to raising the gun or did you just hap-hazzardly throw Zins has been developing his Shot Process for 20 years, and says he is still ‘working on it, Pere ee TetePeat cy it up in the direction of the target? When the gun settled in the aiming area, was it acceptable—or did you just figure you could move your arm at the shoulder, or adjust the gun in your grip to get the sights where you want them to be? Was the grip proper when you dry fired—or did you screw it up when you chambered a round? All of these questions and more need to be addressed in your Shot Process. The best way to learn this process is to have a partner write down everything you do and are thinking—that way you do not take any short cuts. That is the easy part if you are honest with yourself and actually write down everything you do to shoot one well aimed shot. The hard part is following that process and being able to identify when you are not, or identify problems in the process and abort the shot in slow fire or fix it, expediently, in timed and rapid fire. You have to be aware of all these steps, be honest with yourself, stop—and fix them. If you think in slow fire you can muscle through an indicator, and still make a good shot—then | am here to tell you that if it does end up being a good shot, you were lucky. | can't tell you how many times I thought, “| can still shoot this and make it a 10.” Almost every time | didn’t shoot a 100 slow fire, there ‘was that shot. What can make a real difference is the ability to identify indicators earlier in the process. Most of us at some point have been able to call a shot, and say where the shot went before scoping because you saw something happen as the shot broke. What you need to realize is that most of the time there was an indicator earlier in the process that was trying to tell you it was going to be a bad shot. What happens is we do not pay attention to them and keep ‘Author Brian Zins's record setting total of 12 NRA National Pistol Championships may never be broken, squeezing the trigger believing it will fix itself. Most of my shots that I abort are aborted before the gun settles into the aiming area. ‘Thus, you can see that early in my process there is an indicator that tells me DO NOT let this shot go, without fixing something. Remember your training partner that helped write down your process? Now, use them to ensure that you are in fact following the process that you developed. Eventually, they will become subconscious acts. You will not have to ask yourself all these questions before each slow fire shot and each string of timed and rapid fire, your process will take over and you will automatically be able to identify the imperfections in all the steps and nuances of your process—without asking yourself the questions. Perhaps you will even reach the, “pick gun up, shoot gun, put gun down” Shot Process. Therefore, by utilizing proper trigger control and aiming, and by following the Shot Process that you have developed for yourself, you can eliminate a lot of issues, including anticipation. 30) Feenuanyor7 | ssusaone