The Art/Biology of Aiming?

[Boatschool02]

Does anyone have a background in the theory and/or biology of aiming?
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I spent 10 years shooting the olympic rifle and pistol events with iron sights.
The realm of what is possible by simply aligning concentric circles or by allowing the subconscious mind to choose a non-specific white gap (sub-6 pistol hold) has always fascinated me.
Ratios are VERY important.
(Many naively believe that tighter circles and narrower gaps are better, but that has been disproven to my satisfaction.)
Most of this has to do with how the eye and the mind work together.
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Now having switched to centerfire, I would be interested to hear what others are doing for load testing aiming marks. Recently I've been using 3/4, 1, and 1.5" orange circles at 300 yards. Depending on the level of mirage, my 3/32 and 1/8 MOA March Target dots can be easily superimposed... but I'm pretty sure that I'm leaving performance on the table. IF everything were clear, my entering argument would have been a target dot filling 1/3 to 1/2 of the aiming point diameter, assuming that the hold were of sufficient quality to hover within the aiming mark, thereby allowing proper subconscious release of the trigger. (Basically, the goal is to remove the temptation to time the release, because you'll always be "leaving" the X-ring if resorting to conscious mental "control.")
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At the level of rods and cones input switching, my gut feeling is that overlapping crosshairs also leaves something to be desired.

Thoughts? Ideas? Experience?

Thanks,
Luke

 

[Evan]

I've consistently found my best groups to happen when I stop focusing on where the gun is pointing and wait for it to feel right. I like reticles with an open center for this. I find a dot too distracting. It's like when you're told to look where you want to drive, not what you want to miss. You focus on the dot and you aren't focusing on your body's preparedness to fire.

To your question, I think aligning concentric dots is most accurate when the top dot is only slightly smaller. If it's the same size, you lose resolution and if it's much smaller you lose resolution. Cross hairs on target lines is by far the best for me when the target has lines, but the trick is that you don't focus on the center of the crosshair, you use a wider relaxed vision to lay the lines on top of each other. People focus too much on their scope and get their biomechanics all wacked out.

But I think we're on the same page: the body can naturally handle pointing the gun and does not require conscious control. Conscious control leads to tension all over your body and messed up breathing that undoubtedly affects accuracy.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Aim at an edge away from your impact point is my advice. Dont hit your crosshair dot and its too big to center on anything

 

[powderbrake]

I used to shoot a lot of pistol (when my eyes were good) and I used the subsix hold. Now on my rifles with target dots I make practice targets with a white dot center approximately 2 x the target dot size, and center the dot. I don't see or use the crosshairs.
Here is a typical target that I use for load development, the aiming point is above the impact area.
It has a 1/2 inch circle, with a .187 center hole and 1/4 inch squares.

 

[Doug Beach]

I shoot sling and irons at mid & long range, highmaster at both.
I use a front aperture at the generic 2x the black diameter. Typical 10 shot groups will run ~1moa in mild conditions. (Sometimes gratifyingly smaller than this, but I’m trying to be honest...)
If I use a much smaller front aperture, I will shoot tiny knots (~.5 MOA) with 20% fliers opening the group to 1.5+ MOA.
An excellent (relaxed, for lack of a better word) trigger break with an acceptable sight picture always gives me better results over a string than a more forced break, with a “perfect” sight picture.
I’m very interested in this topic

 

[BoydAllen]

Years ago, I discussed this with an accomplished service rifle competitor. Going over the basics, speaking of shooting off hand, and trigger control, that one should position the body to center the sight oscillation on the target, rather than holding it there, and to increase pressure on the trigger while moving toward center, and hold pressure while moving away, until the shot broke on one of the moving in cycles. He specifically said that one should not try to time the shot as you swing by. Some time later, his wife, also an accomplished shooter, told me that one should not try to steer the rifle with the supporting (non trigger) hand because this would lead to what amounted to over driving and cause problems. For me this translated into sort of aiming from the waist, using my trunk muscles, which tended to slower, more easily controlled movements. On my own I used to do off hand dry fire practice with a 4X scope, which required that I learn not to over drive the rifle when making aim corrections. I had to learn how to relax, and learn that taking a shot earlier with a "good enough" sight picture was going to give better average results than trying too hard and taking too long. For prone and shooting from the bench there was a discussion about the image becoming sort of burned into the eye so that you would continue to think that you were centered when in fact that you had wandered off a bit. I know that this is not literally what happens as far as the burning in, but it was a method of describing a phenomenon that is evidently real. The way to deal with this is to look out of the sights or scope, off into the distance, to allow the eye to relax, and then return to the sight picture, true up aim, and break the shot. I have played with this with irons, from the bench, where it would be easy to spend too much time sighting and then comparing the results from taking the shot more quickly, and the results favored taking less time. Even with a high magnification scope I think that this may be a factor. One may want to maintain body position during a string, but if there are long waits for a condition, letting the eye relax may be a good thing.

 

[Boatschool02]

All,
Thanks for taking time to reply.
Concur with many of the ideas listed above.
Have you played around with different aim point sizes/shapes/colors/fills?
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1) Too exacting and there will be temptation for every sort of "timing" or releasing the shot with the conscious mind.
2) Too much overlap (target dot & aim point size difference) for the comparable hold quality and the eye & brain will struggle to switch the colors on and off without inducing more of problem #1.
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Yes, to studying the art of compromises that will yield the smallest average 10+ shot groups over time.
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In the course of my next couple range trips, I will hold the load constant and try out some different options.
Any/all inputs welcome.
Thanks,
Luke

 

[rwj]

You may find the Brian Enos book titled “Practical Shooting, Beyond Fundamentals” an interesting read regarding this thread topic. As the title suggests, it is based on “action” pistol shooting. However, the discussions regarding awareness, attitude, focus, sight picture, and trigger control apply equally to rifle shooting.

 

[Ned Ludd]

I have always subscribed to premise that if you can't see it, you can't hit it. IMO - it is the contrast of the aimpoint that is the most critical, to my eyes, at least. Typical red target dots (and to some extent, green and orange) do not provide sufficient contrast to the black aiming dot or crosshair of the reticle, especially at longer distances and/or when ambient lighting conditions aren't perfect. Darker colors don't offer sufficient contrast to the black reticle for my eyes. White or bright yellow are much better choices. I also find that having some kind of specific and well-defined aimpoint is a necessity for shooting tight groups. For example, holding the reticle on a target aimpoint that also has a black crosshair or small dot in the center will allow me to print much tighter groups than if I try to hold the same reticle centered solely by eye in the middle of a red/orange 1" circle that has no other finer marking in its center.

As I mentioned to you previously, I switched over to using white adhesive labeling circles with crosshairs drawn using a ruler with a medium black Sharpie. I did this after testing various types of targets and target "aimpoint" pasters over a long period of time. Were I to repeat this exercise now, I would simply obtain a variety of likely pasters and/or target types and put them all up on a single sheet of cardboard at the intended distance, then determine empirically through the scope which was most easily visualized, all at the same time. Chances are good that viewing a variety of choices through the scope simultaneously will allow you to select those that appear best to your eye.