# Aim small Pt. 2



## Jaximus (Jun 1, 2013)

I saw Arturito's topic after I came in here to post this, but still wanted to go with aim small, hence the Pt. 2. Moving on...

This coming Monday will mark my second week of shooting slingshots. I must say, I'm not where I hoped I would be at this point.

My foray into the world of slingshots has been punctuated with many peaks and valleys. There have been moments of extreme joy. There have been moments of crushing failure. My primary problem being consistency. I'll shoot ten rounds into a quarter sized hole at 10 meters, walk to my catchbox to retrieve some ammo, go back to the shooting line and struggle to keep the shots on the paper. To me this is beyond frustrating and when I get frustrated I start to shoot really badly.

Up until today I've been shooting almost exclusively at this type of target:









The rings are the size of a soda can top because that's what was handy. I've got about a million IPSC silhouette targets out in my shed, so I've been cutting them up into sixths and drawing the little targets on them. The thing about this type of target, for me anyway, is that when I hit in the ring it means almost nothing. That's what was supposed to happen, so why make a big deal? But when I miss the ring I immediately begin berating myself. This has led me to conclude that my failure is mainly psychological and has little to do with my shooting technique.

I was thinking about all of this late last night when I remembered something from a few years ago. When I wanted to get good at rapid fire with my Smith & Wesson J-frame, aside from hours of dry-fire practice, I shot at grains of rice hot-glued onto pieces of thread (have to have really good lighting to do that, BTW). Yes, I missed a lot more rice than I hit, but it got me so focused my shooting improved about 300%. Also, I wasn't disappointed when I missed the rice, it's a grain of rice for Pete's sake! But when I hit the rice I was freaking ecstatic. Positive reinforcement at its best.

So, today I tried something that two days ago I would have thought was way beyond my skill level. First, I cut a target out of leather the same size as the top of the soda can and hung it in my catchbox.









Quickly I began to hit it with regularity. Even with having to reset after almost every hit because the target would go flying or get hung up in the box. Even with the fact that, at 10 meters, the leather target almost perfectly blends in with that brown shirt. I was happy, but then I had a thought. Was I making it too easy? I'd been shooting at this size target for almost two weeks. I should be able to hit it. Then, I did the unthinkable... I went inside and grabbed a piece of quarter-inch dowel from my workbench. It was on.

Unbelievably, I began hitting the dowel rod. Regularly. I had to reset after every hit, but I was still getting some first-shot hits. And it never took me more than five rounds to hit it. Sure, that's not Bill Hays level accuracy, but for a guy that could fire 25 shots and never get a single one in a 2" diameter circle it's pretty good.









So, what's the moral of this (probably too long) story? Seriously, aim small. It works. If you're having trouble aiming small, just reduce the size of your target until you have no choice but to aim small.

I think later I'm going to try some matches...


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## AZ Stinger (Aug 30, 2012)

No doubt the way to go...


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## Charles (Aug 26, 2010)

By all means, try the Bill Hays match shooting contest!!! Even I plan to give it a go.

For small targets, I cut leather squares in progressive sizes, from 2 inches per side down to 1 inch per side. For me, those 1 inch squares are a real challenge.

Another fun and challenging target I found was a pocket target:

http://slingshotforum.com/topic/13479-fun-pocket-target/

I take about half a dozen shots and then check to see how many I actually got in the pocket ... be sure to read down to the modified version:

http://slingshotforum.com/topic/13479-fun-pocket-target/?p=147902

These are all just variations on the theme of "aim small, miss small" ...

Cheers .... Charles


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## treefork (Feb 1, 2010)

Good share! :thumbsup:


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## Jaximus (Jun 1, 2013)

I love that pocket target, Charles. I'm going to have to dig up some leather scraps or some ballistic nylon and fashion one of those.

Also, before today I hadn't even considered entering that contest, but now I'm going to give it a go. Even if I miss every match it counts as an entry into the contest, so what do I have to lose? You know, besides my dignity.


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## Jaximus (Jun 1, 2013)

treefork said:


> Good share! :thumbsup:


Haha, thanks, treefork.


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## AZ Stinger (Aug 30, 2012)

If you can`t find any leather scraps PM me...

Ray


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## ruthiexxxx (Sep 15, 2012)

The 'aim small, miss small' is the best shooting advice i know. I'm still a crap shot (though good enough for my purposes) but i'm a lot less crap since i applied this. hanging a spoon in front of the airgun target improved my performance instantly !


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## Lepmiester (Jun 23, 2013)

Im into my 2nd week also.

I had been shooting at paper targets - bullseyes, the soda can size circles, and a few other one i downloaded from the forum (thanks for those btw) but a really started wanting to "hit" somthing. I found that the hit or miss feeling was not there on the paper targets.

So i started with a 3" foam cutout, then 2" and now 1" from 10 meters and once i get a couple of initial shots out of the way the consistancy is getting much better. 6 in a row was the best today and 8 out of 10.


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## M.J (Nov 1, 2010)

The other moral of your story:

Objects are more fun to shoot than paper.

When you miss on paper the miss stays there and stares at you during the rest of your shooting. When you miss an object, the miss is history as soon as it happens and you can move forward.


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## Charles (Aug 26, 2010)

M.J said:


> The other moral of your story:
> 
> Objects are more fun to shoot than paper.
> 
> When you miss on paper the miss stays there and stares at you during the rest of your shooting. When you miss an object, the miss is history as soon as it happens and you can move forward.


Heck, MJ ... I didn't think you had any experience with "missing" !!!! :wave:

Cheers ..... Charles


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## ash (Apr 23, 2013)

I like targets where there is a big difference between hitting and missing. A metallic clang versus stony silence.

If I was more daring (stupid) I might be tempted to shoot at an upturned trampoline with a 1" hole in the middle. A hit gets you stony silence. A miss gets you a rebound into the face! :lol:


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## ruthiexxxx (Sep 15, 2012)

ash said:


> I like targets where there is a big difference between hitting and missing. A metallic clang versus stony silence.
> 
> If I was more daring (stupid) I might be tempted to shoot at an upturned trampoline with a 1" hole in the middle. A hit gets you stony silence. A miss gets you a rebound into the face! :lol:


That's me dead then !


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## Jaximus (Jun 1, 2013)

ash said:


> I like targets where there is a big difference between hitting and missing. A metallic clang versus stony silence.
> 
> If I was more daring (stupid) I might be tempted to shoot at an upturned trampoline with a 1" hole in the middle. A hit gets you stony silence. A miss gets you a rebound into the face! :lol:


With my luck I would somehow end up breaking one of my windows or hitting my wife or something. Does sound kind of fun, though.


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## ash (Apr 23, 2013)

Jaximus said:


> ash said:
> 
> 
> > I like targets where there is a big difference between hitting and missing. A metallic clang versus stony silence.
> ...


We so daring! :lol:


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## johnthemarksman (Jul 27, 2011)

this technique has helped me a lot the past few days and started making the target even smaller to about the size of a quarter and it works great for improving my accuracy


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## jld70 (Mar 27, 2013)

I have the same problem. For the short time i've been shooting I hit pretty consistantly on 3 dimensional targets,but am absolutely lousy on paper. I also agree its probably mostly in my head


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## Jaximus (Jun 1, 2013)

Just as an update, my accuracy has severely plummeted for unknown reasons, frustrating me to no end. However, today I received a package from AZStinger containing the raw materials to make some of the leather pouch targets Charles mentioned. Knowing I probably wouldn't even be able to hit the thing, I set out making one of the pouches anyway.









After a few shots, all wild misses, something possessed me to go back to holding my pouch thumb-down. First dang shot went right in the pouch. 90% of all subsequent shots at least hit the pouch and a lot of them went in. No clue why or how such a small change made such a drastic improvement, but I'll take whatever I can get. Thanks again, Charles, for the target idea. And a special thanks to Stinger for getting me that leather. What a swell guy.

Oh, I wouldn't recommend shooting a combination of lead and steel at the pouch. This is what happens when a lead ball solidly connects with a steel ball that's already inside the pouch.









You get a little mini Death Star.


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## Charles (Aug 26, 2010)

After a while, I found that I was knocking balls out of the pouch ... So I went for a deeper pocket:

http://slingshotforum.com/topic/13479-fun-pocket-target/?p=147902

Here is the photo:










With the deeper pocket, you are less likely to knock your balls out ... if you catch my drift ... :rofl:

Cheers ... Charles


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## Jaximus (Jun 1, 2013)

Charles, the last thing I want to do is knock my balls out.

Thanks for the tip. It did seem like some balls were mysteriously disappearing. Time to extend my pouch.


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