The difference between hoping your shots are good and knowing they are
I spent a long time thinking I was learning to call my shots. Looking back, I wasn’t. I was just getting better at making educated guesses.
The frustrating part is that educated guesses work surprisingly well… right up until they don’t.
If my grip felt solid, the trigger press felt clean, and the dot looked like it was where it belonged, I’d mentally check the box.“Yep… that one’s good.”
Sometimes I was right. Sometimes I wasn’t.
The problem wasn’t that I couldn’t shoot. The problem was that I didn’t actually know why a shot was good or bad. I was letting the target tell me after the fact instead of learning to see it for myself.
It turns out those are two very different skills.
CONSISTENCY REVEALED THE PROBLEM
Over the past several months, I’ve worked hard to remove variables from my shooting. One of the biggest improvements came from finally settling on an ammunition load that produces consistent, predictable recoil in my competition pistol.
The change was immediately noticeable. The pistol tracked more consistently. My grip became more repeatable. I started shooting some really respectable doubles.
I remember walking downrange thinking, “Now we’re getting somewhere.” Then I’d get to the target…Two beautiful, perfectly centered Down-1, or “C-Zone” hits. Well…That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.
Oddly enough, those shots were a good thing. Not because I wanted to throw away points. Because they exposed a weakness I didn’t even know I had. The consistency was there. The accuracy wasn’t.
For the first time, I stopped asking, “Where did my bullets go?” Instead, I started asking, “What did I actually see?”
YOUR EYES SET THE SPEED LIMIT
I also began noticing another habit.
I’d fire a pair, immediately transition to the next target, and later discover that the second shot wasn’t where I thought it was. At first I blamed speed. Then I blamed recoil. Then I blamed… well… pretty much everything except the actual problem.
Eventually it became obvious. I wasn’t outrunning my hands. I wasn’t outrunning the gun. I was outrunning my eyes.
The first shot looked good, so somewhere in the back of my mind I decided the second one had to be good too. Except the target politely disagreed. Looking back, I probably only needed another hundredth of a second. Not enough time for the audience to notice. Just enough time for me to notice.
If I had waited long enough to actually observe what my sights were telling me instead of assuming the story had a happy ending, I would have known the second shot wasn’t ready when I broke it.
Instead of observing the shot…I predicted the result.
Predictions don’t score points. Hits do.
THE TARGET TELLS THE TRUTH
That realization completely changed the way I think about shot calling.
I used to think shot calling was something you did after the gun fired—a mental replay where you guessed where the bullet probably landed. Now I’m beginning to understand that shot calling happens at the instant the shot breaks. The sights already contain the answer. The target simply confirms it.
When I truly see the dot lift from the center of the target, I don’t need to hope the hit is there. I already know. When I don’t actually see it…I’m guessing.
Understanding that concept and consistently doing it are two very different things. If I’m being honest, I think I finally understand what I’m trying to accomplish. Actually accomplishing it every time? Not even close.
Some shots I know before I ever look at the target. Some shots I’m reasonably confident about. And there are still plenty where I’m making an educated guess.
Sometimes I walk away absolutely convinced I called a shot perfectly. Then I look at the target. The target tells me the truth, I can’t tell myself.
I’ve learned not to get frustrated by that anymore. Every disagreement between what I thought I saw and what the target reveals is another lesson my eyes needed.
It isn’t failure. It’s feedback.
TRAINING MY EYES
One tool that has accelerated that learning for me is ACE VR.
Nothing replaces live fire, and I don’t think anything ever will. But ACE gives me something that’s difficult to get anywhere else: repetition. Lots of repetition!
If I lose the dot, I don’t have to wait until next Saturday’s match to work on it. If I realize I wasn’t actually observing the shot, I can reset the stage and try again immediately.
Every repetition teaches my eyes what to look for. Every do-over gives me another opportunity to recognize what I missed the last time.
I’ve spent hours simply teaching my eyes to stay with the sights instead of racing ahead to the next problem. Every time I return to the live-fire range, I notice those repetitions carrying over. ACE hasn’t replaced live fire. It has made my live-fire practice far more productive.
GOOD ENOUGH TO KNOW
This journey has also changed the way I think about sight pictures.
For years I believed every shot deserved a perfect sight picture. Now I’m beginning to realize every target asks a different question. An open target at seven yards doesn’t deserve the same visual patience as a partial target twenty yards away.
The goal isn’t accepting poor sight pictures. The goal is recognizing what is good enough for the shot you’re trying to make.
Ironically, I think learning to call my shots has made me more patient with difficult targets and less patient with easy ones.
That’s another lesson I’m still trying to master.
Maybe that deserves an article of its own.
THE JOURNEY CONTINUES
I’m not writing this because I’ve figured shot calling out. Far from it. I’m writing it because I finally understand what I’m trying to learn.
For me, practice has become less about making holes in paper and more about teaching my eyes to tell me the truth before the target does.
If you’re on that same journey, here’s one thing I’ve learned. Don’t ask yourself, “Where did that bullet go?” Ask yourself, “Did I actually see it?”
Those are not the same question. And I’m convinced learning the difference is one of the biggest steps I’ve taken as a competitive shooter.
Observation
The shooter who predicts the outcome learns slowly. The shooter who observes it learns every time the trigger is pressed.
— The Watcher