Sight Focus vs Sight Attention
Front Sight Focus vs Target Focus vs Instinctive Shooting
When I first learned to shoot handguns I was taught to focus hard on my front sight. Every beginner class will drive this point home in an attempt to assist new shooters with the concept of how sights, and sight focus, affects the shooter’s ability to hit precisely. Later, when I became an Officer, I was told to shoot instinctively and not use the sights because I wouldn’t bother to see them in a gunfight. Ironically, I was then qualified on a course that dictated “instinctive fire” for some strings but gave enough time to shoot sighted without any concern over time pressure. I was always told not to focus on the target when using my sights, only during instinctive fire, though it was never really explained to me why that was the case.
It wasn’t until I began shooting competitively that I began to learn how to use my sights effectively in a broad range of rapidly changing circumstances. This blog is about what I’ve found that works for me.
Front Sight Focus
If you want the tightest group shot as precisely as possible you need to focus hard on the front sight and allow the target to be a bit blurry. What I found worked best for me was something I didn’t hear anyone else talking about. I would focus on the target and then bring the sights in line. I would then shift my focus to the front sight and align the front sight with the rear sight. I would shift my focus back to the target to ensure it looked like it was supposed to and then back to the front sight before starting a slow, deliberate trigger press to fire that perfect shot. That’s quite a bit more complex than “focus on the front sight” but it is also hard to explain to a new shooter that is fighting all kinds of issues, not just sight focus issues. It also takes time, lots of time, so it is not effective in action shooting sports or defensive shooting.
Target Focus
I was told, repeatedly, that I should never focus on the target when using my sights. I actually had an instructor tell me “if you focus on the target the last thing you’ll see is him killing you.” In the training I was receiving at the time none of the qualification courses or drills I was shooting had time constraints that challenged that concept. I had enough time to make slow deliberate shots when accuracy was evaluated. Targets didn’t move, I didn’t move, and there was ample time to shoot while focusing on the front sight.
Instinctive Shooting
While being told never to target focus while using the sights I was told to shoot instinctively and ignore the sights while focusing on the target at close range. Interestingly enough the training where this was done didn’t really score or evaluate anything, we simply shot at targets this way occasionally and called it good so I never really got a sense for how effective (or ineffective) this was. As I mentioned above, there were strings in our qualification course that were called instinctive fire but I never shot them that way because we were given plenty of time to use the sights. Since they were scored, and I had time, I used my sights.
My Epiphany
For years I went along thinking this was the way things were supposed to be done. Then I had a friend invite me to try out competition shooting. Many of our readers will know this person, it was my Team Applied Ballistics Teammate Drew Heath. I believe this was in 2009. He had just started shooting IDPA about 6 months before and told me I should try it. I went with him to my first match and promptly discovered just how much I didn’t know.
For starters I learned that I was slow. My accuracy was ok. Not great, mind you, but ok. But man I was slow. There I was, a professional cop, and these hobbyists were completely destroying me. These folks didn’t carry a gun for a living, they didn’t receive training from their respective employers (the fastest guy there was an accountant), and they were far less likely to need to use a gun for anything but recreation and yet they were far better than I was. At the time this was surprising to me. I have since learned that very few high level shooters are law enforcement and the ones that are didn’t get that way from training at their departments.
I didn’t realize it at the time, of course, but one of the major things holding me back was not knowing how to properly use my sights. It turns out there was quite a bit I didn’t know, but for this blog we’ll focus (pardon the pun) on how to use the sights. This experience led me to seek training outside of my department and to embark on a journey through competitive shooting that I’m still traveling to this day.
Over years of seeking outside training and shooting competitively I’ve worked my way through several variations of sight use and here’s what I’ve learned: It is less about sight focus than it is about sight attention.
Sight Attention vs Sight Focus
For plain old target shooting, where maximum accuracy is the goal, you can use a hard front sight focus and obtain good results. As I stated earlier, I have had the best results shifting focus back and forth but firing when I’m strongly focused on the front sight. This, by nature of the process, requires extreme sight attention. It is, after all, your main focal point when you fire the gun. The trouble is that most handgun shooters aren’t looking for maximum slow fire accuracy. Whether you shoot competition or are interested in defensive shooting that type of sighting isn’t well suited to the task at hand.
This doesn’t mean that you don’t use sights when shooting quickly. Quite the contrary, actually. You just use them differently.
One of the things that has changed for me over time is my shift toward target focused shooting. Most of my shooting these days is done with an iron sighted handgun while under time pressure. It is much easier to get hits quickly, and transition from one target to another quickly, when your focus is on the target. This is, of course, exactly what I was told repeatedly never to do.
When I’m shooting at an unobstructed full size silhouette (of practically any kind) and speed matters I will be shooting target focused at all but extreme handgun ranges. What I mean by that is my eyes will be focused on the actual target and the sights will be somewhat blurry to me. This doesn’t afford quite the same level of precision that a front sight focus will allow but at normal handgun distances it is plenty good enough to get A zone hits on a USPSA target or -0 hits on an IDPA target (or full score hits on practically any police qualification target, the scoring zones on qual targets are huge).
When I say typical handgun distances I mean anything inside 15 yards. An unobstructed silhouette within 15 yards doesn’t require extreme precision to get good hits. Typical silhouette targets either use very generous scoring zones or some version of vital zones. Both are fairly large targets. To be clear, I’m still using my sights when shooting target focused. In fact, I use my sights when shooting very fast at a 5 yard target as well, and those shots will be 0.2 seconds apart or less.
What changes with distance is the amount of alignment I consider good enough to press off the shot, or my sight attention. At 5 yards or less if you see both sights and they are roughly centered on the area you want to hit you’re good. It doesn’t require a great deal of attention to be expended on sight alignment as rough alignment is more than sufficient. This can be done very quickly. At 10-15 yards it will require better alignment and a bit more time, but not a lot of time. I still shoot target focused but I pay more attention to how precisely my sights are aligned with each other and with the target. As we start to stretch beyond 15 yards you are focused farther and farther away from the sights. This makes them harder to align well and makes the margin for error in alignment smaller so even more time and attention must be used to ensure alignment. At some point we will have to transition to focusing on the front sight but it is much farther than you would expect.
As a target gets farther away, or if a target is smaller (for example an obstructed target or a head shot) I need to adjust my level of sight attention. Generally, I am still target focused when shooting for speed unless an exceptionally small target or very long-distance target leaves me no option but to see the target, shift my focus back to the front sight, fire the shot or shots, and then move on. The longest pistol shot I’ve had in a competition was 75 yards. This was on a steel silhouette approximately 12” across. This was during a multi-gun match. On that one, I was using a true front sight focus akin to target shooting. While it took more time, it was still far quicker than many of the other competitors that shot through an entire magazine or more trying to hit it. Again, you have to adjust to the circumstances.
What about instinctive fire? I generally don’t use it for anything unless I have to shoot when the pistol isn’t in line with my eyes and the target. This is practically never. I occasionally do this at very close range targets shot from retention in competition or training. That doesn’t mean instinctive fire can’t be done. In fact, I’m convinced that frequent reps of sighted fire will improve instinctive fire.
Just last week I was shooting a speed drill that required a draw, engaging three targets at 10 yards with two shots each, a reload, and re-engaging each target with two more rounds each. On one run I didn’t have my red dot on when I drew. I still had a draw, a reload, and 12 good hits in under 6 seconds with no sights available.
Even though I didn’t have sights I could still use the top of the gun as a reference point. At 10 yards I could still get good hits but I would never choose unsighted shooting if I had an option. All of my sighted reps after that run were faster. I believe that to be true because I didn’t need to use as much of my attention on a sight I was familiar with compared to using the top of the gun for reference. The more attention I have to use to get and keep the gun aligned, the slower the process becomes.
The big thing is learning to adjust your sight attention based on what your need is at that exact moment. The amount of attention required will change between shooting positions, target arrays, or even on the same target if you find quickly that what you are trying isn’t working. A small steel popper that you miss twice quickly will probably require an adjustment in your approach, for example.
Learning how much attention you have to expend to get good hits on a given target size at a given distance is something that requires lots of trial and error. That’s where training and practice come in. In the end it will always require time spent putting rounds down range.
About the Author:
Aaron coaches the Purdue University Pistol Team, is a former officer of the Lafayette Police Department, and holds an Indiana Law Enforcement Academy certification as a firearms instructor. Aaron is the General Manager at Applied Ballistics and competes in multiple shooting disciplines including USPSA, IDPA, Steel Challenge, Rimfire Falling Steel, Indiana Multigun, and NRL22. Aaron is a USPSA Grand Master, a Steel Challenge Grand Master, and an IDPA Master class shooter. He has a National Championship title in Rimfire Falling Steel as well as several State Championship titles in IDPA and Steel Challenge. Aaron is the Match Director for USPSA at Applied Ballistics and for Steel Challenge and Rimfire Falling Steel at Wildcat Valley Rifle & Pistol Club.