Ok, guys. I hope you were paying attention, because today’s Pro Tip is target presentation. You might have noticed two distinct presentation techniques, and I will discuss in detail, why I use them in competition.
The first one from the low ready. Basically, when you come out of the holster, you sweep into the bottom of the target. That is consistently the fastest way of shooting a target. The down side is, when you swap guns, and you have different sights and grip angles, different handguns.
I like the bayonet mount presentation, if I am changing sights or it’s the first time I have shot this gun in a stage. Maybe it’s a prop gun and the first time you have picked it up is in a stage of fire. Or you’ve changed an optic or whatever. That all affects the final presentation of the handgun into the target. So with the bayonet mount, it gives you, the shooter, more time to see what is going on before you make the final extension into the target zone.
Coming up from the bottom of the target is the fastest. If I am shooting Steel Challenge, or a stage of fire where I have extensive practice with that handgun, it is by far the fastest way. If I am changing into another gun that I haven’t handled as much or a different optic, or I am swapping from strong hand to weak hand; I like to bring the gun into my focal plane a little bit longer, so I will use the bayonet style. It gives me longer to see the sight in relationship to the target. It buys me a little more time to dress it up and make it an accurate shot.
I have swapped over to an optically sighted revolver and you’ll notice right away, this sight, even though it is extremely compact and it’s low; it’s a good inch and quarter inch and a half, over the center of the bore, where the metallic sight is probably three quarters of an inch. This is where changing sights and grips affects the final presentation into the target.
So say I am out on the range and I haven’t trained with this revolver yet, so what I want to do is basically the bayonet presentation. And what that does for the shooter is, it gives me more time to acquire the center line of the sight, and bring it into the target zone, and still make a relatively fast first shot. So what I am trying to see here is more of the gun coming into the target zone. It gives me more time, as the shooter. Because the sights have changed, the height, in relationship to the height of my hand into the target. It gives me more time to dress it up and make a good center accurate shot.
So just be aware as a competitor, there are two different techniques of how to get into the center of the target. You have to decide on the range, which is the fastest for you.
