If you don't learn the fundamentals of marksmanship, you will never excel in pistol shooting. Trigger control is more important than sight alignment. I read over and over on this forum of people who have a hard time keeping all their shots on a target at 10 yards and many at less distance than that. One should be able to point shoot at 7 yards without even bringing the handgun up to eye level. Of course that is once they have mastered trigger control. I don't think you have mastered the art of trigger control. I think, when utilizing the sights, you have been yanking on the trigger when everything looks good. When you are not using the sights, but looking at the target, your trigger control isn't as bad. The manufacturers have been putting sights on handguns forever for a reason. Once you have mastered your trigger control, you will find your sights more useful.
The human eye isn't capable of keeping a front sight and target in perfect focus. At that distance and with the smaller target, you need to focus on the front sight, press the trigger without disturbing the sight alignment and follow through. All this is easier said than done. You are mistakenly too concerned about the target. Trust your sights and you will hit what you want with a pistol, but you must have very good trigger control, as well as, good follow through. You would benefit by reading some good books on precision shooting and then go to the range with a plan in mind. For most people, shooting a handgun well requires understanding what the fundamentals are and how to apply them. It doesn't happen overnight. There are some good articles out there that demonstrate how just a little misalignment of the sights causes a shot to go way off target, while keeping the sights aligned with one another and allowing the aligned sights to move (nobody can hold a pistol perfectly still) will result in the bullet impacting where you want. It boils down to angular misalignment of the sights or having the sights in alignment and having the gun move perpendicular to the target. The small angular errors of sight alignment at the gun result in greater errors at the target. Think of it as a 1 degree angle will result in 1" displacement off at 100 yards, 2" at 200 yards, etc. If the sights are aligned with one another, there will not be any angle (gun in relation to the target) to contend with, so the error will be just your minute movement you see in your ability to hold. For close range shooting with a handgun, the sights needn't be used, but in all instances trigger control (causing the gun to fire without disturbing the handgun in relation to the target) is essential. Point shooting (without sights) does require practice, as well.
Framing a shot means that the shooter tries to line up the sights with one another and then place the aligned sights on a "point" on the target. Once the shooter does that, he knows that he must do something. His brain screams, "Shoot...shoot...shoot!" Invariably, when he decides he needs to shoot, he pulls the trigger all at once. What happens is that the shot goes wide because of lack of proper trigger control (the sights were therefore misaligned just as the shot broke). To combat this, the shooter must focus on the front sight, so that it is crisp and the rear sights and target are blurry (Remember when I said the eye can't focus on two things at different distances?) Now with the front sight sitting level with the the rear sight and equal light on both sides, the shooter will start the trigger press, with steady increasing pressure. The gun will move some, but the sights will stay aligned. He will ignore the target and continue the press until the gun discharges. Often the shot will surprise the shooter and he will say, "That was a bad shot!" because he reacted once the shot was fired. He will then look at the results and unbelievably the shot will be where he wanted it, that is, if he controlled the trigger. If he continues to try to apply the fundamentals, he will learn to trust them and his sights. Once the shooter learns that applying the fundamentals leads to good shots time and time again, he builds confidence in the fundamentals. For most people, it is a slow learning process. If a shooter has been shooting a handgun for some time, there will be bad habits instilled and they must be broken to relearn the proper fundamentals. Once sight alignment and trigger control are mastered, one can add drawing and shooting, reloading drills, speed, point shooting, shooting and moving, etc. Many new shooters seem to want to skip instilling the fundamentals and just start shooting. IMHO, in the long run, they will limit their ability to excel.
I find that if I have my eye focused on the front sight, so that it is sharp I line up on my target. I do this when shooting multiple targets or single. I don't think that I'm exceptional. Of course on close in shots, when I'm point shooting, I try to focus on a small part of the target with as much effort as possible.
I think I had my ah ha moment that I mentioned upthread! I have been too busy with work for the last few weeks to get out to the range but I have made it out twice this week and have been working on things mentioned in this thread. What you said that I have bold and underlined really stuck with me and it was true. This has helped me tremendously! When I learn to trust the sights more and make sure I didn't disrupt my sight picture as the shot broke I had significant improvement in my shooting in only these two range sessions.
You're on the right track. Keep watching that front sight and keep perfecting trigger control and your 25 yard groups will look like that! I am reading the book, "Tales of the Stakeout Unit". Jim Cirillo described one of his shootouts. He said that he was watching the front sight so closely that he could see the serrations across the front sight. Jim won all of his shootouts.
You've got it half right!
