Teaches:
Top-speed accurate fire.

Requires:
High (or close) backstop.

Principle:
Some shooters get hung up on the difference between double-taps (a.k.a. "hammers"--two shots fired from one sight picture) and accelerated pairs (two shots, each with a sight picture). This exercise will help you sort out the difference and realize that sighted pairs can be as fast as unsighted ones. The trick is in teaching your eye to follow the front sight through recoil and make an instantaneous verification of the sight picture.

You might be shooting more slowly than you need to. The gun is in battery and back on the target very quickly, but many shooters add time checking the sight picture. This exercise will help you realize that your body can shoot the gun very quickly once your eye knows what to see.

Drill:
First, be sure of your backstop. You may get some very high shots in the first portion of the drill--make sure they will be caught.

With an IPSC target or other large cardboard target three feet from the muzzle of the gun, fire a double-tap as quickly as you physically can. Watch the target, not the sights, during both shots. You should be able to see your rounds go through the cardboard. Don't worry about the sight picture, just see how quickly you can manage the trigger and still feel like the gun is under control. Repeat at least 10 times.

After shooting enough top-speed pairs to have a feeling of consistency, slow down enough to bring your shots within a hand's-breadth of each other on your target. Taping a 4x6 card to the target might help. Tape the target after every pair.

When you are consistently firing target-focus double-taps within four inches or so of each other, switch to watching the front sight. Follow the sight through the arc of recoil, and visually verify the sight picture as the second shot breaks. But don't let this slow the shot. You will see that an aimed shot can be fired in the same amount of time as an unaimed one. If you are visually following the front sight through recoil, sight verification is instantaneous.

If you have trouble seeing what the sight does during recoil, you may be blinking. Otherwise, your eye is seeing something during the recoil cycle of the gun--pay attention to what it is. Some people see the top of the gun or ejection port; some people watch the muzzle flash or the flash in the chamber. Lower the gun a bit so you see a tall front sight and just watch what the front sight does in recoil for a while. Follow the sight while looking over the gun first, then learn to follow it from a conventional sight picture.