How to Properly Aim a Pistol
One of the key things we teach at www.12thGun.com is how to properly aim a pistol. It is the most fundamental aspect of all of firearm proficiency. You can have a perfect grip, trigger control, breathing, and follow through, but with bad aim, you will miss 100% of the time. Without proper knowledge on aiming, you will do nothing more than waste ammunition and become frustrated.
Eye Dominance
Before we start talking too much about aiming, there is one thing you will need to determine. Dominant eye. Your dominant eye is the one that takes over when you are looking at something. Everyone has one and some are more dominant than others. There are a couple of different methods to determine your dominant eye. The method I find works best for me is the finger/circle method.
First, take your pointer finger from either hand and hold it up like the number 1. Hold that hand as far out as you comfortably can. At this point you need to keep both eyes open. Next, make a circle with your other hand and place it midway between your eye and your outstretched finger. With both eyes still open, focus on your finger while looking through the circle. Now close one eye.
If the finger doesn’t move, then that is your dominant eye. If the finger does move and you can’t see it anymore because it is covered by your hand, then that is your weak eye. Just like the old Camera 1, Camera 2 scene in the movie Wayne’s World. When you close one eye and open the other. the images your brain sees move.
Ok, so now we have figured out what eye is your dominant one. If your dominant eye and dominant hand are the same, then you could likely keep both eyes open while aiming. This is preferred and if that is you then you can skip a good bit of this section. However, when your dominant eye and dominant hand are opposite it can cause problems.
I am left eye dominant but right-handed, but I still shoot just fine so don’t freak out if you have this issue. Fortunately, there are tricks you can use to overcome this problem. The easiest is to simply close the non-aiming eye. I must do this every time when I am shooting. Doesn’t matter if it is shotguns, rifles, or even pistols, I close my left eye.
Another method is to put a piece of scotch tape over the left lens on your eye protection. Most times that will be enough to switch your eye dominance while shooting. The problem here is that isn’t practical if you are not at the range and need to use your gun.
Yet another fix is to change the cant of your firearm to line the sights up to your dominant eye. You would still use your dominant hand to shoot with, but you’re just tilting the gun over. I personally don’t like this method because it changes your sight picture, grip, and shooting position.
Enough talk about eye dominance. Now that you’ve got that figured out let’s move on to the actual aiming part. There are two parts to aiming. Sight Picture and Sight Alignment with Sight Alignment being the more critical of the two.
Sight Alignment
Sight Alignment refers to the proper relationship of the pistol’s front and rear sights. What you want with Sight Alignment is the front sight to be perfectly even between the two rear sights. I use the phrase “equal height and equal light” to help explain this. You want the top of your front sight to be the same height as the two rear sights (equal height). Consequently, you want the space between the front and each of the rear sights to be the same (equal light).
This is what sight alignment looks like (equal height and equal light)
Sight Picture
Proper Sight Picture is obtained when your aligned sights are put into their proper relationship with the target. It is nothing more than where on the target your sights are aligned and what your eye sees. One additional thing about Sight picture is your focus point. Your eye can only focus on one thing at a time, so you need to choose one thing to focus on. That one thing you focus on should be your front sight. The target should be blurry in the background and your rear sights should be a bit fuzzier than the front.
Sight picture is your proper sight alignment with the target in the picture
Aiming
Ok, so we have figured out which eye is dominant and understand Sight Alignment and Picture. Let’s put it all together and properly aim. Using your strong side hand and eye (close your dominant eye if it is opposite) let’s aim. Align your sights with equal height and equal light. Focus on your front sight with the target blurry and the sights aimed at the center of the target.
Below I’ve added a couple of pictures that help demonstrate why Sight Alignment is more critical.
Notice the Sight Alignment is off on both axis and how it affects the shots fired to the right and up even though Sight Picture is good.
Notice this time the Sight Alignment is much closer and affects the shots less even though Sight Picture is not good
Happy shooting and y’all stay safe out there!
