How to Improve Your Natural Point of Aim

The Drill:

Looking for a cheap, easy drill you can do at home? Follow Mike and Steve through these simple steps to find and improve your natural point of aim and end up on target faster. With this “Post-It Note Drill,” you can get more rounds on target — quickly and more accurately.

The Setup:

You will need your defensive firearm, cleared and double-checked for safety, and a 3-inch by 3-inch Post-it. As with all dry-fire practice, make sure your ammo is out of the room where you’re shooting and that there is nothing beyond your backstop (in this case, your wall).

The Skills:

Natural point of aim is a necessary skill in defensive shooting. You want to get on target quickly and accurately in a self-defense situation. This is a simple drill that works on your natural point of aim.

The Details:

Attach your sticky note to a wall at chest height. From a distance of about 12 to 15 feet, assume a normal shooting stance and aim at the note. With the sights centered on that note, close your eyes and move the gun in small, varying patterns. Then, visualize the center of that target and aim the gun, still with your eyes closed.

Open your eyes. Take note of where you are on the target, and move your feet accordingly. If you’re high, spread your feet wider to lower your point of aim. If you’re low, bring your feet closer together. Move your firing-side leg to adjust for left or right of center.

Re-center, close your eyes and move your gun around again. When you open your eyes, you should be closer to center. Continue adjusting until you find the center. Now you know how to adjust your natural point of aim.

Safety Considerations:

Remember to always follow the four universal safety rules. In addition, double-check that your firearm is cleared, store your ammunition in a separate room, and make sure there is nothing beyond your backstop and that it would not allow a bullet to pass through.

Closing Thoughts:

This is an easy drill that doesn’t need a lot of room or a lot of materials. Make sure you get a good stance and vary the way you move your gun. Adjust your natural stance for height and windage to improve your aim.

Vary your training. Keep it fun. Keep it safe. And keep practicing.

---

Video Transcript

[Steve] Hi everybody. Welcome to another edition of the United States Concealed Carry Association’s “Tactical Tuesday” video series. My name is Steve Fisher. I’m the director of education and training for the USCCA, and I’m joined here today by my good friend.

 

[Mike] Mike Brickner, USCCA instructor program co-coordinator.

 

[Steve] Again, as you have always heard us talk about in the past videos, we have a great job. We’re allowed to be able to practice drills that help us to become better and better at being able to defend ourselves with a firearm.
The drill that we’re going to work on today is going help Mike and I to find and/or improve our natural point of aim. So by having that down pat, by practicing this drill, Mike, what is one of the benefits that we are going to be able to recognize as a result of this?

 

[Mike] Well, Steve, it minimizes our time and effort it takes to actually get on target.

 

[Steve] Yeah, so by having minimal effort, we’re quicker to get rounds on the target. But the other thing that we’re going to do too is improve our accuracy, right? Because we’re not going to be looking for that front sight anymore. It’s going to come straight up between where we stand and where the target stands, correct?

 

[Mike] Yup.

 

[Steve] So what we’re going to do, we’re going to demonstrate for you the steps to be able to find [your point of aim]. And then those steps are the same ones that you’ll use to be able to perfect, achieving your natural point of aim.

 

[Mike] Steve before you run away: firearm is safe and unloaded. Please verify for me?

 

[Steve] Outstanding, Mike. Thank you very much. Before we go any further, it’s important to know once again how important it is when you’re practicing dry fire — whenever or wherever — that you do not have live ammunition in the room along with you. That firearm does not have any ammunition in the chamber, nor does it have any ammunition in the magazine. So the weapon is clear. We have no ammo in the room, and our backdrop is solid enough so that if there were a projectile, it would not be able to travel through and enter another room where there’d be somebody in there, right?
Okay everybody, so we are set up here with a 3-inch by 3-inch Post-It note. Something simple and affordable. Anybody can go and get this at your office supply store. We’ve stuck that Post-It note on a wall that’s about 12 feet away from Mike right now, maybe even 15 feet. And we got it at chest level so it represents what would be the cardio-vascular triangle. At least hitting the center of that — the heart or the lungs or the liver — a shot that could be able to put the bad guy out of commission.
Okay, so, what Mike’s going to do — now we’ve already cleared the firearm — he’s going to assume a normal shooting stance and he’s going to take aim at that Post-It note. So, Mike you got the gun on that note? You got the sights in the center of that Post-It note?

 

[Mike] I do, Steve.

 

[Steve] What I’d like you to do, then, is close your eyes and then move the gun; not your stance. So left and right, top and bottom, draw circles, x’s, t’s. And then now, keeping your eyes closed, go straight to the center of that target. Visualize it. Your eyes are closed. Visualize that you’re in the center of that target. And now open your eyes and now look at where your sights are in relation to the target. Are you in the center of that target, Mike?

 

[Mike] I am not Steve.

 

[Steve] Are you high or low?

 

[Mike] I’m just a little high and a little right.

 

[Steve] Okay, so high and right. So the way that we can adjust the elevation here is simple. We’re going to move our feet wider or bring our feet closer. And, in this particular case, Mike’s natural point was high. So what he wants to do is lower that gun.
How do we do that? We spread the feet just slightly wider. He also is to the right side. So if we were to bring that firearm more to the left, then we’re going to have to take his firing side leg and step it forward just slightly.
So, Mike, go ahead and make those corrections with your stance and put the gun back on the target. Are you centered on the target?

 

[Mike] I am.

 

[Steve] Okay. At this point in time, close your eyes and then with slight movement — left ,right, top, bottom, x’s, o’s, square, rectangles — back to center and hold. Open the eyes. Are you in the center of that target?

 

[Mike] I’m a little high but I am on the target now. I’m no longer to the right.

 

[Steve] Okay, so you’ve got your windage adjusted by moving you right foot forward, correct?

 

[Mike] Correct.

 

[Steve] And you’re just a little bit high?

 

[Mike] Yup.

 

[Steve] So we want to widen the stance just a little bit. Keep your gun on target and keep your eyes on there. Now do you see that the gun is kind of brought right down into the middle?

 

[Mike] Yup, lower down to the center of the Post-It note.

 

[Steve] Perfect. Okay, now, what I want you to do is close your eyes. Move the gun. Bring it back to the center of the target and open your eyes. Are we in the center?

 

[Mike] I am on target, Steve.

 

[Steve] Okay beautiful. So now you can see the steps that you need to take to be able to find your natural point of aim.
All right, Mike, great job. Okay, great demonstration. As you all can see, this is a simple drill. It doesn’t take a lot of room. It doesn’t take a lot of training aids. A 3-inch by 3-inch Post-It note stuck to a wall, chest high, making sure, again, you follow all the safety principles as they apply to dry-fire training. And then that repetition, making sure that you get good stance, that you take aim and, when you’re on target, close your eyes. Move the gun around slightly, open the eyes ,and it should be on target. We adjust elevation by widening or narrowing our stance. We adjust windage by stepping slightly forward or backward. Mike, anything you’d like to add to this for everybody?

 

[Mike] One thing I’d like to add is don’t cheat yourself when you’re doing this drill. Don’t make the same little up and down, left and right, or circle. Change it up. Vary it. And, as you could probably tell when I was doing it, I was doing all kinds of random movements. That’s so that I don’t cheat myself and come back to that point of aim unnaturally.

 

[Steve] Great point. One thing that, too, you might want to think about is that since your closing your eyes and you do have a firearm on you, sometimes it would be good to have a training partner to do this particular drill.
Can you do it by yourself? I guess you can. Sure, you can. But you have to be so, so hyper-vigilant when it comes to the safety protocol, making sure that somebody doesn’t walk into the room without you knowing it because your eyes are closed and walk in front of you. Always remember those safety principles.
Okay, so this is a good one to work with, with a partner. Everybody, thanks for joining us. What I’m going to say to you, is what I say to you always: Train hard, train safe and train always. Have a great day!