Our Guide To Follow-Through

The concept of follow-through is common to many sports, such as golf, tennis, baseball, bowling and archery. In shooting, follow-through is the effort made by the shooter to integrate, maintain and continue all shooting fundamentals before, during and immediately after firing the shot.

It is true that any alteration in the gun position, stance, sight alignment, and so forth that occurs after the bullet has left the muzzle has no effect whatsoever on accuracy or shot placement. Nonetheless, it is important to consciously maintain the shooting fundamentals for a brief time after the shot has been fired because only by doing so will you be absolutely certain that those fundamentals are applied before and during the firing of the shot. Thus, proper follow-through minimizes gun movement as the shot is fired. A shooter who fails to follow-through and applies the fundamentals only up to the breaking of the trigger will (in anticipation of the shot) sooner or later abandon one or more of the fundamentals just prior to firing, resulting in errant bullet flight and poor grouping.

All of the fundamentals of pistol shooting are integrated in the firing of a shot—no matter what the target.

Proper follow-through does more than just ensure adherence to the shooting fundamentals through the firing of the shot. Follow-through also sets up any successive shots whenever a shooter may be called upon to fire multiple times accurately and rapidly. The follow-through used in these situations is highly compressed to last only a fraction of a second, but still allows the shooter to maintain a position in alignment with the target and to quickly recover the proper sight picture.

During follow-through, the trigger finger pressure is relaxed, allowing the trigger to reset. However, the trigger finger still maintains contact with the trigger face. 

All of the fundamentals of pistol shooting are integrated in the firing of a shot—no matter what the target. The shooter aims (maintaining both sight alignment and the proper sight picture) while momentarily stopping respiration (breath control) and movement (hold control). Only the trigger finger, properly placed, is moved to fire the shot (trigger control). Before, during and after the shot is fired, the shooter observes all the proper shooting fundamentals (follow-through).