Calling your shots is one of the most valuable skills in practical shooting.
To call a shot means knowing where the bullet went based on what you saw as the shot fired. You do not need to look for the bullet hole, wait to hear the steel, or watch the steel fall before deciding what happened.
The principle is simple:
Know where the shot went from what you saw when it fired.
That sounds straightforward, but it takes practice. Once you develop the skill and learn to trust it, calling shots changes the way you shoot.
Why Calling Shots Matters
Newer shooters often want confirmation after a shot. They fire, then look at the target to see where the bullet landed. On steel, they may wait to hear the hit or see the target fall.
That confirmation feels reassuring, but it takes time.
In practical shooting, small delays accumulate. A quarter second spent looking for a hole here, a hesitation waiting on steel there, and an unnecessary makeup shot somewhere else can add a meaningful amount of time to a stage.
Calling the shot allows you to make the decision earlier. If what you saw tells you the shot was acceptable, trust it and move on. If what you saw tells you the shot was not acceptable, you can respond immediately.
What you want to eliminate is the uncertainty in between: shoot, hesitate, search for confirmation, and then make a late decision.
What Are You Actually Seeing?
With a red dot, I think about where the dot was as the shot broke and the gun began to lift in recoil.
Not where I wanted the dot to be.
Not where it returned after recoil.
Not where I think it probably was.
What did I actually see?
Calling a shot is not guessing. It is observing.
When the shot is acceptable, you should know that from the visual information you received during the shot. When it is not acceptable, you should begin learning to recognize that too.
That distinction becomes increasingly important as your shooting gets faster. You do not have time to stop after every shot and investigate what happened. You need to see it while it is happening.
Stay Target Focused
With a red dot, I stay target focused and observe the dot in relation to the target.
A simple demonstration helps explain why.
Hold a finger in front of you and look at an object across the room. While continuing to look at the object, move your finger. It is relatively easy to see your finger moving in relation to the object.
Now focus directly on your finger while moving it. You can still see the movement, but judging exactly where the finger is in relation to the background becomes more difficult.
The same concept applies to the dot. I want my visual attention on the place I intend to shoot while observing what the dot is doing in relation to that spot.
That allows the target and the dot to provide information together.
Start With a Simple Verification Drill
One of my favorite ways to begin learning shot calling uses two targets on the same target stand.
The front target should already have enough holes in it that you cannot easily identify a new shot. Place a clean or freshly pasted target directly behind it, with the scoring side facing away from you.
Shoot the front target one round at a time.
As each shot breaks, call where you believe it went. Be reasonably specific: high Alpha, low Alpha, left Charlie, right edge, or whatever accurately describes what you saw.
Then check the rear target.
Did the actual impact match your call?
The goal is not initially to shoot a perfect score. The goal is to determine whether what you saw corresponds with what actually happened.
Over time, you should become increasingly accurate at predicting the location of the shot before you ever look at the target.
When the Call and the Hit Do Not Match
If you call a shot in one place and the bullet lands somewhere else, do not simply label the shot bad. Try to determine why your call was wrong.
One possibility is that you did not actually see enough. You may have fired before you had the visual information you thought you had, or you may have assumed the dot was somewhere without truly observing it.
Another possibility is that you disturbed the gun during the trigger press. As your ability to call shots improves, you may actually begin seeing that disturbance happen. Instead of discovering an unexplained poor hit afterward, you see the dot move as the shot breaks and understand what produced the result.
That is one of the reasons shot calling is so useful. It is not just a way to shoot faster.
It gives you better information about your shooting.
Calling Shots and Visual Patience
Calling shots also connects directly to visual patience.
The goal is not to fire and then determine whether the shot was good. Ideally, you prevent the poor shot by seeing enough before pressing the trigger.
Different targets require different amounts of visual information. A close, open target does not require the same confirmation as a distant partial target.
As you improve, you become better at recognizing exactly how much information a particular shot requires and reacting as soon as you have it.
That is why I do not think of visual patience as simply “slowing down.” The goal is to see what the shot requires and then act without unnecessary delay.
We will address that concept more completely in a separate article on Visual Patience.
Calling Shots on Steel
The same principle applies to steel.
It is tempting to wait for the sound of the hit or watch the target fall. Both occur after the visual event you should be using to make the decision.
Instead, call the shot.
If what you saw was acceptable, trust the call and continue. If what you saw tells you the shot was not acceptable, respond accordingly.
This takes confidence in your visual information, and that confidence has to be earned through practice.
The more often your visual call matches the actual result, the easier it becomes to trust what you saw.
Practice Calling Shots in Dry Fire
You do not need live ammunition to begin developing the visual discipline required for shot calling.
In dry fire, use the trigger break as the reference point. Where was the dot when the trigger broke?
If you are performing a drill without pressing the trigger, use the moment when you would have fired the shot. Was the dot where it needed to be?
This is especially useful during transitions. You can determine whether the gun arrived where your eyes were looking, whether you stopped short, or whether you drove past the intended aiming point.
Dry fire makes this easier because recoil is removed from the problem, but live fire is still necessary. Eventually you need to confirm that you can see and call the shot while the gun is actually firing.
That is another example of why dry fire and live fire should complement each other rather than compete with each other.
Do Not Let Dry Fire Become Empty Movement
Dry fire can become sloppy if you allow it.
It is easy to begin swinging the gun toward targets, pressing the trigger, and moving on without demanding any real visual information.
Do not allow that to become the habit.
A dry fire repetition should still answer the same question as live fire: Was the gun where it needed to be when I would have fired the shot?
Calling the shot gives every repetition visual accountability.
That makes the repetition more useful and helps connect dry fire to what you expect from yourself in a match.
Trust Has to Be Earned
One of the hardest parts of shot calling is learning to trust the call.
Early on, you may see what appears to be a good shot and still feel the urge to look for the hole. That is understandable. You have not yet accumulated enough evidence that your visual information is reliable.
Practice solves that problem.
Call the shot.
Verify it.
Call another.
Verify it.
As those calls repeatedly match the actual impacts, you begin building evidence that you can trust what you see.
This connects directly with the idea behind Positive Imprints. Confidence is stronger when it is supported by repeated evidence of successful performance.
You are not simply telling yourself to trust your shooting.
You are proving that you can.
A Small Lesson That Made a Big Difference
Early in my competitive shooting, a friend and I were relatively close in skill. At one match, he beat me by about seven tenths of a second.
That is not a large amount of time.
When I looked back at the stage, I realized I had fired an unnecessary extra shot because I was not certain of my hits. There were already good hits on the target, but I did not trust what I had seen.
At the time, I did not fully understand shot calling.
That experience helped reinforce something I have seen repeatedly since then: better shooters do not necessarily gain several seconds from one dramatic technique. They often save small amounts of time everywhere.
A tenth here. A quarter second there. One unnecessary shot avoided.
The little things add up.
Make It Part of Everything You Do
Shot calling should eventually stop feeling like a separate drill.
Call shots while working on draws.
Call them during transitions.
Call them while moving.
Call them on entries and exits.
Call them on paper and steel.
Call them in dry fire and live fire.
The ultimate goal is for the process to become part of shooting itself. You see the shot, know what happened, and make the appropriate decision without needing a separate conscious analysis afterward.
If the call is good, trust it and move on.
If the call tells you otherwise, respond immediately.
See the shot. Trust the call. Keep shooting.