Best distance for ironing out pistol shooting problems

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FastFord58

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During an extended range day yesterday, I have discovered some bad shooting habits that I want to nip in the bud.

Shooting session details:

I shot 4 pistols yesterday, all at 25 yards. Glock 17/NP29 (both 9mm), Kimber Pro Carry II/USP full size (both .45).

Norc and Glock are both 6 o'oclock holds and the .45s were 12 o'clocks.

I hit paper no problem, maintaining decent groups when trying, but all of my shots were hitting left side at the 9 o'clock position.

I did some research and found this PDF, which seems like good info and corresponds to other websites:

www.ssaa.org.au/handgun/handgun-shooting-guide.pdf

I was also able to verify my issues during some dry-fire practice. I am using too much trigger finger and tend to squeeze in with my thumbs too much when pulling the trigger.

I can find info on drills and such to improve shooting, but they don't really say what is the best range to operate at.

Which range should I be at when doing controlled shooting practice?

I'm thinking 25yds is maybe a little too far to iron my issues. Given the left hitting of the target, I wasn't even getting on paper at 50yds.
 
I think this whole "Too much or not enough" trigger finger is overblown. I can hit the target dead center no matter how I put my finger on the trigger; It's more a matter of trigger control imo.

If your range allows it you should work on closer targets and go further down range as you progress... Best way to progress and see how you do imo.
 
Step 1. Build small fire.
Step 2. Make small fire into medium sized fire by BURNING THAT USELESS CHART.
 
That chart comes from the days of one handed "duelist" style shooting. Because of this it does have some items on it which are not as important or which don't apply to two handed shooting. But some of the stuff is as valid now as it was then. Just take what it says with a grain of salt but try the cures out. They may or may not help.

If your groups are too much to the left then it implies TOO LITTLE rather than too much finger on the trigger. Or it could also be that you're not holding the gun in your strong hand such that it naturally lines up with your forearm. Or it could be that you're pivoting your trigger finger too much from the knuckle rather than at the first joint. All the stuff comes into play if it's done right and any one can push things to the side if done wrong.

But the first thing you need to do is stop using any force in your thumbs. When it comes to semi auto pistol shooting the thumbs are pretty much useless appendiges. You want to park them along the frame and slide so that they point more or less forward and nestle together without crossing and then put them in neutral while shooting.

Rivalen says it's all a matter of "trigger control". He's right on that. But his disparagement of too much or too little also misses the point that how you pull the trigger is just as important as where on your finger the trigger sits. The key is to find where you get the best results. This is where some dry firing can come in handy. It's especially nice if you have a DA/SA semi where you can do the long DA dryfire pulls. Generally if you can get to where you notice no sight picture jump at all as the hammer falls then you've got your grip and trigger pull all working along a neutral axis. The lack of side jump means that your grip and trigger pull is pretty much spot on.

In terms of the distance to do the drills I'd suggest it really doesn't matter all that much. Although it's easier to see the center of the groupings if the targets are a bit closer. I like to put my targets at around 12 to 15 yards. At that distance I don't have much trouble achieving 2 to 2.5 inch groups. This size of grouping makes it easy to see the center of the group and to identify any flyers. It's also close enough that you can see your results as you're shooting them. So you can get better instant feedback.

Note that it's a poor idea to shoot one round then study the results. Just line up and shoot at least 5 at a time and THEN see what's happening.

Another factor that I find helps a lot is to school yourself not to squeeze until the shot. Instead learn to squeeze with control all the way to the rear stop of the trigger and hold it there for an instant. Then just as controlled ease up on the pressure to allow the trigger to come forward until you feel the reset click. It takes a bit of a Zen mindset to do this well and just let the BANG! occur almost like it's a separate occurance in the distance. But if you can do this it can greatly aid your calm and detachment and ultimately your consistency.
 
Is this occuring only during rapid fire? If so, slow down and only speed up if you improve. If its during slow fire, then it doesn't matter what distance you shoot at, as long as you can hit the target and record the point of impact.
 
BCRider said:
That chart comes from the days of one handed "duelist" style shooting. Because of this it does have some items on it which are not as important or which don't apply to two handed shooting. But some of the stuff is as valid now as it was then. Just take what it says with a grain of salt but try the cures out. They may or may not help.

If your groups are too much to the left then it implies TOO LITTLE rather than too much finger on the trigger. Or it could also be that you're not holding the gun in your strong hand such that it naturally lines up with your forearm. Or it could be that you're pivoting your trigger finger too much from the knuckle rather than at the first joint. All the stuff comes into play if it's done right and any one can push things to the side if done wrong.

But the first thing you need to do is stop using any force in your thumbs. When it comes to semi auto pistol shooting the thumbs are pretty much useless appendiges. You want to park them along the frame and slide so that they point more or less forward and nestle together without crossing and then put them in neutral while shooting.

Rivalen says it's all a matter of "trigger control". He's right on that. But his disparagement of too much or too little also misses the point that how you pull the trigger is just as important as where on your finger the trigger sits. The key is to find where you get the best results. This is where some dry firing can come in handy. It's especially nice if you have a DA/SA semi where you can do the long DA dryfire pulls. Generally if you can get to where you notice no sight picture jump at all as the hammer falls then you've got your grip and trigger pull all working along a neutral axis. The lack of side jump means that your grip and trigger pull is pretty much spot on.

In terms of the distance to do the drills I'd suggest it really doesn't matter all that much. Although it's easier to see the center of the groupings if the targets are a bit closer. I like to put my targets at around 12 to 15 yards. At that distance I don't have much trouble achieving 2 to 2.5 inch groups. This size of grouping makes it easy to see the center of the group and to identify any flyers. It's also close enough that you can see your results as you're shooting them. So you can get better instant feedback.

Note that it's a poor idea to shoot one round then study the results. Just line up and shoot at least 5 at a time and THEN see what's happening.

Another factor that I find helps a lot is to school yourself not to squeeze until the shot. Instead learn to squeeze with control all the way to the rear stop of the trigger and hold it there for an instant. Then just as controlled ease up on the pressure to allow the trigger to come forward until you feel the reset click. It takes a bit of a Zen mindset to do this well and just let the BANG! occur almost like it's a separate occurance in the distance. But if you can do this it can greatly aid your calm and detachment and ultimately your consistency.
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Awesome. Thank you.

I was using my thumbs a lot to grip the pistol, which is clearly a no no.

Grizzlypeg: Slow or fast, the result is the same. Left handed groups.

It's funny, I was better the very first time shooting a pistol then I am now having had some experience.
 
Best distance for ironing out pistol shooting problems?
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7 meters.

The "Basics" of handgun shooting are tough to describe, they are a lot easier to show in person. The "guide" in Post #1 explains it well enough, for the most part. Couple of things I saw in that "guide" that I thought were dubious are:
1. I saw that the second picture from the top, on page 109 (or page 6 of 18 on the pdf), showing the butt of the semi-auto, is showing the wrong way to grip the pistol.

2. On page 112 (9 of 18), "two handed standing position", is mostly ok, IMO, but notice the picture at the bottom showing the stance. The shooter is not in a stable position. Looks like he can be knocked over backwards with a light push. He is too straight...he should lean forward a little bit. I could almost see this man fall over backwards after the third shot, specially with any caliber bigger than .22LR. A more stable and correct position is to lean to torso a bit forward so that the shooter's center of gravity is over the balls of his feet.

A better stance is the Weaver or Modified Weaver. This video pretty much shows how to do it.
http://www.ehow.com/video_2359774_take-weaver-pistol-shooting-stance.html
Better balance to begin with, and more stable to absorb recoil and recover sight picture between shoots. In a real shooting situation, you'll present a smaller target as well.

Once you got your grip, stance, breathing, sight picture, trigger control and follow-through all figured out.....start with dry firing. Resist the urge to fire live ammo until you got all the above figured out...or you will just waste ammo and pick up bad habits.

Since the OP has admitted to some bad habits, start with the basics mentioned in the preceding paragraph.

And one more thing, keep both eyes open before, during and after the shot.

This is easier said than done because of our human and natural reflex to blink in anticipation of, or in reaction to the shot. Keeping both eyes open help you see the front sight better as the shot goes off. Closed eyes cannot see and you are guessing where the target is and where your sights are, when the shot goes off.

So keep both your eyes open in dry firing as well as live fire. Takes concentration.

Sometimes we think we do not blink, but have a buddy observe while you shoot and he will tell you.

Start dry firing at 7 meters. When you are able to "call" your shots, meaning you can tell where your bullets will hit because you actually have your eyes open and you see your point of aim at the time the hammer falls (or striker strikes), and with properly calibrated sights you know that will be your point of impact, then you can start shooting live ammo. One round at a time.

If you miss, go back to dryfiring, at least one dozen dry fires, before going back to live fire.

When you can keep all shots in a two inch group, move to 10 or 15 meters.

You can follow these steps...or you will probably waste ammo.
 
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FastFord58 said:
....It's funny, I was better the very first time shooting a pistol then I am now having had some experience.
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I'd say that you're far from being alone on this. I've seen a few new shooters that didn't know what to expect the first time out so they "just let it happen" and end up shooting really well. Then the next time out the attitude is more "I'm going to OWN that baby! ! ! !". With that sort of shift comes the whole flinch thing and other bad habits. LIttle did they know that they got it right the first time around.... :D

Remember that your whole role in the shooting partnership between you and the gun is to be as stable a platform as you can be. The ONLY part of you that should alter muscle tension or movement after the sights are on the bullseye is that one finger that builds up pressure on the trigger. And remember the follow through. By focusing on the trigger follow through to the end of the travel and hold there for an instant you tend to disconnect your mind, and thus any flinch reaction, from the BANG! that happens at some point during the trigger finger buildup.

Assuming you do these things and that your grip is centered on the back strap and that your pressure build on the trigger is straight back your groups will be small and the accuracy right on.
 
And you think you have issues? Took a year to figure out I needed to loose my prescription glasses!

TARGET.JPG
 
At first you have no idea what to do but put the sights on the target and pull the trigger and this works petty well. Then we start trying to learn how to shoot and fill our minds with weaver this and tension that, stances, grips, and all kinds of other stuff that distracts from the simple idea of putting the sights on the target and pulling the trigger. For accuracy the thing to learn is to expand on the idea of putting the sights on the target and pulling the trigger to putting the sights on the target and keeping them there while the gun fires. It's a subtle difference but an important one. Separate functions like aligning the sights and then pulling a trigger causes a disconnect. Usually somewhere between putting the sights on the spot you want to hit and pulling the trigger something else happens that causes them to not have the gun directed at the point you wanted to hit, either a bad trigger press, a flinch or twitch, or a blink in your attention. Learn to stay with the sights through the trigger pull so that you know the sights were aligned at the instant the gun fires. In effect take the trigger pull out of the equation. The trigger is just to fire the gun, it is not a part of the aiming process and it is not a separate action, as in sight and then pull the trigger. Think of it this way, the sighting process never ends. Once the gun aligns on target and you confirm the sight picture you start to pull the trigger while continuing to monitor the sights and somewhere in this process the gun will fire at which point you should still be monitoring the sight watching it lift out of the notch, travel to its apex and then return to target. Hopefully if everything else was done correctly it will return to point of aim with the sights aligned. Working with a sandbag off the bench will help with this as you isolate everything else out of the process and get down to just aligning the sights and pulling the trigger. Work on staying with the sights throughout the firing process. Use whatever distance is comfortable to you, I use 25m as a standard for me but like to work at 50m as well. Freestyle start at 7 or 10m and then work back. When dry firing work on staying with the sights, a breakthrough for me was when I noticed the sight continuing its movement in the wobble zone before, during and after the hammer dropped as if nothing had happened. Basically see the sight movement continuing uninterrupted by the hammer fall.
 
This has been an amazing thread for me! Thanks again to those who replied.

Another thing I noticed last night is that I am not holding and aiming the pistol so that it is along the same axis as my arm. The pistol is about 20 degrees off axis.

It feels very awkward to hold it straight on the axis of my arm, but from what I have been reading and watching on youtube, it is important to develop this skill.
 
FastFord58 said:
...Another thing I noticed last night is that I am not holding and aiming the pistol so that it is along the same axis as my arm. The pistol is about 20 degrees off axis....
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You might find this video link with Todd Jarrett useful as well. I'll admit I find it a bit difficult to hold the pistol exactly as he says - so that the muzzle, wrist and forearm are in one straight line - as I then find it difficult to put the pad of my finger square on the trigger, but it's good to get that alignment as straight as possible.

:) Stuart
 
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FastFord58 said:
This has been an amazing thread for me! Thanks again to those who replied.

Another thing I noticed last night is that I am not holding and aiming the pistol so that it is along the same axis as my arm. The pistol is about 20 degrees off axis.

It feels very awkward to hold it straight on the axis of my arm, but from what I have been reading and watching on youtube, it is important to develop this skill.
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Yeeeahhh.... welll...... yes and no..... :D

The thing is that when you first get the grip on the gun it should be centered in the web of your hand such that your forearm, gun and hand are all in a nicely balanced neutral position with the barrel lined up with your forearm like it's an extension of your forearm.

But when you lift it and bring in the other support hand this all falls apart to some extent because you then need to angle your wrist a little to achieve a balanced overall stance that allows you to aim without any requirement to have your head or upper body cocked over to one side. Don't sweat this last bit and try to achieve some oddball body contortion to keep the gun lined up with your forearm. Even with the bent wrist to allow you to use it with the support hand and still aim easily the gun is still being supported in a "neutral" manner. So when it fires it is still going to recoil back in a straight line within your grip without any kicking of the barrel to one side or the other.

Where you will find that it works ideally with the gun, hand and forearm all in a line is when shooting single handed. But otherwise as soon as you bring in the weak hand for support and square off the body you'll find that the wrist needs to bend a little.
 
BCRider said:
...Where you will find that it works ideally with the gun, hand and forearm all in a line is when shooting single handed. But otherwise as soon as you bring in the weak hand for support and square off the body you'll find that the wrist needs to bend a little.
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This explains the problem I noted above. You're essentially forming an equilateral triangle, with your body being the base, your arms forming the other two sides and the gun at the apex. There will inevitably be an offset between the top of the RH side (your strong arm; LH side for lefties) and the gun.

:) Stuart
 
josquin said:
You might find this video link with Todd Jarrett useful as well. I'll admit I find it a bit difficult to hold the pistol exactly as he says - so that the muzzle, wrist and forearm are in one straight line - as I then find it difficult to put the pad of my finger square on the trigger, but it's good to get that alignment as straight as possible.

:) Stuart
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Wow. That guy is a machine. I have been using a modified Weaver stance. Maybe I'll try the isosceles, too.

I sight like Hickock does, right hand hold with left eye down the sights, which makes Weaver a bit awkward.
 
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