Me or the gun?

S

sfbruner

Regular
Rating - 100%
43   0   0
Location
Over there
So i shot my mp9 on sunday and managed about 2" groups at 10 yards and then they opened up to like 12" at 25m.,
Granted i had a few fliers and some trigger jerking on a few. Next, i sat down and shot a 6" group at 25m.

I guess i am not that impressed but im wandering what kind of accuracy i should expect from these pistols?

Id have to sharpen the pencil on the calculations to figure out how the movement of the front sight relative to the rear will translate to group spread at 25m but based on a linear approach i calculate that 3mm movement would translate to 420mm on paper at 25m. That makes me feel a little better.
 
sfbruner said:
So i shot my mp9 on sunday and managed about 2" groups at 10 yards and then they opened up to like 12" at 25m.,
Granted i had a few fliers and some trigger jerking on a few. Next, i sat down and shot a 6" group at 25m.

I guess i am not that impressed but im wandering what kind of accuracy i should expect from these pistols?

Id have to sharpen the pencil on the calculations to figure out how the movement of the front sight relative to the rear will translate to group spread at 25m but based on a linear approach i calculate that 3mm movement would translate to 420mm on paper at 25m. That makes me feel a little better.
Click to expand...

I have the exact same problem, tight groups at 7-10 yards and then I can't hit the broad side of a barn at 25 yards. Doesn't matter what caliber or gun, everything from .22 to 460 S&W.

Andrew.
 
If your 2" group at 25m wanders then its the gun, if your 6"-12" group at 25m wanders then its all you ;)

Things the watch for are trigger control, sight alignment, grip.

if your in the valley let me know as am a pistol instructor and willing to give out free coaching
 
*Disclaimer-I know many M&P shooters can do well with their guns, no disrespect meant with this post!!*

I have shot several regular M&P 9mm pistols. I have seen other people shoot them. I have only seen one guy(well modified gun and very experienced shooter) shoot accurately with these. I have seen the same shooter with a Ruger, a CZ and an M&P shoot tight groups with the first two and shotgun style with the last. I have personally done it too. This wasn't one or two times, but a least 5 different occasions, with different shooters ,and different pistols.

Again, no disrespect, I know they are very reliable, and have been proven over the years to be good. also you can buy countless accessories for them cheaply and everyone has the parts almost all the time. nothing wrong with them, I just suspect that S&W gave up a little accuracy for other factors.
 
Chances are, its you. Isolate the pistol from you (i.e.: a rest), and you'll have your answer. Plain and simple, those distances are hard, but not impossible. Just a matter of practice.

Be careful. It can become an obsession. Crack is less addictive. The first time I had a group at 21m within a 3"x3" box, I was thrilled. That was 7 weeks ago....and I have yet to repeat it. Now I can't stop trying to do it again. Maybe I should say hi to the wife...been a few weeks...I wonder if I still have a job...
 
john simmons said:
It's you not the gun.
Click to expand...
It's always you.
A while back I took a gun that I don't shoot well - coughglockcough - and clamped a green laser on it. At 25y it was shooting ragged holes from sand bags. Without the laser I was back to the same crappy groups I'd been experiencing. I've done this with several guns since with similar results.
Lesson learned: It's always you.
 
Last edited:
The first time I tried to fire a M&P 9mm I could not make myself pull the trigger as hard as it needed to be to get the gun to fire.... I thought it was defective. That being said, the only reason I have not bought an M&P is the trigger :evil:
 
I suspected the pistol should be a lot more accurate at that distance so I'm glad to hear its me. I'm pretty sure my issue is sight aligbment.

Thanks all.
 
sfbruner said:
So i shot my mp9 on sunday and managed about 2" groups at 10 yards and then they opened up to like 12" at 25m.,
Click to expand...

Some early M&Ps were demonstrated to have serious accuracy issues. S&W will warranty them if that's the case. But you can't know for sure unless you have someone who is an accomplished M&P or Glock (or similar) shooter confirm the issue.
 
Viper26 said:
It's always you.Lesson learned: It's always you.
Click to expand...

Not always.

Two years ago I had a Ruger Mark III 22/45 Stainless.
It was a good shooter but I kept getting the impression that
the rear-sights were canted. I laid it flat on a table on its back
(i.e., a triangular base consisting of the two leaves of the rear-sight
and the apex being the third base. Placed a square right next to it
and the angle of divergence became apparent.
I sent it off to the Ruger Warranty Maintenance centre in Canada
and finally their armourer confirmed that the dovetail for the rear-sight
had been machined wrong.
I did a free replacement (although a less expensive model since my model had been
discontinued.)
 
One of the Canadian top 5 duty pistol ( CPCA ) shooter use a M&P 9... I saw what he can do at 25 meters under competition stress... It's all you!! Haha!
 
Tongarirohiker said:
Chances are, its you. Isolate the pistol from you (i.e.: a rest), and you'll have your answer. Plain and simple, those distances are hard, but not impossible. Just a matter of practice.

Be careful. It can become an obsession. Crack is less addictive. The first time I had a group at 21m within a 3"x3" box, I was thrilled. That was 7 weeks ago....and I have yet to repeat it. Now I can't stop trying to do it again. Maybe I should say hi to the wife...been a few weeks...I wonder if I still have a job...
Click to expand...

There is no cure for this addiction
 
~ Use as small an aiming point as possible.
~ Hold the trigger to the rear until recoil subsides.
~ After pulling the trigger, don't move your head or look at the target until gun movement has stopped.
 
Lodi said:
~ Use as small an aiming point as possible.
~ Hold the trigger to the rear until recoil subsides.
~ After pulling the trigger, don't move your head or look at the target until gun movement has stopped.
Click to expand...

Good tips, Lodi. One tip I picked up off YouTube to help reinforce those tips is to take a paper plate, and put a 2"x2" square of painters tape in the centre (blue or green since it stands out). Slow fire and practice your followthrough until you can put all your rounds in the tape. The key here is, only perfect shots are allowed. If you put a shot a cm outside the tape, consider it a complete miss.

Keep repeating until you can put the entire group within that square. Start at 7m, then 15m, then 25m.
 
Lodi said:
~ Use as small an aiming point as possible.
~ Hold the trigger to the rear until recoil subsides.
~ After pulling the trigger, don't move your head or look at the target until gun movement has stopped.
Click to expand...
I can't emphasize that point above enough--so many times you see shooters, bot new and old, do a nice squeeze in then jerk the release out. 25m, especially standing, is not an easy distance to shoot good groups so it's important to focus carefully on the fundamentals of accurate handgun shooting: sight alignment, trigger control, grip and stance (in my order of importance).
 
sfbruner said:
I suspected the pistol should be a lot more accurate at that distance so I'm glad to hear its me. I'm pretty sure my issue is sight aligbment.

Thanks all.
Click to expand...

I had someone telling me that the sights were off based on their shooting and internet stories. I asked to try a magazine and it shot dead on at the 6 inch steel at 25 yards. I think I had like 2 misses that were due to me not being familiar with the gun.

Part of the issue is, sorry to say this but it's the simple truth, is that 2 inch groups at 7 to 10 yards is not that great. I can regularly manage to get 1.5 or less size groups at 15 yards and on my better days manage 2.5 inch groups at 25. And I'm only an "OK" sort of shooter.

If you've got a bit of a flinch issue that doesn't help. If you seem to get more than one flyer per magazine then you likely have a minor flinch that pops off the track to create the flyers.

Oddly enough shooting from bag rests will not help with this since you can still pull the group with a little flinch even from the rested position. Shooting from bags with a handgun is NOT the test that many seem to feel it is. The shooter still has a lot of influence. The only way to eliminate the shooter is to put the gun into a Ransom rest or something similar.

But you can't test your sights from a Ransom rest. The sights are not bore aligned. The sights are cut with the expectation that your jelly like hands will let the gun move within your grip. Shooting higher than POA can be due to using slower and heavier bullets and/or not using a properly supportive grip. But shooting low and open is flinch.

To shoot better groups and reach the 1 to 1.25 size groups you SHOULD be getting at 10 yards stop blaming the gun and start learning to hold and isolate your mind from the big BANG! that is coming with every trigger pull. Focus on the sight picture and building pressure on the trigger over about 1/2 second. The trigger should move as and when it wants in response to the smooth and deliberate pressure build of your trigger finger. Use a firm but friendly handshake sort of pressure. Too little and the gun can move around. Too much and it becomes hard to isolate your trigger finger motion from effects in your other fingers and hand. When you pull the trigger pull through to the rear stop and HOLD IT THERE through the BANG! and recoil. When the gun comes to rest after about one second the trigger should still be back. Ease up the pressure with the same control and let the trigger push your trigger finger back. Note the reset click along the way.

Get some snap caps and have a buddy load them randomly in the mag and watch you shoot. If the gun jerks AT ALL when you drop the trigger on a snap cap then you've got a flinch. When you do it right the trigger should simply go "click" with no dip or shake of the muzzle. As in nada, zilch, nyet, ingen, ninguno....... You'll see it too. The trick is to get over yourself and notice it when it happens. Too often we work overly hard to fool ourselves into thinking that we are really good. But for accurate shooting it pays to become your own worst critic and not take yourself to task over this personal betrayal... :D
 
+1 with BCRider,

however sometime you will find easier to group with different Platform from the first shot compare to other Platform that will takes time to increase grouping.....that was what happened with me, still working on it, but easier with some of my guns....
 
Mine is not only accurate, but easy to shoot well. The trigger was better than I expected, but by the time the pistol arrived I had already ordered the Apex kit. Trigger is now almost as good as a 1911. It is now my pistol of choice for CQB.

This is two hands, standing at 20 yards. It is a 40.

TOKRANGETEST2.jpg
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom