Tip on how to help steady my aim?

Ced1942

Ced1942

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So i shoot a bit of handgun and i am at a point where my accuracy suffer mostly because i can’t seem to hold the pistol steady. My trigger pull is okay, flinching is gone too. But i just can’t seems to hold the gun steady. Just aiming the gun up without pressing the trigger the front sight wander all over the target. My question is do you guys have exercice or training you do to help steady your aim or reinforce the responsible muscle?

Issue is not only for handgun my rifle shooting offhand skill are uber crap for the same reason.
Id like to hear if you guys have recommendation or advice
 
Controling your breatbing helps. Reassess your stance, grip and sight alignment.
Don’t grip the gun so tight that you shake.
Go from low ready or holster to shoot one or two rounds. Relax and repeat.
Increase the rounds fired before each break in firing as you get better.
Instead of shooting bullseye targets shoot targets that are hit or miss about the size of a license plate. As you get better you can tighten your hit zone.
Sometimes people focus so tightly on a bullseye that they stress and flex and end up missing most shots anyways. 6” steel plates can be great for that. If you hit it goes ping and it’s an A/hit!

There’s a lot of great YouTube vids to help you.
Tactical rifleman and warrior poet society have some great vids that might help.
 
Ced1942 said:
So i shoot a bit of handgun and i am at a point where my accuracy suffer mostly because i can’t seem to hold the pistol steady. My trigger pull is okay, flinching is gone too. But i just can’t seems to hold the gun steady. Just aiming the gun up without pressing the trigger the front sight wander all over the target. My question is do you guys have exercice or training you do to help steady your aim or reinforce the responsible muscle?

Issue is not only for handgun my rifle shooting offhand skill are uber crap for the same reason.
Id like to hear if you guys have recommendation or advice
Click to expand...
Make sure you are standing in a comfortable and natural position (i.e. isosceles stance). Basically, stand the same way you would normally be standing, except with a gun in front of you. Your elbows should be locked. Focus on the front sight, not the target. Don't wait too long to fire the shot. Don't stand there for 30 seconds trying to steady your aim and obtain the best sight picture. The longer you take to aim, the more unsteady your aim will become.

Also, what kind of handgun are you shooting?
 
Shooting steel is nono at my local range. I usually shoot at a 12 inch bulleyes at 12 yards on paper because well thats what is allowed. I dont think grip tighness is an issue, if i juste hold my arm up amd raise my thumb to cover something i can see my thumb wandering around so even with my hand at rest without anything i dont have any kind of steadiness

capp325 said:
Make sure you are standing in a comfortable and natural position (i.e. isosceles stance). Basically, stand the same way you would normally be standing, except with a gun in front of you. Your elbows should be locked. Focus on the front sight, not the target. Don't wait too long to fire the shot. Don't stand there for 30 seconds trying to steady your aim and obtain the best sight picture. The longer you take to aim, the more unsteady your aim will become.

Also, what kind of handgun are you shooting?
Click to expand...

Stance is as natural as it get, i worked past the tactical turtle in my last session and think i got this one figured out. I usually shoot my M&P in 9mm
 
Strengthening your muscles is rarely a bad idea.
Do you have a nerve issue or some other condition that causes shaky hands regardless of the activity?
Learning to live with some wobble off hand and releasing the shot in a consistent fashion within that wobble is part of shooting accurately off hand, specially with a magnified optic.
 
If you're wavering all over, the absolute key is a proper grip. Both hands must contact the handgun as much as possible with no gaps present. A high grip with your strong hand fully on the tang or back strap is the basic foundation . Google or watch YT videos on proper grip. You'll notice immediate improvement. There will always be some movement and this is where proper breathing takes over. Some arm strength exercises will help. Hold a 10lb weight at full extension regularly with both arms. The hand gripper is also good to train forearm strength.
 
I've been practicing with the MantisX system, both at home and on the range.
Made a big improvement.
Do you dry fire at home a lot?
Place a small dot sticker on the wall, mount the MantisX and dry fire away!
As mentioned, exercise is a must.
 
I find switching between guns, or types of guns, can sometimes knock you out of that bad habit/mojo with gun you are struggling to shoot. Good luck :)
 
I can't hold sights on the bullseye; however, I view it as a dance between my pistol and the target. In other words, don't try to hold sights on target, let the "waltz" begin and finish your trigger squeeze as the front site (or red dot or crosshairs) float past the target (or on target). For action shooting my proficiency improved by squeezing as soon as the front sight starts to cross the target. Don't take too long to aim. As far as grip, I was taught to push the pistol toward the target with your dominant hand, and pull towards yourself with your support hand. Its a balance of these push pull that can help stready yourself somewhat.
 
Got a basement or garage you can shoot a airgun in?

If so, I would suggest a pump up pneumatic airgun like a Crosman 1377, Daisy 777, or even a Crosman 130/1300 type gun. Zero recoil, no noise to speak of, and easy to see the results immediately.
Or you could buy a little more expensive single stroke pneumatic, like an IZH46 or similar. Or one of the Beeman (P3 ?) models that look like a Desert Eagle sorta thing.

The advantage to the air pistols is that they take all out of the equation aside from grip, sight picture, and trigger. They are quiet, cheap to feed, and even at shorter than official target range, can give great practice.
 
When I first got my 9mm, I went online and found some at-home training drills. One very effective one was basically:
- place a 1” square of tape on the wall above your tv.
- while watching your favorite show, hold your handgun in your one hand, gun resting down. This creates muscle memory for proper grip.
- during commercials, lift the gun up, get your correct grip. and set the sights on the tape mark. This builds some of the muscle memory/muscle control for aiming. Dry firing works on your trigger pull.

In case it’s not obvious, an unloaded gun and closed curtains are preferable.
 
So i got back from the range, bulleyes is smaller than in my memory its actually 6inch. Managed to put 45 of 50 shot in it at 10 meters, dont know if thats any good but its probably my best performance atm. I do dry fire a bit at home once in a while but nothing truly consistent. Usually a few day in a row before i hit the range. I have this hallway that i shoot at a paper target about 20 feet away. That is mostly where i notice my lack of steadiness.

Im pretty young so no kind of nerve damage or anything that i noticed earlier in life before i picked up shooting sport. Holding a weight for some extended time period might be a good and simple idea i will probably give it a try with a few other good idea that showed up in the thread. Appreciate the input guys
 
Maybe some very lite weights around your wrists like people use for aerobic exercises could be incorporated into your dry firing exercises.... sort of like a baseball player practice swinging with some extra weight.
Or just hold the shooting position long enough to get a burn going..... :)

The push-pull technique that snooker is describing is a classic way to get some tension and aid in stability and the modern style involves creating the tension by twisting your support hands weak and strong in towards each other against the pistol to create some tension. The trick is to create some tension without that tension interfering with your trigger finger.

There's an active thread right now about grips with some good youtube links.
 
First of all you never told us what your shooting . a semiauto a revolver ? I have found at times if a handgun is too light or too heavy I'm not happy shooting it . with a light firearm it tends to wander. I have learned to adapt with whatever I'm shooting after a while . you can take a piece of large diameter doweling and drill a hole through the center and hang a boot lace through the hole. on the bottom tie a weight to it 5lb 10 lb whatever your comfortable with . with your arms straight out in front of you hold the weight up off the floor and wind it up and down to build up strength in your forearms if needed.

when you holding the pistol out on front of you try slightly bending the elbow of the arm not holding the gun and pull back a little to steady things. plus don't wait forever to shoot. if your trigger pull is too heavy the gun can wander waiting to go off . watch the others at you range and see if someone is a good shot. and then ask for pointers unless they seem like someone you don't want to ask . I've helped lots of people .
 
You can only guesstimate your grip, stance, flinching etc. Videotaping yourself to see how you shoot might not be a bad idea either.
 
A tot of rum before the shooting starts, was a popular method for a couple of centuries. I think it's not used much these days, though.
 
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