Comments on: “My pistol shoots low”

By: Adiefender

Adiefender — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 01:13:54 +0000

The other thing people need to remember. NEW guns need to be broken in along with the shooter. Nothing makes up for good shooting like constant practice. Here is a link to some practice that you can do at home. http://www.personaldefensetraining.com/showpage.php?target=dryfire.php

By: The Freeholder

The Freeholder — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 23:32:54 +0000

Another great device is a laser. Standard advice about being triple sure the gun is unloaded and then still using something that would be a good backstop applies. Just aim at the backstop and trigger the laser, then dry fire. Just watch the pretty red dot and see if it’s jumping around. If it is, you’ve just identified your problem.

And no, the laser isn’t loose.

By: montanabob

montanabob — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 05:16:29 +0000

It’s 99% of the time the shooter. Really. Been target shooting air gun, smallbore, high power and pistol since I was 8 years old. The person (male or female) on the trigger is the one throwing the shots around. Not the gun. Actually it was in ONE case. She was an olympic smallbore shooter and it was a new barrel on the gun and it wasn’t right. All other cases, its the shooter. Trigger jerk, anticipating, not concentrating, etc etc etc. Not the gun. But the blowhards don’t want to admit that THEY are the problem, so it is the gun/ammo. Wrong wrong wrong.

By: David

David — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:04:02 +0000

You think shooters are bad for blaming their guns and ammo? Try hanging out at the golf course or a bowling alley and listen to all the complaints about how they could afford better equipment they would be better players.

Or watch the thousands of dollars guys spend on better equipment and their game doesn’t get any better.

I constantly tell golfers the same thing I tell shooters who complain about their equipment “The only thing wrong with your equipment is the loose wingnut on the end of the grip.”

One day out at the range I listened to two guys argue for almost 30 minutes about what kind scope they needed to put on their rifle in order to shoot it consistently at 400-500 yards. While they were doing that the old man with them was constantly banging the 600 yd target with the iron sights on the gun they wanted to put a scope on.

When he finished I invited the old guy over to shoot with my son and I for a while. We had a blast for about an hour. Both the kid and I learned a lot of good old fashioned common sense shooting advice that day. It was like having my Grandpa around again for a while. Except that this time I was old enough to really listen to him and pay attention.

By: Mikee

Mikee — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:14:31 +0000

There is another problem that arises when one changes from 7 yards to 25 yards. The angle of the shooter’s arms, relative to the ground, has to change. If instead you squinch your head down a bit more, rotate your wrists up a bit, and try to align the sights on target from this unconsciously contorted position, you will likely shoot low.

Try raising the gun, held in both hands, up about 30 degrees above level, and then lower it to align your eyes with the sights.

Worked for me.

Then when I stopped jerking the trigger, I really started to see improvement in my groups at distance.

By: Phil

Phil — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:41:20 +0000

Working at a gun range, I could literally sit on the range all day and correct this non stop. A solid 75% of the shooters on my range have never been taught proper trigger pull and somehow manage to flinch all the time. My fav was a guy with an H&K Mk23. One of the most amazing pistols ever build – shooting 12″ low at 15 feet.

What Paul said. Problem solved. (most of the time)

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:57:04 +0000

Two simple pieces of advice that I found really helpful were:

1. Keep the sights aligned while slowly pulling the trigger back at a constant rate, so that you’re surprised when it breaks. If you’re surprised when the gun fires, your body doesn’t have time to flinch or anticipate. As you get the hang of it, just learn to do exactly the same thing, but faster.

2. Get a firm grip on the gun. The best analogy I’ve heard is to grip it with the same strength as you’d grip a hammer before banging in a nail.

By: upstateshooter

upstateshooter — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:27:06 +0000

A couple of years ago I found it helped me with my trigger control to think of a place on the back of the pistol as the place I was pulling the trigger to, helping me to acheive a better “straight back” pull. For my 1911 that place is the hammer, which is stainless on a blued gun. For my M&P I put a grey vinyl dot on the slide end cap.

By: ToddG

ToddG — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:36:31 +0000

Shane -- There's no way I can guarantee it's the shooter, obviously. But something would have to be massively wrong with the gun to be off that much. You're talking two feet at 25yd. If you've tried shooting it from a bench and got those results, and if you've tried the drills I suggested and nothing has improved, then I'd say it's time to send the gun to the manufacturer. If it's really that far off, they should be able to detect it easily.

By: Shane

Shane — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:08:16 +0000

And what if you are using a rest, you have tried 3 different brands of ammo, and it shoots 7-8″ low at 25′ and 3″ low at 10′. Is it still the guy behind the gun? This is what my Sig P226 Elite does and I am not happy.