Please rate my shooting...(picture)

[Grumpyoldretiredcop]

You are breaking your wrist down or pushing forward (anticipating recoil as Leelaw said). The tendency to drift low left can also be from jerking or slapping the trigger. In addition to ball-and-dummy drills, consider reset drills with a helper to rack the slide for you so that you can keep the weapon in firing position, holding the trigger back until the slide has been operated, only letting the trigger out far enough to reset (hear/feel the trigger "click"), then squeezing off another shot while retaining focus on the front sight.

Working on front sight focus will also help you reduce your 7 yard group size. It's often difficult for some shooters to keep their focus on the front sight at shorter ranges. It is human nature to want to focus our vision on the threat (the target).

That being said, you're not doing too badly at all. With work and practice, you should be able to keep all rounds at 7 yards inside the orange center.

[till44]

DRY PRACTICE...best way to train, it's cheap and you can do it at home (just make sure its unloaded!).

What was your rate of fire? Once you have really mastered how your trigger pulls and breaks (lots and lots of dry fire practice), from 7 yards, and nice slow shots, you can put all the shots into a 1-2 inch hole. But that's not very helpful if you want to train/practice for that encounter at 3 am.

Once your groups become nice and tight pick up the speed. If the group starts snowballing out to basketball size slow down again. Keep picking up the speed, you'll eventualy be able to do a full mag dump in a few seconds and have them all be in a 6-7 inch group.

[10ring45]

Your thinking about it that is a problem. Don't think shoot and concentrate on the front sight.

[JeffW]

[supeceded by later post with pictures]

[Sheepdog1968]

One of the instructors from a class I took said the goal for self-defense was a 4" group. That way, no matter body angle, you should be able to put the shot on the vitals. If you add in just your movement on a static target at distances of 21 feet, it is harder than it seems.

[1911whore]

you are anticipating and fighting the gun, you are pressing too much on the trigger and jerking the gun to fight recoil. With a lot more practice you will be able to keep every shot in the x ring at 7yds easy.

[ponderosa]

Well I'd say not bad for starters too.

This is a target of mine from awhile back at about 35-40 feet (12-13 yards), with my G17, and I'm not entirely sure why I tend to shoot to the left other than anticipating the shot.

The idea of placing a snap cap or two into a mag at randomish intervals is a pretty good idea I will try.

There seems to be a lot of factors; finger placement on the trigger (either not enough or too much), eye dominance??, stance, calmness (I know I get rather excited when shooting ), trigger pull.

Dry fire practice for both front sight acquisition as well as trigger pull is said to help as well, and I must admit I have not done a lot of that...




Of course, the more time out there shooting helps, but w/ ammo prices and availability it makes it a bit more difficult.



I'd like to be able to shoot like this fellow: http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/edu88_2.htm

[IrishPirate]

if you can cover 5 rounds with your palm in a center mass location, that's a good defensive shot. it means you're getting the shots of quick enough, but still paying attention to where you're hitting. if you're trying to get them all really close together, then you need to work on trigger control and try not to anticipate the recoil too much. i find myself doing the same thing. it pulls your gun down and left (if you're right handed). practice dry firing. for some really good techniques check out www.frontsight.com

remember: lots of shooting will only reinforce bad habits. you need to practice without shooting off any rounds to actually get good at shooting.

[JeffW]

1) tbhracing, that target looks pretty dead to me, but there were two misses-- don't miss.

Now for some words that are supposed to inspire rather than criticize:

Not all of the shots were placed in optimum position.
Fixed position/fixed target is about as easy as it gets, and those silouettes are on the larger end of human size distribution.

Here are my targets from today:

a) This one is a fun drill where I shoot @ 7 yards distance afull mag right handed on the right column, and left handed on the left column:



b) Next one is slow fire at 15 yards. One full mag per dot, then moving on (admittedly the best group of the sheet, but not atypical):



c) A silhouette at 15 yards. I like to transition to/from low ready and try to pick up the target as rapidly as possible, and incorporate reloads as much as possible depending on the setting:

[mmartin]

You are breaking your wrist down or pushing forward (anticipating recoil as Leelaw said). The tendency to drift low left can also be from jerking or slapping the trigger. In addition to ball-and-dummy drills...

also try some shooting with a revolver with some chambers empty or loaded with already fired shells. my hubby loads 3 or 4 live rounds and 2 or 3 empties for me (so I don't know which are which or how many are live), and then I shoot the set. really helped me cut way down on flinch and increased my ability to keep eyes open and sight picture stable. you can reeeealy tell when you flinch with this, you pull, gun jerks, there's no bang... d'oh!
great for working on "steady squeeze" on the trigger too.

and it's not the glock, I've got a 21 (double stack .45) and at 7 yards with .5 sec per shot (13 rounds in aprox 6 sec) I'm getting a 6-6.5" group, so I know the glock's up to it.

megan

[Mstnpete]

If you guys want to sharpen your skills, and are getting tired & board of shooting paper targets in an indoor range.
And want to expand more on your skills and practice and learn the right way of shooting while changing mag on the move, shooting thru doors and windows, knowing when to change mag by counting targets, while your Adrenaline is pumping and shooting moving targets, swingers, metal plates while on the move!

Watch Blake ---->

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Buozn4a128U&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgRrWM4szz0&feature=related

You should visit our IPSC club and have fun. And learn a few tricks

https://www.jvdynamics.com

Everyone is welcome to join!

[SJgunguy24]

Did any of you guys see that shooting caught on CCTV in Ohio? 17 empty shell casings found so possible more shots were fired. No one got hit! The added stress may have caused those shooters to miss. Or maybe they know they'll be in very deep doo-doo if they do kill anyone so all them shots were just suppression fire. Ya never know. So how do you add stress when practicing? Join a nearby USPSA or IDPA club, you'll get some practice, shoot under a timer and the biggest gain is learning a lot more than your standard stand and shoot shooting range.

This^^^^^^

Big time. It's strange because when you think your fast your not. It like road racing. Smooth is fast. When your hustling and you think your kicking azz your slow and missing.
If you get to play with SWAT guys and pros they're smooth, fast and get good hits.
For me when i'm shooting at static targets I suck. When I got into compitition it was weird I focused and shot better. The first IDPA classifier I ever shot, I shot sharpshooter. I only had 2 matches under my belt and I missed expert by 3 points because I rushed 1 stage instead of going smoothly.

[Hornet_RN]

advice from a newbie to another newbie!

1. shoot with the pad of your trigger finger NOT the joint of your trigger finger, that seemed to help a lot for me.

2. if you are a right handed shooter, the thumb, middle, ring, and pinky fingers should hold the pistol firmly, but the index/trigger finger should be light as a feather squeezing the trigger.

3. when squeezing the trigger, just slowly squeeze the trigger until you are basically surprised the cartridge is discharged. that keeps me from jerking the pistol that much

4. dry fire with snap caps...a LOT of dry firing

[five.five-six]

here are some drills, dryfire a lot, I dryfire at the range every time before I shoot, get a revolver, load some empty's in and spin the cylinder so you don't know when it will bang or click

here is a 9 round group I made today from 21 with my stupid springer GI 1-2 second shots







that said, your groups are plenty tight for combat, however in high stress situations they tend to open up, so you should work on closing down your margin of error

[Jonathan Doe]

Nobody mentioned focusing on the front sight. It is easy to overlook, but a shooter tends to shift eyes betwen the sight and the target. Thus, the shot group is kind of tight but not tight enough for the gun's and shooter's potential. I have seen this enough in my time.