How to improve accuracy?

[Fishslayer]

200rds is only the beginning,

This is truth. I was told when I bought my first handgun that "Buying the gun is the cheap part."

He was right.

[tools2teach]

Just to add with what everyone said, dry fire everyday if you can using the techniques as mentioned above then go the range. You will be surprised how much you will improve.

[SuperSet]

Everything 9mmepiphany said.

[Matt P]

This is from a post I made before on this topic.

For your consideration...

In my small community of Fresno, I see clients/students who have had no real formal firearm instruction, much less with a handgun.
I can not overstate the issue that with a handgun, you are basically making contact with it by just your hands, unlike a long gun, where you have twice as many contact points, and can increase those points with a sling and additional positions.
This is why how you grip that weapon, will allow for control, accuracy and confidence.

Very few firearm owners understand what makes for a grip, that maximizes control/recovery which in turn will give you accuracy.

So, do not beat yourself up, and good for you in coming to the forum and looking for help.

All the suggestions in the thread are excellent.

Typically what I see the single most common issue for just about 80-90% of shooters is not applying enough support hand high enough, nor with as much pressure as needed.
When I have a student with a flinch, jerk, anticipation and other issues with trigger control, I encourage them to grip tighter with their support hand.
If the strength of your grip is coming from your shooting hand, then you are giving up trigger control in the tightness of that grip.
Your shooting hand in a supported grip needs to be somewhat relaxed in a effort to maximize trigger control.
Make a fist, and squeeze your fingers much like on a grip of a handgun. Now try to isolate out the tension in your other fingers from your trigger finger.
It cannot be done.
You cannot relax one finger independent from your other fingers. Or, at least it is very difficult to do so.
So, by squeezing with your shooting hand, you are allowing for the introduction of more movement in the firing process.
Here is a link to a Todd Jarrett you tube video that is just the simplest way of explaining proper grip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa50-plo48

In addition to teaching this grip style, I also will get a student's hands in the proper supported grip.
Next I make two marks with a sharpie near where the shooting thumb overlaps on the support hand/thumb area, and then a few inches down from there. Now, a student has a visual cue to remind themselves how to get their support hand in the proper place. I will have them look to insure they have the proper grip once they have presented the handgun out all the way, and tilting their hands up slightly to insure their lines match up before shooting.
Just having students achieve this grip style typically makes a huge difference in control and accuracy.
In addition, I encourage a 65%-70% grip strength in a supported grip to come from their support hand. Remember the importance of relaxing more your shooting hand as I had typed earlier? With the majority of your grip on the handgun coming from your support hand, you can now concentrate more on careful smooth manip of that trigger.
To help you induce that needed strength on the handgun, try raising your elbows as you press in with your support hand. You will find that just by doing this, you can leverage more strength to the grip.
Keep your elbows slightly bent so that less recoil is transmitted into your shoulders, jarring your whole body. Elbows locked, and you have less of the suspension effect that can come from slightly bent ones.

I just recently had a student with control issues. His grip was pretty good. He still anticipated, and would shoot on occasion low/left. Seeing how the grip was not as much of an issue, except that he was not gripping strong enough with his support hand, I then had him understand the mechanics of his trigger. Where I explained to him just how it functioned. (Glock pistol)
When he understood how that take up was basically loading the striker, and then the trigger bar would hit on the connector dropping the trigger bar from the striker and firing the gun, he was able to concentrate better on his trigger control.
So, understand how your trigger works. Have an idea of its movement and release.
This understanding for him made a massive improvement.
So now, he needed a way to re-enforce positive trigger manip.
So, when he would place a shot outside his desired area, I would have him stop, unload, and dry fire practice 4-5 times right there.
Then, reload, and continue the drill. If at any time he missed, it was unload and a few reps of dry fire immediately.

You can also use a ball and dummy drill. One loaded round, followed by six dummy, and one loaded again.
Here a shooter can work through some trigger control, and at the same time develop a little of the clearance of a failure to fire drill also.
He shoots that live round first, followed by dummy rounds as he works out that anticipation issue. lastly, his efforts to gain trigger control will be rewarded by that last round in the mag impacting exactly where he wanted it to be.
I have students shoot rather close 2-3 yards. With the focus on slow, perfect practice, and make the rounds fired all touch. So, on a 3" circle as how my targets are set up (One sheet of target paper with (24) 3" circles)they draw and fire one, re-holster, and fire another for a total of 3 on that circle. Always with a presentation each time. Slow fire, no time constraints.
I want a student to understand if they had all the time in the world, how accurate can they be. It's easier to build speed on an excellent understanding of how to achieve accuracy. Just about anyone can miss fast.

Try that drill. The 3 rounds touching at 3 yards with a presentation each time. If you can do that say for a total of 4 circles, and 12 rounds fired, you have in my humble opinion a developed sense of accuracy.
For more difficulty, same distance, how about shooting hand only?
And if that's not enough challenge, try an un-holster with a transition to your support hand (DO THIS SLOWLY TO DEVELOP CONFIDENCE) each time and run that same 4 circles, 12 rounds fired. Always, with a un-holster each time.

I can not overstate one last time the value of having someone who has some training in Instruction, to watch you when you are out trianing. Not only to watch for a shooter who allows his trigger finger to lag inside the trigger guard area after shooting, but also watch you present (no sweeping tender parts) and grip the handgun.
Its okay to need instruction.
Heck, I will always seek it out myself.

Be safe.... Matt

[Oldnoob]

[QUOTE=91 whiskey 209;7080038]How to improve accuracy?QUOTE]

1) Shoot
2) Shoot
and
3) Shoot some more.

[P220ST]

200 rounds in 8 months? You need to shoot more.

+1

I shot more than 200 rounds my first DAY of owning my handgun. Went through more than 1,000 in the first month.

[triplestack3]

sounds normal

practice makes perfect

once you get a good grip, you should be able to pick up most anything and shoot it pretty well

[docwong]

I second that! Get some instruction. I worked with 9mmepiphany and has started me on the right path and I'm shooting so much better now!

The best way to learn to shoot correctly is to get some professional instruction so you'll be practicing the correct technique and not build bad habits.

It has been my experience that most folks don't really have a problem seeing or aligning the sights. But at the same time I've never had a student who understood their grip enough to self correct and very few who understood trigger control. Those two things will shrink your groups from 5-7" down to 2" in a couple of hours of instruction.

Common errors that new shooters make is:
1. not having complete contact between the grip and your hands
2. squeezing the grip, with your other fingers, while you press the trigger
3. trying to snap the trigger back as they see the sights perfectly aligned
4 paying too much attention to where the bullets are striking the target...chasing your shots

[91 whiskey 209]

Yeah, I know 200 rounds isn't alot of practice but it's kind of an expensive hobby. Also I dont want to get used to shooting the wrong way. I also bought a tikka and spikes tactical so my funds get split between the three. I dont shoot the shotgun much. But that's fairly easy IMO. You guys gave really good advice. I intend to get into reloading which should help with the cost of range time/ammo. Thanks guys

[semitch]

I also high recommend doing some dry fire practice. Make sure the gun is empty! Set up a target in a safe quiet area where if you forgot to check that the gun was load and fired off a round it wouldn't hit anything that your kind of fond of. (I'm assuming you know the basic handgun safety rules so follow these closely when doing this type of practice.) I would then practice getting a proper sight picture on a target and pulling the trigger. When the gun went click what did the signts do? Did they stay right on the target? Did they jerk forward? Swing to the left or right? If the sights move around on you you have somethings to work on. When you can consistently pull the trigger and not have the sights move try some of the ball and dummy type drills mention above. This will do wonders when you have a problem flenching or trying to anticipate recoil.

Dry fire practice is one of the best forms of training off range that you can do to improve your on range performance. It doesn't cost you anything and it lets you get the sight picture trigger thing down. Do this for 10 to 15 minutes a day and you will see a big improvement when you start putting live rounds down range.

Also learn how to stage the trigger. This will also help you out.

I flew through this pretty quick so you may want to do a search and see how other people incorporate dry fire practice into their training and how they stay safe doing so.

[91 whiskey 209]

I don't know where I heard this but for some reason I remember hearing from somewhere that if you shoot your weapon alot without rounds in it it will damage the weapon. I'm assuming that's what dry fire essentially means. I will google and try it out. Thank you for the advice

[semitch]

If I read right you have an XD. Your okay to dry fire a centerfire pistol or rifle. You have to be carefull dry firing a rimfire. Dry firing a rimfire is basically a no no in most cases.

[kanikas]

I don't know where I heard this but for some reason I remember hearing from somewhere that if you shoot your weapon alot without rounds in it it will damage the weapon. I'm assuming that's what dry fire essentially means. I will google and try it out. Thank you for the advice

If this is a big concern, buy some snap caps. You can use them to practice reloading drills as well!

[BayouBullets]

Fit Matters!

sounds normal

practice makes perfect

once you get a good grip, you should be able to pick up most anything and shoot it pretty well

You can't just completely dismiss fit. Some people Can't shoot with grips larger than a certain size. Some have the opposite problem to a lesser degree. Fewer, but still a significant number have shape issues due the thickness and muscle density most often of the palm swell opposite their thumb. Or am I misunderstanding what you mean by "pretty well?" To me that sounds like I should be able to shoot competently with any grip. Or perhaps you were implying varying degrees of competence and I just misinterpreted. Or maybe my definition of competent shooting is just too strict?

[RollingCode3]

If I read right you have an XD. Your okay to dry fire a centerfire pistol or rifle. You have to be carefull dry firing a rimfire. Dry firing a rimfire is basically a no no in most cases.

If this is a big concern, buy some snap caps. You can use them to practice reloading drills as well!

DO NOT dry fire your XD/XDM without the snap caps, you will eventually break the striker retainer pin.