shooting adv

[fulltimenomad]

I was shooting today offhand at 10 yards, and doing 1" groups.

However, when I stepped back to 15 yards, my groups widened up significantly to like 4-5", all spread out with no pattern. I was shooting standard NRA bullseye targets, so the shots were all still in the black. But the grouping was just so much worse! Some low, some right, some high...etc.

What's up with that? I wouldn't have thought more 5 yards difference would be that big of a difference. Any advice on drills or tips on how to do better at further distances? It just doesn't feel like I'm doing anything wrong or differently, which is why I was surprised to see my groups open up so much.

[L84CABO]

It's not always easy to tell if your issue is poor sight alignment vs movement of the gun...Very small movements at the muzzle become much larger fluctuations as you begin to move out. And it could be that 5 extra yards is that magic number where those movements become more visible to you.

But it's also possible that your issue is really more about sight alignment. You may have noticed that iron sights cover up more of the target, the further out you go. It can be challenging to determine exactly where the gun is pointed...particularly at distance when iron sights may be covering up most or all of the target.

Now, I have a laser on a couple of my guns which is a very precise aiming instrument...particularly compared to iron sights. I've noticed at 15 yards that my groups are much tighter when using the laser. I'm able to basically put the bullet exactly where the laser is and do it repeatedly. I can't really do this with iron sights...but then iron sights cover up a large portion of the bullseye and adjacent area so it's much harder to tell exactly where the gun is aimed. But given that I can hit the laser dot, this tends to suggest that I have more of a problem with sight alignment than, say, jerking the gun, trigger control, etc. But with regards to sight alignment there is only so much precision one can expect from iron sights.

I know people don't always like lasers but one of their underrated pluses IMO is that they are a great training tool. They give you very good feedback during dry fire practice of what the muzzle is doing at that point that the trigger breaks. And like I said above, on the range they can help you diagnose whether you've got a sight alignment issue vs a "jerking the gun" issue.

Now I realize lasers are expensive. However dry fire practice is cheap and you're liable to see great improvement with some dry fire work. You can also google "pencil drill" or set a coin on the end of your gun to give you feedback of what that muzzle is doing at the point that you break the shot.