New shooter question

ReluctantDecoy said:
lol. I did wonder if their giant "NRA Instructor" patches were a little over compensating for something.
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Hahahahaha
Love all you guys posting, there's always some humor to be found.
Sounds like the OP has figured out that the Shield doesn't fit his hand well. I was going to suggest trying several pistol makes at a range that has them available to try.

First, though - neither of your guns are really intended for better accuracy than what you are now getting. They are made for concealment and a few quick shots at close range, for self defense.
A medium to full size pistol will afford much more/better contact with your hands and really tighten up those groups.
A fantastic value these days is the Canik TP9SF
If you are concerned with self defense and not target work or competition, I suggest practicing follow up shots at gradually faster times. Anything in a 10" circle is really good enough for self defense shooting, especially when you shoot "double taps"
 
44marty said:
Hahahahaha
Love all you guys posting, there's always some humor to be found.
Sounds like the OP has figured out that the Shield doesn't fit his hand well. I was going to suggest trying several pistol makes at a range that has them available to try.

First, though - neither of your guns are really intended for better accuracy than what you are now getting. They are made for concealment and a few quick shots at close range, for self defense.
A medium to full size pistol will afford much more/better contact with your hands and really tighten up those groups.
A fantastic value these days is the Canik TP9SF
If you are concerned with self defense and not target work or competition, I suggest practicing follow up shots at gradually faster times. Anything in a 10" circle is really good enough for self defense shooting, especially when you shoot "double taps"
Click to expand...

Ha! That was all Supermoto on that one. He got me cracking up too.

I think you're right about the Shield just not fitting my hand. The backstrap is just too pronounced and it tends to make the entire pistol want to twist in my hand upon trigger pull. The Kahr is ever slight more flat in the back, allowing me a solid, no-twist follow through with the trigger.

I kind of have mutant hands, where they are wide, but I have short fingers with the width of my hands. Makes buying gloves a nightmare, as I can go up to a large in the palm area, but need a medium in the fingers. I have a feeling that subcompact is the right size for my pull reach, but I may try testing a friend's Glock 19 next time I'm out. If it isn't too large for my stubby fingers to accurately shoot, I might consider going P80. That would be for range/target, and I'll still probably carry my subcompacts for CCW.
 
Something with interchangeable straps and grips would be your best bet. That’s why I bought a VP9(and I’m a lefty) Small, med, large grips and back straps. You can mix them up too. I currently have a small backstrap with medium grip inserts to help fill my palm. Length of pull is ok and I don’t have large hands. Thing just fits and feels great. It’s decently accurate for the price and follow up shots are a breeze with 124 grain. 115 can be snappy, but nowhere near a subcompact. 147 has noticeably less recoil, mag dump territory.

It’s my first handgun so my last range trip was an expirement. 9 different ammos in the 3 weights, with some +p and hollow points mixed in. Winchester 124 Nato is some hot stuff!

Keep trying different guns, I may have just got lucky or the VP9 grip is just that good.
 
Supermoto said:
Recoil has nothing to do with accuracy at 1 shot per second. Grip, stance, form really has little to do with it either. The only thing that matters is keeping the sights on target until the trigger breaks.
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I would think accuracy depends a lot on stance, grip, form, but precision is mostly about keeping it steady when you pull the trigger.

An instructor had us adjusting our groupings by moving your foot, so that you don't move your arms from their natural position to fix accuracy. That seemed to work really well.

precision_accuracy.png
 
if you have low accuracy, high precision. Adjust your sights

Unless your stance, foot position is causing you to sway while shooting. Then adjusting your stance or foot should not affect accuracy. Its not like you stood in you original foot position and put the sights off to the left of the target. Then suddenly put them on the target with your new foot position. Your sights were always on target to start, but didn't stay there. Now shooting from your natural point of aim is more relaxed and can feel easier, as is shooting with a good trigger. They both prevent distractions from taking focus away what is the most important fundamental, keeping the sights on the target until the shot breaks.
 
I'm not saying all NRA and police firearms instructors are lousy shots. Some are quite good but if you saw the qualification requirements, you'd be unimpressed. Get a good match shooter to try it and don't start grinding on your gun. I'm guessing the gun is fine and you're flinching. You'll improve with practice but if you can't get rid of the flinch,(hard to do)you'll never be a good shot. Dry firing will help with some things but not flinch. Your brain knows the gun is empty and you won't flinch.
 
I can only say this.
theres 6inches that's always in the way

Every wonder why sometimes you think you got lucky cause you just tossed a ball,rock, or what ever at something on the fly and it hit, went in and what have you.

Every shoot better scores in rapid fire vs slow fire.

There are fundamentals but there are also " over thinking, over holding, trying to hard" ect ect.

sometimes you just have to let "your brain" do what it does vs "you" trying to get your brain to do things.
 
mac1911 said:
I can only say this.
theres 6inches that's always in the way

Every wonder why sometimes you think you got lucky cause you just tossed a ball,rock, or what ever at something on the fly and it hit, went in and what have you.

Every shoot better scores in rapid fire vs slow fire.

There are fundamentals but there are also " over thinking, over holding, trying to hard" ect ect.

sometimes you just have to let "your brain" do what it does vs "you" trying to get your brain to do things.
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I shot skeet for the first time today, nailed the first two shots, I wasnt thinking. Then proceeded to miss most of the following 15 because I was "trying".
 
So after another range day, another new shooter anomaly. If I seriously concentrate and take my time, I'm actually pretty good at 25-30 feet. My best mag today doing this was about a 3" bullseye grouping. However, that's not really useful for real world scenarios. If I then fire at a faster rate at about 1 shot a second (a full Mississippi) grouping goes all over the place at about a 10" grouping, slight low left. Now here's the weird part--if I speed up from there, not exactly a mag dumb, but faster than 1 shot a second, I actually improve. 6-7" groupings doing it like that. This happened several times, so I know it wasn't a fluke. What would that mean about my shooting? I suspect this points to some type of flaw in my approach.

Anyway, I'm still having a blast with the hobby, and learning is a big part of why I'm enjoying it. Got to fire a M&P C today with a 3lb trigger at the range. I was really accurate with that one, despite an accidental double tap due to not being used to the lighter trigger. Might be time to buy a larger pistol for the range.
 
I have shot for a few years now, and did not put stock into the bullet weight thing until recently. This could be a thing for you. The 115 grain cheap crap is basically unreliable in terms of accuracy. Some of that stuff won’t even group to it self, let alone all the fun to be as accurate as you want it to be. Try a higher weight, 124 gr for instance, and perhaps of a reasonable quality and see if throwing $15.00 at it helps. It may, and you may find it’s you! I have recently learned that trigger control can also be an issue. Perhaps it’s a flinch, perhaps try loading a few snap caps (another $10-$15) mixed with live ammo and see if you catch your self pulling that muzzle. It’s surprisingly common, but as we are in the macho man realm, no one wants to admit it. If that’s what you find, only fix is shoot till it goes away. Good luck. If your in central Ma and want to shoot pm me we can miss together!
 
Jttgspring said:
I have shot for a few years now, and did not put stock into the bullet weight thing until recently. This could be a thing for you. The 115 grain cheap crap is basically unreliable in terms of accuracy. Some of that stuff won’t even group to it self, let alone all the fun to be as accurate as you want it to be. Try a higher weight, 124 gr for instance, and perhaps of a reasonable quality and see if throwing $15.00 at it helps. It may, and you may find it’s you! I have recently learned that trigger control can also be an issue. Perhaps it’s a flinch, perhaps try loading a few snap caps (another $10-$15) mixed with live ammo and see if you catch your self pulling that muzzle. It’s surprisingly common, but as we are in the macho man realm, no one wants to admit it. If that’s what you find, only fix is shoot till it goes away. Good luck. If your in central Ma and want to shoot pm me we can miss together!
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Thanks of the advice. I've been mainly shooting 115 grain ball brass. My most recent is bulk Fiocchi at about $10/box. However, I've tried just about all grain sizes now up to 146, including some defensive rounds and reloads. I will try out some nicer stuff, but damn....$15/box gets pricey. 50% more than my bulk stuff.

I'm in Cambridge and shoot mainly in the East, but will drop a PM if I ever get out to Central MA for a range day.
 
Supermoto said:
The guys idea of having the support thumb pushing against the frame is wrong. You don't stop a low left trigger pull by pushing the gun the opposite way, you stop the low left trigger pull by pulling the trigger straight back. bandaid fixes for symptoms, but don't cure the disease
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This. I REST my support thumb against the frame but I don't PRESS it against the frame.
 
Jttgspring said:
I have shot for a few years now, and did not put stock into the bullet weight thing until recently. This could be a thing for you. The 115 grain cheap crap is basically unreliable in terms of accuracy. Some of that stuff won’t even group to it self, let alone all the fun to be as accurate as you want it to be.
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At what distance? I agree that the cheaper 9mm ammo is far from match grade but I'm not sure the average shooter would notice a difference inside 15-20 yards?
 
Supermoto said:
The guys idea of having the support thumb pushing against the frame is wrong. You don't stop a low left trigger pull by pushing the gun the opposite way, you stop the low left trigger pull by pulling the trigger straight back. bandaid fixes for symptoms, but don't cure the disease

Jerry explains it here at 10:08
[video]
]View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChSazF41q-s[/video]
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Jerry is certainly a man that knows a thing or two about shooting.
 
Jttgspring said:
The 115 grain cheap crap is basically unreliable in terms of accuracy. Some of that stuff won’t even group to it self, let alone all the fun to be as accurate as you want it to be. Try a higher weight, 124 gr for instance,
Click to expand...

I am going to disagree on this. It is true that some guns don't like some specific ammo. But inexpensive 115gr 9mm ammo will do everything that most people need it to. If you are a target shooter who needs 1.5" at 25 yards accuracy, then that may be a different story. But from a good gun, the inexpensive ammo that I have tried will group 4" at 25 yards. That means at 15 yards it will hold less than 3", and at 7 to 10 yards, the groups are as tight as you could want.

And regarding the OP of this thread, he has stated that his groups are OK when shooting slowly, but they open up when he picks up speed. So the OP does not have an ammo problem. But he will need to shoot a lot to improve his skills, so inexpensive ammo matters.

When I talk about inexpensive ammo, I should say that I do not shoot the cheapest, foreign made, steel cased pistol ammo. I have seen some problems with that, though I know others who have found it acceptable. But I buy whatever American made brass or aluminum cased pistol ammo is cheapest, and it has all been acceptable for training.
 
ReluctantDecoy said:
So after another range day, another new shooter anomaly. If I seriously concentrate and take my time, I'm actually pretty good at 25-30 feet. My best mag today doing this was about a 3" bullseye grouping. However, that's not really useful for real world scenarios. If I then fire at a faster rate at about 1 shot a second (a full Mississippi) grouping goes all over the place at about a 10" grouping, slight low left. Now here's the weird part--if I speed up from there, not exactly a mag dumb, but faster than 1 shot a second, I actually improve. 6-7" groupings doing it like that. This happened several times, so I know it wasn't a fluke. What would that mean about my shooting? I suspect this points to some type of flaw in my approach.
Click to expand...

It means that when you shoot faster, you're are giving yourself less time to screw things up. You have less time to influence the gun.

Everyone has a natural rate in which shooting is the easiest. I have found this a lot while shooting USPSA. If I try to slow down to get better accuracy, I just have slower times, but the accuracy doesn't improve, sometimes it gets worse. So instead of focusing on time to get better accuracy, I focus on better accuracy and usually my time is just as fast if not faster.

Once while shooting a match with JJ Racaza , we were shooting a standard type stage, I think 50 yards, He shot way faster than I thought he would. I asked him about it and he opened my eyes to slower shooting doesn't always mean more accurate
 
Supermoto said:
It means that when you shoot faster, you're are giving yourself less time to screw things up. You have less time to influence the gun.
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This is what I was suspecting. At 1 shot a second, maybe I'm micro-adjusting without even realizing it, but at slightly faster, I'm hit a more natural trigger pull because I don't have the time to (poorly) adjust. Was just counter intuitive at first that my current fastest on-target pace would be slightly better than my medium pace.
 
Ok. Here's a visualization. All of these were at about 25'. First is very slow and super focused (1 mag). Second is 1 shot/second (several mags). Last is faster than 1 shot a second (several mags). Flyer's aside, you'll see that I actually tighten up a little on the fastest set when compared to 1shot/sec. Be kind--I'm less than a year of regular shooting. Also, for the safety nuts, I'm in the right most booth, so the empty gun is pointed at a steel barricade and then a cinder block wall. I just take those pictures so I can remember which gun I was shooting.

Slow.jpg

Fast.jpg

Fastest.jpg
 
lol. Swear that was not me. You'd be surprised how many of those are at my range, but then again, I see about a 10-1 ratio of class people to members at this place.

Next time I'm there, I'll take a picture of one of the "bad" booths. Looks like it was taken from the OK Corral.
 
Next time you are at the range, try shooting off a rest (range bag) with your forearms resting on the bag, not the gun. See what happens to your groups
 
Sorry if not clear. I was driving at two or three little thing adding up to a meaningful thing. Also of course cheap ammo matters, #allammomatters I was just saying sometimes the cheap stuff can leave a lot to be desired, and it could be worth figuring out what YOUR gun likes. Just because it will shoot does not mean it’s a good match. That’s all I meant. For example (granted not what really valid for op question) but I have a p938 Remington 124 green and white box (10.50 at Wally World) dead on at 7 yds, Winchester white box (basically same price) 115 does not pattern in same place as the Remington, not does it group to itself. I did not believe that could happen, until I met a gun that it happened to. It may have been nit picky to mention, still, I feel ammo choice is worth consideration. Granted, likely only part of the puzzle.
 
Be sure your range and defensive ammo are roughly equivalent performers. Bullet weight in grains and individual manufacturers’ powder levels are variables you want to minimize. For example, in 9mm I shoot Federal American Eagle 124gr at the range and carry Federal HST 124gr defensive. I can load one mag of each and not tell which I’m shooting.

Even if they differ in manufacturer, get familiar with how your defensive rounds feel.
 
So you have experienced the i shoot better faster.
Its a thing ......basically you have taught your brain what you want it to do. So when you shoot faster your taking "you" out of it and letting your eyes tell your brain when to shoot.
Its like walking, you do it everyday but when "try" to balance and walk across something you end up getting of balance
 

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