A stupid question

[MikePapa1]

I know this will seem like a stupid question, but here goes:

I spend some time on the range Saturday (G&L, Hendersonville) and was relieving some pent up stress with a wide variety of my handguns. I've never encountered this problem before but I noticed with each weapon ranging from .380 Sig 238 through the XD45 I was shooting good patterns but was consistently shooting down to the left (8 o'clock) from the aim point at about 15 yards. This hasn't happened to me before and since it was consistent through calibers and guns, it can't be a sight issue or response to recoil, it has to be a problem with me squeezing the trigger. Anyone have any idea what I'm doing wrong?

[JAB]

I can't vouch from experience (seems I always forget to print the *&%^$ things out and take some with me) but I have seen more than one poster on more than one board suggest a target like the ones found in the article at this link:

Correcting handgun shooting problems « Stuff From Hsoi

[DWARREN123]

Are you right handed? If so sounds like you do not have enough finger on the trigger and are pushing it left/down.

[Rightwinger]

Get some snap caps and have someone else load your mags so you don't know when you'll have one hit the chamber. They will tell you and your observer exactly what your doing. Also great for malfunction drills.

[MikePapa1]

Are you right handed? If so sounds like you do not have enough finger on the trigger and are pushing it left/down.

Yes, I am right handed.

[fullmetaljoe]

Get some snap caps and have someone else load your mags so you don't know when you'll have one hit the chamber. They will tell you and your observer exactly what your doing. Also great for malfunction drills.

+1

I recently started shooting low-left again, but running ball and dummy drills fixed me.

My ball and dummy drills were a bit unusual, however. I had four mags in a plastic bag, two had a round in them, and two did not. I grabbed a magazine out of the bag and, without looking, loaded it while holding down the slide release and tried to fire. One of the benefits of this was that the "dummy rounds" came up much more frequently. I was shooting normally (which for me is slowly, but on target) after about 10 rounds of live ammo.

[eapking]

I find myself doing that when I don't apply enough "off-hand" pressure.

[skwirl]

You are jerking the trigger in anticipation of recoil.

Align you sights on the target.

Focus on the FRONT sight and keep your focus there.

Touch the trigger.

Focus on the front sight and keep your focus there.

Begin pressing the trigger rearward.

Apply pressure to the trigger slowly. Ounce by ounce.

You're still focuced on the front sight aren't you??

Keep adding pressure little by little to the trigger.

Front sight focus!

When the gun goes BANG it should have come as a complete surprise to you. The bullet will impact at the point where you sights were aligned.

This is known as a "surprise break" and it is one of the building blocks of accurate shooting no matter what you are pulling the trigger on. Continue to repeat this drill SLOWLY until you are shooting where the sights were aimed. It won't take long if you do it right. Compressing the amount of time it takes to do this will come with practice.

Edited December 3, 2010 by skwirl