How To Get Better At Shooting

[wcsc12]

How do you get better at shooting?

I've shot around 200 rounds (198 actually) through my Sig P226 so far and although I'm getting better at hitting the target, my grouping is huge and I'm always shooting to the left. I generally hit the 8 and 9's on the target but it's always to the left. My friend was watching me and says I flinch. At first, I thought it was the .40 caliber bullets but then I shot his .45 ACP and had better grouping than with my own gun so it's not caliber. It seems that it's just me. So how can I get better.

[kieefer]

Like anything else, practice. Breathing and hand exercises work well.

I have notice something that helps me when I begin to flinch after many rounds. Imagine when you are sighted in that the target moves toward you and pushes your trigger finger. This little mind game does wonders for me.

[mikegideon]

A .40 is snappier than a .45, and I could see somebody flinching a little more. You gotta get over the flinching first, if that's what's happening.

[Just2Honor]

I'm just a guy trying to learn to be better myself but...An instructor once told me pulling and pushing can be your finger position on the trigger. His lesson went like this: Too little finger pad will make you push right as you pull and too much pad will make you pull left (for a right hander). Maybe the grip and/or distance to the trigger made a difference with your friend's weapon.

[NRA]

1st step have you identified your primary eye?

[Parrothead]

snap caps help a lot. Have a friend put them in your magazines without you seeing the order. You'll find out real quick if your flinching.

[Guest Broomhead]

Try this, fake yourself out. I have found that if I think I am flinching, I will start the physical sequence of pulling the trigger. Then, just before I pull it all the way back to fire the shot I stop my finger in that split-second. However, that doesn't stop any of the other muscles, and I will almost always flinch or jerk. As I practice more, and become more aware of it, the less it happens. I will usually fake myself out 2-3 times per 12rd mag, sometimes more if I'm really shooting bad.

[LayNLow]

I noticed one day that I was shooting like 4x4 low left and I noticed I was blinking everytime a shot rang off. I didnt feel that I was flinching, but looking at the target something was off. So I ended up forcing my eyes open and bam, shots went exactly where I wanted them to. So next time you are out try to pay attention to anything you are doing the moment the primer fires.

You can also try putting a coin on your front sight and dry firing. You should be able to keep the coin from falling off of the front sight.

I am nowhere near an awesome shooter, but its a few things I have tried that have worked to help me out. Just find out whats happening and work on trying to correct the problem.

[mav]

Take some lessons and practice.

[graycrait]

Shoot a lot, there is more than enough advice how to do it from friends, family, range lizards, Youtube, books, magazines, etc. Get a .22 and a 9mm, buy lots of cheap ammo. Folks seem to get wrapped around what kind of gun they use more than just shooting rounds. Best advice I can give is get a Glock 19 and Ruger 5.5" bull barrel .22LR and have at it. Then when you have truly mastered those two pedestrian but reliable guns think about how you might like to fool around with other pistols. The Ruger and G19 will allow you to shoot mountains of cheap ammo reliably and good enough so that you can concentrate on shooting bullets downrange and not screwing around with fixing guns or working 4 jobs to buy ammo.

[wcsc12]

Thx for the advice everyone. My primary eye is my right eye. I've also noticed myself flinching but I can stop and wait and then take the next shot and it's always still to the left. I know it's not the barrel because my buddy took my gun and hit the center of the target in a nice grouping with 12 rounds. I'm getting a lot better though. I'm able to put a lot more rounds on the target and my lowest shots are in the 7's so at least something good can be said about that but I want that bullseye more .

I guess what I'll do, to try and get used to the trigger as was suggested to me, is buy the .22 conversion kit and ping the targets to death to get better.

[kieefer]

You know Hickok45 has some great videos on YouTube, you ought to check them out.

[Kano]

My shooting was not very good 8 years ago.

I found this a few years back and also use to learn from 2 Bullseye shooters

where I use to shoot.

ZEN IN SHOOTING:

Encyclopedia of Bullseye Pistol

Deceptively simple in appearance, yet vastly complex is the art of pistol shooting. Without question, its mechanics are simple. Bill Joyner explains, "Create a machine rest with your stance, grip and breath control. Then with the gun in the machine rest, apply [trigger] pressure directly to the rear until the hammer falls." Attaining the physical prowess to accomplish this task is one thing. However, the mind's influence makes the process a bit more difficult. As Frank Higginson has said, "In shooting, you learn more about yourself than any other sport." This self-discovery that exists in shooting is nothing more than Zen itself.

"Kenjuudo" Kenjuudo, literally translated as the "Way of the Pistol," is the appropriate Japanese name for our sport when practiced as a traditional Zen martial art.

[Kano]

Hickok45 sure has the ZEN IN SHOOTING !!!!!

[East_TN_Patriot]

OK... shooting requires four main skills:

1) Proper grip

2) Proper stance

3) Proper sight alignment

4) Proper trigger squeeze

Until you develop each of these and practice them enough that they become second nature due to muscle memory, your shooting will not be as good as it could be. You want a nice sold grip with the pistol as deep in the pocket of the hand as possible. Use your off hand as a stabilizer by wrapping your fingers around the fingers of your shooting hand. Your shooting hand should be pushing the pistol into your off hand to make a solid platform. Next, you need to find a proper stance that is solid and helps you keep the pistol on the target. Most folks utilize some version of the Weaver stance. Then you must make sure that you have a proper sight picture with the sights aligned correctly on the target with the primary focus on the front sight. Finally, you must SQUEEZE the trigger. You pull through the action rather than snatching or jerking the trigger. The key to this is to practice it properly from the start; breaking old habits is very difficult. Start slow. Concentrate on your shooting, shot by shot. Speed will come later.

If you do all of these properly and still have trouble, the likely candidates are having too much finger in the trigger and/or anticipating the shot and pushing the gun forward. Of all the people I've trained who had trouble, these were the culprits. You can use dummy rounds mixed in with your live ammo to see if you commit the pushing error. My advice is to find someone who is a firearms instructor to work with you and see what you are doing wrong. It's also a really good idea to practice with something like a .22 pistol because it's cheap, easy to shoot, and give you a chance to practice the fundamentals.

[Guest J.D. Skull]

I got a lot better at shooting since I devised my shooting mantra. Every time I'm about to fire I think "Remember To Aim, Remember To Aim.".

[Mad_Squirrell]

Dry fire practice is the best way to over come this problem . Do this every day for five minutes or so two or three times a day for a week or two .Cock your gun aim at something small (unloaded gun of course )like a picture on your wall a cup across the room whatever with a contrasting background to your sight picture so you can see your sights move off of target easily and then press your trigger with just your finger pad .Do not pull or squeeze the trigger . You will use less muscles in pressing .(think pushing a button) when you pull or squeeze you are using more muscles in your hand . When you get to a point that you can stay on target every time you dry fire go to the range do your dry fire practice at least ten times then load up. Your shots should improve using this technique it helped me greatly I went from from low left 4" groups at 10yds to spot on 2" groups dead center .Hope this helps

Also others have suggested using a laser sight combined with this techniques just to see how much you really pull the sight off when you squeeze the trigger .

[Ebow1]

I'm surprised nobody has pulled up the chart yet.

[Guest friesepferd]

Just throwing more bullets down range is not the answer. Either find a trainer to help you out, or do some good reading on the subject.

Since your problem is simply getting the bullets in the bullseye (and not site aquisition time or any kind of speed thing, etc), look for an instructor or reading material on bullseye shooting. You need to get the 'basics' (that most people dont do) before anything else.

Below I have listed some basics on this topic as well as some suggestions:

1) you probably are flinching, especially if you are low-left, and are right handed. Don't thing that a 45 is worse than a 40. It's not. In my opinion, the 40 has much worse recoil than a 45. I usually say the 40 has a 'snap, where the 9 and 45 have a 'push'.

My suggestions for overcoming flinching- lots and LOTS of dry firing. Its easy, its cheap, you can do it at home 500 times a day. Just make dang sure your gun is unloaded and just keep practicing. It will feel silly, but it will help. The next thing to do is ball and dummy drills. Get some of those plastic dummy rounds, or if you reload, build yourself some rounds without powder or primer and paint them a color so you dont get them mixed up. Have someone else load up your mag for you (or just try hard not to pay attention to where you put them). So sometimes when you pull the trigger it will go bang, and sometimes it will go click. Another way to do this is just to have your friend standing next to you. Have him either put a single round and put it into the chamber, or leave the mag empty and not tell you. He hands you the gun, you pull the trigger, repeat. I have found the ball and dummy drill to be by far the best way to get rid of flinching. It still takes time. You will have to do this a lot, but it will work. In general, do more dummys that balls starting off.

2) grip- its hard for me to explain a correct grip via text. Find someone who knows REALLY how to correctly hold a gun and have them check you out. Just because you hold one gun right doesnt mean you hold the next one right. Make sure your hand is high, both thumbs pointed fwd, etc

3) breathing- take deap breath in. Hold gun so site is a bit above center of target, slowly breath out until the front site nestles in to the center of the target, pause the breath, bang, let rest of breath out.

4) follow through. one of the most important things when shooting a gun that people dont do. When you pull the trigger back, dont let go. Keep the trigger 100% back untill you are lining up your next shot, then slowly let the trigger out till just when it resets.

There are plenty of other things to know, but those are the main ones people tend to do wrong that I know of.

[bajabuc]

My flinch and it's remedy:

Big caliber guns hurt. A 7mm mag shot from the roof of the car not only knocked me off the roof but blew out the windshield (ok I was laying on the roof. it was freshly waxed. i was showing off) I said to myself, "These big guns hurt" and started buying smaller and smaller calibers until I was shooting a .243 and still flinching. Then I bought a percussion BP gun. They don't kick, they push...still flinch...bought a flintlock. The act of firing a flintlock is like "Click (set trigger) click (double trigger) Snap (hammer fall) Snap fizz ( frizzen opens sparks fly) flash (right in front of my eye) woosh... bang" The deer is running from the first click! Mom is hungry and I better not miss. I don't understand what stopped my flinch...maybe it was a couple of misfires (flash in the pan) but it worked. I had to concentrate on the flinch and not the target until I quit flinching.

My son and his never flinch.

We started his training with a .22. Stuck a dowel in the barrel and practiced bringing the gun up from the hip and sticking the dowel in progressively smaller holes while squeezing the trigger when the dowel passed through the hole without touching the sides of the hole. Started with a 3" hole...finished with a .227" hole. He was 6... then we put the target in a tire and rolled it past and practiced (from the hip to the target "snap" and down without touching the hole.) Now he's 7 and he gets one .22 cart. The idea of sticking the dowel (with no dowel) is trained into him. The kid can shoot. Now he's 45 and still shoots and never flinches "How do you do that?" "I'm still thinking about the dowel and the hole I never think about the bang."

[Mark A]

Take some lessons and practice.

This... Take a couple of good fundamentals classes. Note, not beginners classes but fundamentals. Big difference...

Then, take what you learn and dry fire that crap out of your 226. The flinch will be gone before you know it and you will pick up some other useful skills at the same time. No time like the present before any bad habits get further set into muscle memory.

[Jonnin]

The one thing I didnt see listed here amongst the advice is equipment. If your gun stinks, you cannot improve, but if you *know* that your gun is good, then you can work on "yourself" to improve.

This does not have to cost you thousands of dollars, either. Get a good .22 target pistol (the big 3 are buckmarks, ruger mark's, and S&W 22 A or the other S&W model) with longer barrel setups (6-7 inches usually). Poke a decent cheap red dot site on them is recommended for longer ranges (30+ feet up to 50 yards or so) or a pistol scope (beyond 50 yards). Total cost for a decent setup is well under $500, less for a used pistol. And, learning on a .22 will help you get used to not flinching (easier to not flinch when there is little recoil and noise), costs less (1000 rounds for $30!), etc. Whatever you use, a basic setup only has to meet 3 things: 1) the gun, if mounted in a rest, makes a tight group, 2) the sighting device/sights/whatever can be adjusted to keep it on target and do not drift off each trip to the range and 3) the trigger is good enough that you do not pull the gun off target due to muscle forces on the trigger.

Now, thats not the end of it for really good shooting, of course. Once you master your skills with a decent setup as above, you can THEN choose to spend some money on exotic target grips, better guns and sighting devices, trigger jobs, etc. But the above will let you get a long, long way toward your goals.

[Guest Broomhead]

Shoot a lot, there is more than enough advice how to do it from friends, family, range lizards, Youtube, books, magazines, etc. Get a .22 and a 9mm, buy lots of cheap ammo. Folks seem to get wrapped around what kind of gun they use more than just shooting rounds. Best advice I can give is get a Glock 19 and Ruger 5.5" bull barrel .22LR and have at it. Then when you have truly mastered those two pedestrian but reliable guns think about how you might like to fool around with other pistols. The Ruger and G19 will allow you to shoot mountains of cheap ammo reliably and good enough so that you can concentrate on shooting bullets downrange and not screwing around with fixing guns or working 4 jobs to buy ammo.

Excellent advice. A .22 pistol will help to curb the flinching because you won't be anticipating the heavier recoil of the .40S&W. After you are no longer flinching with the .22 move up to the 9mm, which has a heavier recoil but not enough to bring any flinches back.

snap caps help a lot. Have a friend put them in your magazines without you seeing the order. You'll find out real quick if your flinching.

Dry fire practice is the best way to over come this problem . Do this every day for five minutes or so two or three times a day for a week or two .Cock your gun aim at something small (unloaded gun of course )like a picture on your wall a cup across the room whatever with a contrasting background to your sight picture so you can see your sights move off of target easily and then press your trigger with just your finger pad .Do not pull or squeeze the trigger . You will use less muscles in pressing .(think pushing a button) when you pull or squeeze you are using more muscles in your hand . When you get to a point that you can stay on target every time you dry fire go to the range do your dry fire practice at least ten times then load up. Your shots should improve using this technique it helped me greatly I went from from low left 4" groups at 10yds to spot on 2" groups dead center .Hope this helps

Also others have suggested using a laser sight combined with this techniques just to see how much you really pull the sight off when you squeeze the trigger .

Just throwing more bullets down range is not the answer. Either find a trainer to help you out, or do some good reading on the subject.

Since your problem is simply getting the bullets in the bullseye (and not site aquisition time or any kind of speed thing, etc), look for an instructor or reading material on bullseye shooting. You need to get the 'basics' (that most people dont do) before anything else.

Below I have listed some basics on this topic as well as some suggestions:

1) you probably are flinching, especially if you are low-left, and are right handed. Don't thing that a 45 is worse than a 40. It's not. In my opinion, the 40 has much worse recoil than a 45. I usually say the 40 has a 'snap, where the 9 and 45 have a 'push'.

My suggestions for overcoming flinching- lots and LOTS of dry firing. Its easy, its cheap, you can do it at home 500 times a day. Just make dang sure your gun is unloaded and just keep practicing. It will feel silly, but it will help. The next thing to do is ball and dummy drills. Get some of those plastic dummy rounds, or if you reload, build yourself some rounds without powder or primer and paint them a color so you dont get them mixed up. Have someone else load up your mag for you (or just try hard not to pay attention to where you put them). So sometimes when you pull the trigger it will go bang, and sometimes it will go click. Another way to do this is just to have your friend standing next to you. Have him either put a single round and put it into the chamber, or leave the mag empty and not tell you. He hands you the gun, you pull the trigger, repeat. I have found the ball and dummy drill to be by far the best way to get rid of flinching. It still takes time. You will have to do this a lot, but it will work. In general, do more dummys that balls starting off.

2) grip- its hard for me to explain a correct grip via text. Find someone who knows REALLY how to correctly hold a gun and have them check you out. Just because you hold one gun right doesnt mean you hold the next one right. Make sure your hand is high, both thumbs pointed fwd, etc

3) breathing- take deap breath in. Hold gun so site is a bit above center of target, slowly breath out until the front site nestles in to the center of the target, pause the breath, bang, let rest of breath out.

4) follow through. one of the most important things when shooting a gun that people dont do. When you pull the trigger back, dont let go. Keep the trigger 100% back untill you are lining up your next shot, then slowly let the trigger out till just when it resets.

There are plenty of other things to know, but those are the main ones people tend to do wrong that I know of.

I'm seeing a trend here.

Ball and Dummy with a spotter/partner/friend/fellow shooter will help. Your spotter should be watching you during every pull of the trigger. They should be watching your trigger finger, hands, shoulders, face, eyes, and your overall position, not all at the same time, but each part individually.

[Jonnin]

Im sorry, but the stock glock 19 is a weak choice for sharpshooting at long range IMHO. The trigger pull alone means constant pulling your gun off target as you squeeze (no bang), squeeze (still no bang) ..... finally, after nearly an inch of travel, bang. On top of this they have short barrels, poorish sights, and high recoil (due to light weight build -- the 19c can help a bit here). The barrels in these guns flop around somewhat, so each shot can be a bit off from the last.

Glocks are great short range WEAPONS, not target guns. Heck they won't even cycle on target loads, you have to put in a new set of springs or use stout loads in them. They have their place, but this type of shooting is not what they excel at. You can modify a glock to be decent (de-slop the trigger, target barrel, tighen up the barrel wiggle) but it takes know-how, tools, and money to get it done. Once done, a "target glock" is not safe for chambered carry, its a competition gun only at that point and should never be loaded unless pointed downrange due to the fixed trigger and lack of safety (the long trigger was part of the safety and has been compromised).

If you want a 9mm target gun, get a 1911 9mm or one of the single action EAA witness or similar guns. Most DA, DAO, and "safe" action 9mm are very poor choices for high precision shooting. There are almost NO .40 caliber target guns apart from making your own. There are a TON of .45 AP target guns, and you can get a pretty decent one for $750 + a new bushing to get started with the 1911 setups.

At the end of the day, you really want a single action gun with a long fixed barrel (or one that returns to exactly the same spot each time, this is why you need a bushing in the 1911s) for target work. A DA or SA revolver is PERFECT for marksmanship and is an inexpensive alternative to having a gunsmith build a target gun out of a semi-auto. Few guns are as accurate as a fixed barrel revolver with a light SA pull for the money spent. A .45 Long Colt revolver is close to a tuned 1911 out of the box, if you choose a good model, for 1/3 or less the price --- and they shoot effectively the same round.

The .22 LR guns I mentioned above all have fixed barrels as semi-autos.

[1gewehr]

Get a .22. It should have been the FIRST gun you bought. Anybody who can shoot a .22 can easily transition to larger calibers. Trying to learn on a larger caliber can teach you bad habits (like flinching). Even the best shooters still practice with .22s.

Get some professional instruction. While some people seem to be able to 'self-teach' themselves, after a certain point everyone needs some training. If you have never had a good training class, you will be amazed at how much you will learn and improve in just a few days.