I consider myself an excellent Glock shooter. I can regularly bang out golf ball sized holes at 30 feet offhand firing rapidly. I have so much practice and so many rounds downrange that it is almost boring.

I recently started getting into wheelguns, and at the range last week my target embarassed me. At the same distance, rounds were going left, down, high...all over the place. This was with a S&W 586 and 629. With the 629 I would be lucky to hit a 6" circle at 30 feet. Most rounds tended to go left (with no elevation variation up or down) into a nice group, but then some would go high or low. I would normally say it was the sights out of adjustment, but I had literally just fired both pistols at 50 yards from a rest with the same ammo and they were dead on.

Is there a technique to firing a revolver that I'm missing? I was using my normal semi-auto "thumbs forward" grip, but it didn't feel right. To reiterate, both guns shot extremely well and to POA at 50 yards from a rest. Neither gun shot to POA (or in any semblance of a group) off hand at a closer distance.

Please help me enjoy my new Smiths!

Might try some dry fire and see if it is Trigger control.
Smooth long, continuous pull in double action. I find the nature of the grips means they are less forgiving of poor trigger control.

I shoot mine thumbs forward just like a semi, works fine.


The big thing is finger placement on the trigger from what I found. For me personally, Trying to use the same placement as a semi, did not work well at all when trying to shoot DA (but does well when SA).




Experiment with your trigger finger placement to ensure it is in a place where your sweep of the trigger keeps the sights on target when dry firing.  You may find with your current placement, the sights want to wiggle all over from your finger pushing and pulling during the radically longer sweep of the trigger.






I found for myself, I have to really hook my finger through, and use the first knuckle over the trigger for a nice straight line pull. The result is no sight movement through the entire stroke.  


 

I was shooting single action. Thanks for the help everyone. I did much better today.

I was shooting 38s out of my S&W 586 and was consistently inside of a 3" circle at 30 feet. Weirdly enough, the rounds were going consistently right this time.

Given that it is only an inch or so off I just adjusted the sights. Unfortunately I ran out of ammo before I could really tell where it was going. I am wondering now if that was a bad idea, because I'm certain the 357s will impact in a different area?

I posted this earlier. Works great. drill