I saw a poster once that had a target divided into quadrants and gave tips for correcting mistakes based on where you are hitting relative to point of aim.

Have any of you guys seen it?

The last time I went pistol shooting I was on target.

Today I was consistently hitting low and left.

Diagnosis?

anticipating recoil and flinching just as you squeeze off the trigger.

Try to relax and try to become one with the pistol

This what you need?

Shooting a handgun is a lot like a golf swing.  You have to square up on it so everything is lined up and keep it squared up through your trigger pull.   Any little bias in your grip pressure or trigger pull to one side or the other will cause the projectile to go off in a different direction than intended.


Basically, it just takes a lot of firing to condition your hand to "feel" what's right.  Then once you get it, it's like riding a bicycle.  You don't forget.  You may not be as sharp if you don't practice, but you'll never be as bad as when you first picked up a handgun.

The advice I took that had the most impact was to start using snap caps in my mags to help me control the flinch.

that and really concentrating on being "surprised" by the gun going off..

it's counter intuitive but you DONT want to be preparing for the gun to go off by pushing or leaning into it slightly as it goes off..

I just printed off a pile of those and I'm going to see if using those targets helps.

I'm in the shooter dog house today too. I went out and sucked it up big time from the 25 yard line. I kept hitting high and left, and I know I'm anticipating recoil. When I ran dummy rounds through a few drills I could really see it. It's pretty aggrevating to get in a slump, but I know what I need to do to get out of it. For me, knowing what's wrong is the biggest part of the battle.

It sounds like you know what's wrong, I would concentrate on trigger pull if I were you. You might be mashing it a little. Friday I'm going to do a bunch of dry firing drills. Saturday I'll do some five and one drills from 25. Then I'll shoot some one inch dots from the 5 yd line. Then I'll draw and fire two rounds from the holster at 25 a few times to see if it helped. Maybe a little weak hand shooting will help.

Don't worry about what target you use too much. The diagnostic target is just that, it's a diagnostic tool to use until you can start correcting your technique on your own. If you know what's wrong you can fix it. Dry fire practice would probably be a good idea. Keep drilling with the snap caps. They help show flaws in your technique and they let you practice malfunction drills. Even when I'm shooting well I like to throw in a few snap caps to practice malfunction drills.

Keep plugging away, bad days happen, but even a bad day at the range is still a good day. When you get "on" it really feels good.

2IDdoc

Ajust the sights up and to the right

HAHAHA.  

That's what I always thought of when I see a target like that.  (how do you know the handgun is sighted in if you sighted it in?) couldn't you have done something wrong then and not now?

It's all technique, shooting a handgun is like faith in God.  Once you have it your golden.  

It's 60% grip, 10% not squeezing so hard your pistol shakes and 30% squeezing the trigger without flinching.  It sounds like you may just have it right [in which case a sight ajustment is in order], or need to concentrate on not knowing when the handgun is going to go off in which case you won't be able to flinch.  

This one?