Posted: 2/14/2007 5:46:54 PM EDT
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I have a ruger P95DC 9mm, and I am a very bad shot, I'm lucky if half of the shots hit the paper at 20 feet any pointers to improve accuracy? should I set the target close(how close?) and leave it there till I am a good shot, then move out slowly? |
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I would suggest buying a snap cap and doing alot of dry fire pratice. Put your ammo far, far away while doing this!!!!! Aim at the TV and practice pulling the trigger while concentrating on sight alignment. Also, practice consistency of grip as well. It is important that you grip the same way every time. When your grip is good, you should be able to lift the pistol to the aiming position with your eyes closed, open your eyes and the sights should be aligned. They may not be on target, but if the pistol points well for you, then they should come up straight. I would practice at 7 yds to start, bu that pistol should be capable of sub 1" groups at that range. You have to keep both eyes open and concentrate on the front sight on the target. The back sight should be aligned naturally, due to your grip. |
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20 feet is not too bad a distance to start. Do you do any dry-fire practice? My rule of thumb is 10 "rounds" of dry-fire for every round of actual shooting. My bedside gun gets about 50 dry-fire shots a night. Basics to remember, focus on the front sight not the target, and squeeze the trigger. No jerking it. Batmanacw beat me to it. 
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well, your first problem is you have a Ruger. LOL you dont say if youre standing, prone, benched, 2 handed hold, or? also, are you shooting fast, slow? is this your first handgun? is it new to you? how are your eyes? was the target designed for 20ft? how well was the range lit? was there any groups on the target or did it look like someone with a shotgun had at it? there are alot of factors. btw, most guns will out shoot the shooter, but sometimes you can get a lemon. |
2 handed, standing first handgun, had for a little over a year, haven't shot too much I wear glasses, but seem to be corrected pretty well I belive so seemed well lit shotgun pattern |
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It's all about pressing the trigger as gently as you can, but please, DON'T POINT YOUR GUN AT YOUR TV. 1. All guns are always loaded. 2. DON'T POINT A GUN AT ANYTHING YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DESTROY. (That includes your TV, your pets, your family members, and your own body parts. It goes double for "unloaded" guns -- see Rule 1.) 3. Keep your finger off the trigger until the sights are on the target. 4. Be sure of your target, and what is beyond it. Do your dry fire practice at a designated "Safe Area", brick or steel, that you know will stop bullets, just in case your unloaded gun ever turns out not to be quite as unloaded as you thought. Your mission is to make sure that if you ever fire a shot unintentionally, it will only be embarrassing, and not tragic. |
you can do as the others have suggested. also, i would bring the target in closer. try 10 ft or so. also, try to get a target with decent bullseye. What i do is to use the other side of the target. I will place a shot somewhere on the paper and shoot for the hole. it mabye too much for you now, but get a target that has a decent bullseye or some of the target plasters. you can shoot at them too. also, try squeezing your trigger. chances are if you got it new, the trigger is sort of rough. practice holding it however youre going to hold. IE 6 o clock hold or on the bullseye. one last note is that depending on your glasses, you may have problems with focusing on both sights. Im near sighted and it has gotten worst after my eye surgery and i find it difficult to see the sights and any targets that are far away. edit: also,if youre using writing paper for targets, try getting something a little larget for the time being. at least you will be able to see where your shots are landing. also, verify your sights are secure. |
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mostly, the most popular grips/stances are modern iso and weaver (push-pull)--both have their benefits and shortcommings--these are mostly about modern iso: Video just a tad past the tip of the finger, 'press' straightback, rearward; how's the grip? mod iso is great--60-70% grip w/ the weak hand, 30-40% w/ the strong hand, high hand, strong hand concentrates on JUST the ''press'' of the trigger, your mind concentrates on the front sight on the target.....trigger press initiates and gun goes off in a surprise as you continue on concentrating on the front sight... these might help also: 1 2 online tutorials to help: Jared UPSA www.gunthorp.com/how%20to%20shoot%20a%20handgun.htm books: SURGICAL SPEED SHOOTING by andy standford other advice: dry firing (as long as its ok for your firearm) is good at home practice; consistancy, front sight, trigger, and sight picture targets to see if something might be off w/ your grip: www.reloadbench.com/pdf/files/TargetLeftHanded.pdf www.reloadbench.com/pdf/files/TargetRightHanded.pdf hope this helps. good luck 
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How about hire a professional Instructor to teach you how to shoot. 
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I agree, you are probably flinching. Here's a re-post of what causes flinching, and my solution to it. The phenomenon of "anticipating the recoil" or "flinching" as you fire, is due to reflex, nothing more. Reflexes can be taught and learned; just ask any karate guy. Way back in the day, when your ancestors and mine were settling disputes with rocks & sharpened sticks, we had some common enemies: the bear, the panther, the lion, the tiger... All of them did the same thing: they would ROAR and they would JUMP AT YOU. Your natural and unlearned response was to PUSH AWAY the attacker. Nowadays, you have this dangerous tool in front of you, and you pull the trigger, and it ROARS, and it JUMPS AT YOU. Your response is to push it away! Here is a drill you can do to cure this. It helped me in one 1/2 hour range session. If you have access to a large-bore revolver, one that will provide some fairly serious recoil, then do this: Load 5 loaded rounds, and 1 empty. Spin the cylinder & close it without looking at it. Line it up with the target & squeeze off 6 shots. When you hit the empty round, you will see your sights dip! THIS part is important! Another thing you will experience when you hit the empty cylinder is the 'tingling' in your arms that makes you push the gun away from you. It is a sort of "muscle memory." This is masked by the recoil, and you don't feel it when the gun fires. But it is this sensation you should be trying to avoid. Now try loading the revolver with all empty brass. Align the revolver with the target and squeeze off a few “dry fire" shots. You will see your sights move & feel your arm tingle. Do this a few more times with the intent of keeping the sights on the target. Also, try to "follow through" with the shot: after firing, realign the gun with the target. When you've kept the sights aligned for about 20 "dry shots," go to the next step. Now remove one empty casing from the cylinder. Replace the casing with a live round. Spin the cylinder & close it w/o looking at it, so you don't know when the live round comes around. Align, squeeze & shoot as above. When the live round comes around, you likely will be hitting right in the black, probably 8 or 9 or even 10 ring. I've used this technique with several people at shooting ranges, and in almost every case have helped them improve their shooting. (The only time I couldn't help someone, I left the range... he was a complete dunderhead that shouldn't have even dressed himself. I told the rangemaster on the way out, too.) The above exercises can be done with semiauto pistols, too, using snap-caps, but not as easily. |
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You have a lack of confidence, mostly. Can you think of any reason WHY you can't hit the target better? I'd say you have the ability to do much better with a pistol than you think. I'd go along with getting someone to give you some pointers WHILE you are at the range. I'm also one of those who think shooting at longer distances will improve your up close shooting. There is nothing like a dirt bank and a row of cans at 25 yds or so to improve your ability. So what if you hit paper in the center? It's a whole lot more fun to make a can fly into the air or roll after you hit it!  Believe me, if you make it fun and have a little help, you'll do great! 
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well, I think it was my grip, and not focusing on the front site, we'll see what happens next time i go to the range |
There is a trick i learned from shooting high power matches. To better focus on the front sight take a pencil and make a small line on the sight itself. Now when you do your dry firing exercise focus on the pencil line. Later when you get more accurate you can erase the line. |
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Up until I read this Thread, and watched that video...I was an ok shot. I never took lessons, I recieved a couple of pointers and such...So although I could hit the target, it would look more like a shot-gun blast when I was done because Rounds were scattered. Today after watching that video that linked, and re-reading this thread...I went to the range, and employed what I learned. Guess what? My shot were more tightly grouped, and I tore the hell out of the bullseye...I was shooting at 10, and then 15 yards. There were only two rouge shots and I knew what the cause was, I anticipated the recoil, and flinched and closed my eyes... LOL.. But not bad for 100 rounds. Only two were off the mark. So I want to really thank you guys for a great thread that helpped me tremendously. Tomorrow.. I start more formal lessions. Oh yea.. I am using a Glock 36 |
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update those articles and vids really helped I figured out that it was all in the grip I was using, I changed my grip to the one described, and now can just about garrantee a head shot at 10 yrds, CoM at 20yds more practice is now all I need, and i will get better, but at least now I feel i can actually get better, lol thanks everyone |
I wear glasses as well. Things never appear where they actually are when looking through corrective lenses. Light gets bent too much. Have you considered eye dominance? If you are cross-eye dominant (not cross-eyed, because that would be a serious problem ), that can screw with things up a bit.Most folks are right handed. The lucky right handers are also right eye dominant. The main benefit of this is that when the pistol is lined up with the target and your right eye, it is also lined up, or should be, pretty much with the bones in your right arm. The recoil impulse exerts it's force"straight back" against the bones in your arm, where that energy is absorbed, ideally completely by the time it reaches your shoulder. And with right handed, right eye dominance, this recoil is absorbed pretty much in one plane (vertical, if you're standing upright). Think of it as the way your arm (and the rest of your body) reacts to the shot. Most all reaction is in two directions, up (due to the bore axis being different than your grip point) and back (due to the bullet being driven in the opposite direction. Thanks Newton.). These two forces make the muzzle rise and your wrist flex. Here's where cross-eye dominance can mess things up. If you're right handed and left eye dominant, you will line the pistol up between the target and your left eye. This gets the pistol out of alignment with the bones in your right arm and the recoil impulse, in addition to the forces mentioned above, imparts a twisting motion due to this mis-alignment. Instead of the pistol simply pushing or rolling back in one plane, it's now pushing and twisting. It is this twisting that will cause your wrist to roll "counter-clockwise" for lack of better description with each shot. This makes things like double taps and rapid follow up shots a pain in the ass. Rather than the pistol (and the sights) moving straight up and then back down to the target naturally (right hand/right eye), when it comes time to get the sights back on target, you are having to actually align them again (due to this rotation), as opposed to simply letting the pistol drop vertically back down on target. If you don't realize this is going on, you will be frustrated with mediocre groups until you correct it, no matter how much you practice. With right hand/right eye, you have one axis of rotation about your wrist. With right hand/left eye, you have two. One compresses the bones in your arm (the one you get with right hand/right eye). The other twists them. Structurally, your skeleton can resist compression much easier than torsion. Sorry to be so windy. Sounds to me like you just need more trigger time. But you need to practice correctly in the first place. I agree 100% with the other posts here. Front sight. SQUEEZE the trigger. Dry fire. Overcome the flinch. Etc. Being right handed and left eye dominant, I speak from experience. I had to force myself to use my right eye when I first started shooting years ago. Now, it's second nature. Don't know if all of this applies to you or not. Hope it was somewhat helpful. Good luck. |
| im weird i write right handed and do alot of stuff right handed but i fish and shoot left handed and im also left eye dominant but i just recently got into shooting pistols quite a bit and right handed feels more comfortable but im left eye dominant so latley ive been shooting my pistol left handed and ive been doing pretty good. should i train myself to shoot a different way or just continue this? sorry to butt in but i have this cross eye and hand dominance shit going on as well haha |
I agree. |
| One thing I would recommend besides lots of dryfire practice ( will not hurt your ruger ) and the " ball and dummy drill" ( have someone load dummy rounds in your mag with live rounds for you ) is get yourself a .22lr pistol for practice. I have seen used ruger MkII's for two hundred or less or even a decent CO2 powered semiauto pellet pistol you can use to practice in your house. |