If you could take the human factor out, a gun that is one inch off at 7 yards, would be more off at 25 yards. It’s right triangle geometry, where the gun to point of aim is the leg, and the gun to point of impact is the hypotenuse. The second leg would be point of aim to point of impact.Originally Posted by GJM
In my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with adjusting the sights to tailor the gun to you, as long as you’re consistent. We do it all the time with elevation, as we’ve all seen there are three different kinds of sight picture / sight holds with regards to elevation.
From my personal experience and actually having some time behind a 92 the second half of this year, I attribute it to a few different factors.
1.) The tight trigger well on Glocks
2.) The hump on the back of the grip on Glocks
3.) The odd shaping of the bottom of the trigger guard on Glocks
4.) The lightweight material of the Glock frame
5.) The Glock trigger characteristics
Factors 1-3 are ergonomic issues. You can mold yourself to work around them with enough practice or your may simply be lucky enough to have it feel somewhat natural to you. Factor 4 simply means your consistency in grip pressure needs to be on point. Factor 5, from what it sounds like, has been at least partially corrected by Gen 5 Glocks.
All of this is not to say that Glocks suck. It’s basically my thoughts on why Glocks are just unforgiving. It also seems to be why so many other platforms are more forgiving. It also seems to me that Glocks benefit most from some plastic surgery.
Oh, and one more thing. That trigger face, even with a smooth trigger face. Yeah, between that safety tab and the trigger guard part that causes “Glock Knuckle”, it gets painful after a while and, as a result, gets distracting. This tends to cause me to shift my grip to make it more comfortable which throws everything off and then shooting goes to hell because I’m no longer “on point” with my fundamentals.
I can dryfire my Beretta 92G for an hour or two and walk away happy that I put in the work and made some progress. Hands might be a bit sore for gripping hard enough for that long, but it’s not horrible. If I do the same thing with a Glock my right hand $&@!ing hates me and I end up being annoyed and in pain. It’s not excruciating, but it’s enough to be annoying. After a while it becomes less and less annoying and I can work through it if I don’t let it get to me. If I have an off day, that’s when things go to hell. But the same problem never really manifests with other platforms, so why keep on with an unforgiving and suboptimal platform when I don’t need to?
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Most people who are left handed on the glock shoot slightly right when new. They go through the same progression as any right handed shooter only in reverse. That doesn't mean the pistol can't shoot to the left. But just to assume it is, even with a good shooter might make them go on a merry go round of frustration if it isn't the gun. That's the reason to shoot it left and right handed. Or have a left and right handed person shoot it. It always amazed me how some of my fellow instructors would shoot just left on a gun when testing it for a student. Then want to move the sights. I shoot it and it was fine right handed. I shoot it left handed and it was fine.
My point is that even good shooters have bad habits that need to be fixed, including instructors. Often that shooting left isn't the gun on a right handed person. It's them. We can often see that problem when we speed them up and get them moving. They will often end up with a group to the right when running and gunning and forget they moved the sight. It leads to a lot of frustration.
Put another way: when I would watch a new shooter (and I had the same problem as I learned on an HK DA/SA) get better over time when shooting a HK USP they would be something like low left. Then over time the low would go away as they got better and it would end up left for a short time. I would see good shooters shoot the first shot left or low left depending on their skill. Then of course they by that time would shoot the single action fairly well in a group but somewhere else. Most police agencies tended to accept that first shot being off. But because it's two different groups rarely did they want to just move the sight. With the glock there's just one group so they want to move the sight. If they do it's not the end of the world. But they do have to remember it was done because there's a chance they will continue to refine their skill and find their group is moving back to the right.
What you do right before you know you're going to be in a use of force incident, often determines the outcome of that use of force.
Just for the record: I shoot my Glock 19 and my CZ 85 with the exact same results.
Randy
One thing people often forget about it that we all have different size hands and different "issues" with fingers or wrists. There is a reason that the rear sight on a pistol is designed to be moved. If it is put in a rest and shot perfectly, then it should be centered. Now, you enter it into the hands of the "human machine" with a lot going on, you have to find a compensation. Almost every pistol that I shoot, I have to drift the rear sight to the right. Does that mean, I have an issue, no that is called customizing the pistol. One thing to ensure, is that the sight does not move, so needs locked down. I recall back in the day when I was young and shooting some competition without a lot of money, I took a very fine brush and bright fingernail polish, and on each side of the sight, I had a small line. Then at a glance, if I was having issues, I could double check. But then found Loctite, lol.
Moving the rear sight to the right a smidge because your visual perception of the sights says “perfect sight picture” when it isn’t is something I think is acceptable for moving the rear sight.
Moving it a smidge for one pistol because of specific ammo zero is something I think is acceptable because tolerance stacking is a thing.
Moving it a smidge for a brand or model of pistol is something I think might be acceptable, but it might be time to consider if that platform is really right for the shooter or not.
Moving it a smidge for every single pistol you own regardless of make, model, ammo, and style of sights I think is indicative of the end user imparting incorrect fundamentals.
I’ve wrestled with this issue personally for years. 10 times out of 10 the issue was totally my fault.
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I'm in this last boat - and limited to the "smidge" for GLOCKs only. Does that mean I should abandon a platform that I'm heavily invested in (duplicate pistols, mags, holsters, NSs, etc), have hundreds of thousands of training rounds through, and have years of experience running well AS LONG AS THE SIGHTS ARE DRIFTED? I don't believe so, especially since attempts to switch to other platforms have consistently led to shooting "straighter" (e.g. COM hits with no sight adjustment), but have proven to not be as effective in shooting at speed, overall accuracy, etc, not to mention moving to platforms that cost more, weigh more, have lower capacity, are harder to maintain, and/or all of the above...
I'm not disagreeing with anything you wrote, spinmove - and you're an exceptionally talented shooter. I just don't want a herd of folks to drop their current pistol because "it shoots right/left for me..."
I'll just post this photo again
So for just which of these 3 loads should I adjust my sights???
Groups aren't as tight as I would like, but it is plain to see that each load hits at a different windage setting. These groups were fired back to back at 25 yards freestyle with the same pistol. I don't remember now if it was a G-17 or a CZ75.
The 147 grain AE9FP hit center,the 115 Wolf hit right and the 135 grain hand loads hit left. And they are all a little lower than I would like.
Pick a load, adjust your sights and rock on.
147 AE9FP with the old wide meplat shoots to a different windage than 147 standard pressure HST in a sample of one G17G5, I struggle with the same thing.
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