newbie at the range... shooting extremely high and left...

[hufnagel]

So as I do, I took another newbie shooting for the first time. We ran into a consistent issue across all hand guns we shot. She is shooting EXTREMELY high and left; easily 8" high and 12" left. Semi-auto, revolver, .22lr, 9mm, .45acp, .38spl, didn't matter.
Her grip looked good. She held them just fine. We went over sight picture and alignment multiple times, and everything looked fine when I observed her from various angles, but she still was WAY off target. Right handed, right-eye dominant, no eye correction in that eye. I even tried having her shoot left-handed/right-eye'd and the results were the same. The only thing I noticed at one point was an occasional twitch to the left while pressing the trigger. She did seem to have a pretty consistent problem with having the P30 cycle completely (115gr Freedom Munitions reloads) and did have an induced stove pipe once. Shooting the .22lr (Ruger SR22, Beretta M9-22, S&W 617 4") still had the same results.
Could she just have THAT weak of a grip and forearm strength, that the action if pressing the trigger, even in SA mode on anything, is enough to create sympathetic movement, forcing the sights that far off target? She had a good time, learned the mechanics quickly and followed the rules and procedures diligently, so she's eager to go back and do better. I would love to have an answer though before we go, as to what is going on. I stupidly removed the laser from the SR22, thinking it would make the gun nose heavy for her, and i'm regretting that. I'm considering inviting her over for some dry fire practice, with the laser, to see if we can't pin down what's going on, and if it's a grip/trigger-press movement issue.
Any thoughts from the intelligencia here would be welcome.

[SkippySanchez]

Next time you might consider making a couple slo-mo videos while she shoots. Did she try shooting a .22 pistol? What distance was she shooting? I'm no expert, but I'm guessing it's not flinching, which usually results in low left, not high left

I'll be interested in what you learn.


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I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.

[hufnagel]

We started the day on the .22's... and the problem was occurring then as well. I don't think it's a flinch either, although she did "experience" that on the revolvers when she tried to go +1 on the cylinder size. Interestingly, she picked up on it happening immediately.

[rjohnson4405]

I sometimes shoot high when I anticipate. If she is constantly feeling the gun move high and left after a shot because her left hand grip is weak she could be moving the gun where she "knows" it's going to go prematurely.

A couple things to try.
1. See if she can relax and keep her eyes open through the whole recoil cycle, often anticipating/flinch will come with them shutting their eyes against the blast/recoil.
2. Stand to the side of her and have her line everything up and then you pull the trigger so she can't anticipate it early.

[LittleLebowski]

Do the dry fire drill where you balance a piece of brass on the front sight and have her press through smoothly, not knocking off the piece of brass. Obviously the pistol will be unloaded.

[Gio]

You need to put a laser on the gun and let her aim with that instead of the sights. Since it's happening on a .22, the high part is probably her not aligning the sights correctly, while the left part is likely the classic trigger control (not pressing trigger straight back) issue.

[gomerpyle]

were I to hazard a guess, I would say she is likely anticipating the shot and milking the pistol.

[psalms144.1]

Shooting that high would lead me to believe she doesn't understand sight alignment. Make HER draw you a picture of what she's seeing when she's looking at the sights. I'm betting she's ONLY looking at the front sight, and has is nowhere near aligned with the top of the rear sight.

Left - yeah, all trigger control, all the time. No jerky, no lefty...

[Alpha Sierra]

Massive flinch. Ball and dummy drill will confirm it.

[lwt16]

I had a couple of shooters like that over the years.

One was "helping" the gun recoil....even a .22....by snatching the pistol up and to the left. I caught it when I switched him over to a .22 Ruger Mk III with a bull barrel and standard velocity ammo. On the first round...without telling him what he was shooting caliber wise...he came up and left at the crack of the shot.

Induced a stovepipe on a gun that had never (10000k plus rounds) stovepiped a day in it's life.

I asked him "Kick too much?" to which he replied "A little".

So I told him to look ahead and handed the weapon back to him after clearing the stovepipe and keeping the gun in condition 3. He took aim, pulled the trigger, and at the huge, loud CLICK.....again pulled high and left. A few more drills like that and he was hitting everything he shot at with the anemic .22LR pistol.

With this person you are training, I'd go back to basics with a .22 revolver (if you have access to one) and load random cylinder charging holes until the flinch is gone. A semi auto will work but you will have more down time in between shots as you make the chamber "hot or not" until she figures it out.

Regards.