Range Practice Question.

[Cypher]

I never did either actually.

Then why did you post it?

[edison]

Are you able to shoot groups? Like if you just ignore drawing & just focus on one shot at a time, can you group two inches at 10 yards?
You might have too much tension in your right hand.

I don't remember which book it's in, but working on Ben Stoeger's White Wall drill fixed this issue for me.

[Cypher]

Are you able to shoot groups? Like if you just ignore drawing & just focus on one shot at a time, can you group two inches at 10 yards?.

I don't know because I never tried it

[Duelist]

I don't know because I never tried it

Have you tried the Dot Torture?

[Zincwarrior]

Then why did you post it?

Because there are better shooters than me and it might help.

[Wise_A]

I don't think that pie chart is particularly helpful.

I am inclined to agree. Why the shot was bad varies too much for each individual person--aside from that thing originating with one-handed shooting, IIRC. And in any case, I find that knowing what I'm doing wrong is easy, the hard part is knowing how to do it right. There was a guy this past spring and fall Bullseye season, to whom I've been repeating "uninterrupted trigger pull, don't worry about where the dot is, just so long as the wobble looks normal, etc etc..." for about two years. Well midway through last spring, he finally gets it, and his eyes just light up as he's shooting a Slow Fire. Goes from a 225 to a 270 shooter over the next two weeks.

There's certainly some stuff to be learned from looking at groups and reading tea leaves, but in my experience, it's way more abstract than that. For instance, grouping shots around the 10-ring without ever hitting it is a pretty good indicator a shooter is trying to time the trigger break.

I don't know because I never tried it

Do you mean to say that you pull shots to the left like that all the time, without any time pressure? Dude. You need to back way up. If you can't make one accurate shot, why are you wasting time and ammunition on two? All you're gonna do is exacerbate your "BREAKTRIGGERNOW" tendency by firing doubles, without seeing why you're hitting a foot to the left. If you want to hit where you're aiming, you need to slow down, and concentrate on a front sight focus, and a nice, uninterrupted trigger pull. The pressure you apply to the trigger should be linear--"one, two, three, four, fi--*bang*". Not "one, one and a half, one and three quarters, two, three-four-fi--*bang*.

I would suggest two drills, preferably reducing the distance up to 5 yards, and forgetting the whole "draw from concealment" thing:

*Print out a standard bullseye-style target, and turn it around. Aim at the center of the blank white paper you're looking at, and fire one round at a time, starting from and returning to rested or low ready. This removes the distraction of having a target--all you can really focus on is the sights, and you're not tempted to screw up your trigger pull because the sights happen to pass over the X-ring. When you're consistently placing shots on your aiming point, turn the target back around, and try to do the same thing with a visual aiming point.

*Grab the Dot Torture target. Ignore the instructions for the time being. Put one shot into each circle, one at a time, starting from low ready or a rested position if you have a table, and returning to that position after each shot. When you can repeat that five times (50 rounds), move the distance back to 7 yards. Focus on having a "shot process"--executing the shot the same way each time.

One last thing--and one that may draw some ire...stop dry-firing. I hear dry-firing get prescribed to shooters with problems, or new shooters, all the friggin' time. I don't understand it. Dry-firing works great when you know exactly what a good trigger pull is, and can accurately call your shots without looking. If you don't know how to do this, all dry-firing does is reinforce the same shitty habits you're trying to break, because there's no feedback. There are alternatives to eight-times-a-week range visits and shooting up centerfire by the case, but unless you already have a really great grasp of accuracy fundamentals, I do not think dry-firing is one of them.

[CCT125US]

Live fire masks our errors. Might be worth it (about the cost of 2 boxes of ammo) to try one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9mm+boresighter&ref=is_s

This allows you to see the result of your trigger press (without being masked by recoil), and the different torque / tensions you are putting into the gun at the break point. It requires you to target focus in order to pay attention to the dot, but I have found the benefits far out weigh the negatives. It let's you feel a good trigger press, and observe what happens to the dot as a result.

This one eats batteries, so buy a strip of spares.

Also several packs of these give standard measurements and scoring rings:

25yd B-8C(P)

https://www.pistoleer.com/shooting-targets/handgun/

[Cypher]

Have you tried the Dot Torture?

Not yet. I'm trying to get in that orange box first I have done Casino Drills though.

Live fire masks our errors. Might be worth it (about the cost of 2 boxes of ammo) to try one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9mm+boresighter&ref=is_s

This allows you to see the result of your trigger press (without being masked by recoil), and the different torque / tensions you are putting into the gun at the break point. It requires you to target focus in order to pay attention to the dot, but I have found the benefits far out weigh the negatives. It let's you feel a good trigger press, and observe what happens to the dot as a result.

This one eats batteries, so buy a strip of spares.

Also several packs of these give standard measurements and scoring rings:

25yd B-8C(P)

https://www.pistoleer.com/shooting-targets/handgun/

A whole bunch of people here have told me these are not good because they get you focusing on the wrong things

[Duelist]

Shoot 2” drills at 3 yards until you are consistently stacking bullets. Then move back to 5, then 7. Then maybe ten. Whether it’s a drill like described a couple of posts above, or a Dot Torture, or something else, get consistent up close, one sight picture then trigger press then bullet at a time, and then move it back. Then and only then try drills that include time and multiple presses with a moving front sight.

If you simply must do draws with a timer, do one-shot draws to a plain 3x5 card at no more than 5 yards.

[Eyesquared]

One last thing--and one that may draw some ire...stop dry-firing. I hear dry-firing get prescribed to shooters with problems, or new shooters, all the friggin' time. I don't understand it. Dry-firing works great when you know exactly what a good trigger pull is, and can accurately call your shots without looking. If you don't know how to do this, all dry-firing does is reinforce the same shitty habits you're trying to break, because there's no feedback. There are alternatives to eight-times-a-week range visits and shooting up centerfire by the case, but unless you already have a really great grasp of accuracy fundamentals, I do not think dry-firing is one of them.

In my opinion it is not hard to learn what a good shot looks like in dry fire. Just press the trigger and have the sights not move on you. I say this as someone who was reading about dry-fire before I ever bought a gun of my own, and who began practicing dry fire once I owned my first handgun, without having formal training. I am not an amazing B8 shooter out to 25 yards but it got me to where I could keep 10 rounds in the black at 15 yards, and call which misses were me, with less than 1k pistol rounds fired in my life at that point.