TL;DR Version,.. I SUCK!! 🤷 🤣
For the more patient reader,..
As a newb(ish) shooter, who has aged considerably in the past few years,.. 😉 I have a few issues that may or may not present a real challenge in acquiring good pistol technique. Any combination of which, is making it difficult to pin down any of the specific gremlins that could be negatively affecting my shooting accuracy and/or precision.
A partial list of those gremlins are as follows;
#1: My eyesight. I don’t need to wear glasses normally except to drive and sometimes to read. I have an astigmatism and I also have very different near & far Rx’s. For the most part, I tend to shoot without my glasses and any correction. I am also cross eye dominant. So Right handed shooter, Left eye’d for lining up the sights.
#2: Grip,.. i.e. My Arthritis, I lack a certain amount of grip strength and the ability to really clamp down tight on the pistol. So that’s likely an issue.
#3: Trigger. (Setting aside the differences of opinion on what, if any influence finger placement ultimately has on accuracy.) There’s the matter of trigger placement & pull. Trying to diagnose minute differences in placement and how much or how little finger I should or shouldn’t use,.. which can also change depending on the pistol being used, the varying lengths of pull, etc.
# 4/5/6/ so on, etc,…. To complicate matters further,.. I’ve also had a couple of equipment & zeroing issues that I’ve been trying to diagnose and straighten out. Stuff like Wrong height sights,.. Red Dot plates loosening, Along with noticeable differences in what some pistols manufacturers stated specifications are regarding sight picture, POA/POI and recommended ‘Hold’ verses my experience regarding ACTUAL POA/POI & hold for a given pistol.
All that,.. and we haven’t even gotten around to addressing any issues of accounting for POA/POI shifts with different loads & ammunition or of the difficulties of incorporating all of this technique into situational stress and actual combat/self defense conditions.
So With ALL this going on,.. how on earth is someone (Especially a NEW Shooter,) supposed to go about isolating, diagnosing, and methodically nailing down the reasons why their range sessions and shot groups aren’t consistent from one session to the next?
Thus,.. my comparison of recent experiences @ the range to me attempting to wrangle a herd of feral cats!!
I constantly check in on the ‘Freestyle Shooting @ 25yds’ thread and I am ABSOLUTELY AMAZED & DUMBSTRUCK seeing how many of you can manage to shoot offhand, 3”-4”-5” Even 8” inch groups @ 25yds.
For me, Even seated, with a benched/braced pistol, and using an 18” by 24” silhouette & a red dot? It’s often a crap shoot if all my rounds will stay in the black on the silhouette. 😢
(…exactly how DOES one “Flinch” a benched pistol?)🤣🤷*♂️🤦*♂️
Im not a terrible shot with a pistol at 7-10-12 yds and in,.. even shooting relatively fast. But @ 15 yds & out? It starts to get pretty damned sloppy and inconsistent.
Im just honestly confused and overwhelmed about where to start to try to correct or tighten things up.
So,.. I was hoping someone might have some experience and advice where to start the diagnosing and the prioritizing of training to help in the progression of steps required to narrow down and correcting these myriad issues??