Originally Posted by
okie john
I’ve spent a chunk of the last four years chasing accuracy in Glocks. I’ve posted some of what I’ve learned in various places before, not always to a warm reception. This is the first time I’ve posted it all together, so take what you can use and ignore the rest.
To start, Glocks are plenty accurate for duty and practical shooting games. You won’t sweep Camp Perry with one, but a stock Gen3 G17 properly zeroed with good ammo should shoot a 3-4" group at 25 yards and should easily stay on an IPSC target at 100 yards. I hear that Gen4 guns like yours are somewhat more accurate, but I don’t have enough experience to say that definitively. That said, if you want a true match-grade 9mm pistol, get something else.
ETA: The one Gen5 G19 that I’ve worked with will hang with an HK, SIG, or Beretta.
Shooter Technique
The best way to increase accuracy in Glock pistols is to increase your core strength, upper body strength, and grip strength. This helps you shoot everything better, not just Glocks. So does dry firing.
From there, you have to nail the fundamentals: stance, grip, sight alignment, and trigger control. They’re all vital and they’re all covered in detail in lots of places, so I won’t go into them. But the list is not complete without follow through. Without it, you throw away everything else you’ve done, literally at the last possible split-second. Pat McNamara says that follow-through is checking your work through your sights, and that you should regain a good sight picture as soon as the shot is fired so that you always have one sight picture more than the number of shots you fired. Fire one shot, get two sight pictures. Fire two shots, get three sight pictures, and so on.
Also, do a Google search for “the shooter’s wheel of misfortune”. It can help you diagnose issues with your grip and trigger press.
Range Technique
If you shoot for pure accuracy, then I feel it’s OK to abandon any pretense of realism and steal a few techniques from the bullseye world.
First, it’s called “slow fire” not because you take a long time to fire each shot, but because of the time you take between shots. You’re not laying down suppressive fire, you’re trying to make small groups as a test of specific parts of your ability. Start by building your position, ensuring that your natural point of aim is on the X ring. When you bring the pistol up, you should break the shot in 1-3 seconds. Taking longer will actually open your groups. Fire the shot, then rest the gun on the bench (while maintaining your grip) for 5-6 seconds and let the muscles in your back and arms go slack. Then fire another shot and take another rest. Repeat until you finish the string. I know we’re all manly enough to hold up a two-pound pistol until the cows come home, but again, our goal is small groups, not proof of manliness.
Second, if you need to shoot a ten-shot group, load two five-shot magazines. When you change them, maintain the grip with your strong hand and use your support hand to do all the work. This gives you a mental break from the concentration of precision shooting and helps ease eye strain. Take your time.
Third, it helps to shoot from a dark place at a well-lit target. If you’re indoors, turn off the light in your booth if you can. This helps you see and align the outline of your sights more precisely. Classic bullseye ranges are essentially sheds with ample shade for the firing line while the targets stand in bright sunshine. This helps reduce eye strain and helps you shoot smaller groups. No, it’s not super-realistic, but again, we’re abandoning certain aspects of realism in search of accuracy so we can become better shooters.
Ammo
I tested nearly 20 different factory loads over a couple of years, and I learned that a load that groups well in one Glock may not group well in another. Test ammo by shooting several ten-shot groups with each load at 25 yards (50 yards is better), and keep notes. You may find a load that cuts your groups in half.
Duty-grade JHP ammo tends to be more accurate than FMJ practice ammo, but that’s a low bar. Most FMJ ammo is crap, especially bulk reloads. Good FMJ ammo can be nearly as accurate as good JHP ammo in some pistols, but a lot of it will barely hold a 10” group at 25 yards. Find an FMJ load that your pistol shoots well—it may not be the most expensive one—and buy several cases of it at a time.
Trigger
Glocks are harder to shoot as well as some other pistols because the trigger pull is so long and heavy. Testing different combinations of springs and connectors definitely pays off. I like the OEM minus (-) connector with a stock trigger spring. Results vary, but definitely look into it.
The 25-cent trigger job is also a big help, as it smooths and lightens the trigger pull no matter what connector and spring you prefer. If you have an issued Glock and you can’t alter it, you can get the same effect by shooting or dry-firing it several thousand cycles. The 25-cent trigger job feels about the same as a Glock that’s been fired 5-6,000 times.
It has become fashionable to run pistols dirty and dry, but I find that a clean, well lubricated pistol is much easier to shoot well. I clean and lube my Glocks, especially the fire control parts, about every thousand rounds. You have enough problems with the Glock trigger before you start, so why complicate life by fighting months of accumulated fouling, dust, dirt, belly-button lint, etc., on every trigger press? Also, Glocks are so easy to detail strip that there’s no reason not to have a clean, properly lubricated pistol pretty much all the time.
Sights & Zero
Sights matter a LOT and the best choice for each of us deserves its own thread. (For a number of reasons, I prefer adjustable sights on a carry gun, the idea of which makes some people foam at the mouth.) What matters at least as much as the sights themselves but is almost completely overlooked is zero. Based on several years working on indoor ranges, I'd say that the vast majority of shooters have no idea what a zero is. Most of the rest assume that their pistols are zeroed from the factory, or that centering their sights in the dovetail is adequate. This is not the case.
Getting windage sorted out is pretty simple: just shoot 10- or 20-shot groups and move the rear sight until you get the same number of hits left of the centerline as you have right of it. In the targets you show in your posts, most of the shots are left of center. This could be a shooter issue, but you might also be zeroed improperly.
Then there’s elevation. As your groups shrink, you become able to make hits farther and farther away, and your zero for elevation starts to matter. No firearm comes from the factory with a good zero, but Glocks are especially bad in this respect—it can take a surprising amount of screwing around to properly zero them for elevation. I like a 25-yard zero because I can stay in the A-zone out to 50 without much change in POA, and I can stay on an IPSC target out to 100 or so by holding for the chin.
Take the time you need to get a solid zero with good ammo and you’ll be way ahead. Again, all of this is a highly personal matter, so test sights on your own, work with some different zeros, and find what works best for you.
Targets
Shooting small groups on visually cluttered targets is harder than on simple targets. I find that targets meant for zeroing rifle scopes are almost useless for iron-sighted handguns. Again, it helps to take a lesson from bullseye shooters. They prefer a single black bullseye on a large (20”x20” or so) sheet of plain buff-colored paper. (The targets that you showed in your original post are actually repair centers for those full-sized targets.) If the buff-colored part of the paper appears wider than the rest of your sight picture, then you’ll only have your sights and the bull in view as you shoot, which makes shooting small groups easier. Also, the buff background strains your eyes less than a black target on a white background.
Again, these tips will help you shoot smaller groups under very controlled circumstances. From there, you can analyze and hone individual aspects of your skill set so you can shoot smaller groups in the real world. I’ve found that each of these things will help to shrink your groups a little. None is a magic fix by itself, but when you add them all together, the cumulative improvement can be remarkable.
Let me know if you have questions.