Trying to diagnose a LE shooting buddy

[Serpico1985]

My LE friend has an issue with shooting low. I've encourged him to get professional paid instruction. His agency has not been able to diagnose the issue(s) and basically just has him shoot a lot in place of identifying the problem. His duty gun is a gen 5 17. He's had it for years and probably has over 5k of live and dry fire through it. Others have shot his gun and it does not shoot low for them. When I say low I'm talking about him shooting 1.5-2" low at 7 yards and 8-10" low at 25 yards.

We were at the range yesterday and he was shooting at 7 yards on the below target.

LEFT CIRCLE: for all the shots that are low he had the top edge of his front sight cutting through the middle of the circle. I then told him to hold on the 12 o'clock position on the left circle and he fired the two shots you see close to the center.

MIDDLE CIRCLE: I dont' really know what I'm doing but I had him do the drill where you take all the slack out of the trigger and hold and then on the buzzer smash through the trigger breaking the shot as soon as possible. Same hold as left circle, top edge of front sight cutting through the center of the target.

RIGHT CIRCLE: I had him repeat the drill and he broke the shot before the buzzer went off.

I think the middle and right circle are indicative of the actual zero on his gun. I think that when he shot the middle and left target the instructions I gave him possibly prevented him from doing something wrong allowing him to shoot properly.

I'm aware that y'all can't diagnose this over the internet completely. But I was hoping for some further drills or tests or expirments to figure out what he's doing.

He claims that he's watching the front sight all the way through the trigger press but he's not seeing the gun dip at the last second.

He dry fires quite a bit with one of those laser glock 17 replicas and his duty gun.

Any advise is welcomed.

Thanks

[HCM]

Target analysis is only part of diagnostics. A video of him shooting would be helpful.

Speaking of, regardless of what he claims the muzzle is obviously dipping.

Most cell phones now have a slow motion video function. I suggest you take slow motion video of him shooting (focusing on the gun / hands). I’ll bet it shows the muzzle dipping. I also bet he will deny it until he sees himself doing it on video.

[CCT125US]

Dry fire is great until it isn't. People are smart, they know the gun isn't going to go bang. My suggestion is to spend some time with him "loading" the pistol with ball and dummy, or empty chamber and loaded chamber. Easy enough to accomplish with 2 mags. With a table or bench in front of the shooter, simply table a loaded or unloaded gun for them. Have them step up and shoot. Either a click or bang will occur. When the pistol clicks, simply observe what the muzzle does. Mix it up so they don't know what to expect. Ask what the shooter saw and felt. Rinse and repeat. This allows them to understand what they are doing through vision and sensation.

[TGS]

That's not dramatically low as if he were pushing the muzzle down, and is about what I'd expect when people switch between guns with different sights and incongruous POA/POI.

For instance, I see exactly this but usually in the reverse at my workplace. Our Glock 26s were bought off a different contract than our Glock 19s. The 26 has Trijicons sights with a lollipop hold, whereas the 19s have Ameriglo Agents with a dot-on-target hold.

Since most people do most of their shooting with the 19s, it's very common to see our people hit very high at 25 yards with the 26 as their lizard brain takes over and they revert to what they're used to doing: dot over target. Even me personally, I would have to damn near silently repeat "lollipop" to myself while shooting the 26 or else I'd do the same. Over the last year they started allowing the armorer's to swap out our Glock 26 sights to Ameriglo that way we have the same POA/POI, but it's not mandatory and the agent has to request it.

What sights does his Gen 5 have? It's very possible he's not doing anything "wrong" in terms of shooting technique other than having a different perception of what his POA is supposed to be with however his brain and eyes perceives a dot-on-target hold, vs a split the middle hold.

[Serpico1985]

Ameriglo agent sights. He also shoots a gen 5 19 with Ameriglo agent sights. He does swap back and forth between them.

[TGS]

Ameriglo agent sights. He also shoots a gen 5 19 with Ameriglo agent sights. He does swap back and forth between them.

Whatever he sees/perceives when you told him to do a 12 O'Clock hold (what I take to be a dot-over-target) is his correct hold that he needs to do from now on. Simple as that, is my guess.

From what I'm seeing/reading, I don't think he's done anything wrong other than 1) not being taught the correct hold for the given sight, and 2) having enough accuracy that it actually shows. With some cops, they're so bad that you can't tell such minute differences to begin with, sort of similar to the joke that you can't study the effects of smoking on eastern European populations because they're so unhealthy to begin with.

[LukeNCMX]

Without seeing him shoot I bet this is more of a firing hand wrist lock issue and less of a trigger press issue. I like dry bill drills with a realistic grip (crush with support hand/just holding with firing hand) and pressing the trigger with twice as much pressure as needed for live fire (full press on first shot and then 5 additional presses on a dead trigger). The front sight should not move during the trigger presses. This type of dry training is good for developing a good wrist lock to keep the gun stable while the trigger is being pressed. I stole all this from Ben Stoeger and it worked well for me.

[TC215]

My LE friend has an issue with shooting low. I've encourged him to get professional paid instruction. His agency has not been able to diagnose the issue(s) and basically just has him shoot a lot in place of identifying the problem. His duty gun is a gen 5 17. He's had it for years and probably has over 5k of live and dry fire through it. Others have shot his gun and it does not shoot low for them. When I say low I'm talking about him shooting 1.5-2" low at 7 yards and 8-10" low at 25 yards.

We were at the range yesterday and he was shooting at 7 yards on the below target.

LEFT CIRCLE: for all the shots that are low he had the top edge of his front sight cutting through the middle of the circle. I then told him to hold on the 12 o'clock position on the left circle and he fired the two shots you see close to the center.

MIDDLE CIRCLE: I dont' really know what I'm doing but I had him do the drill where you take all the slack out of the trigger and hold and then on the buzzer smash through the trigger breaking the shot as soon as possible. Same hold as left circle, top edge of front sight cutting through the center of the target.

RIGHT CIRCLE: I had him repeat the drill and he broke the shot before the buzzer went off.

I think the middle and right circle are indicative of the actual zero on his gun. I think that when he shot the middle and left target the instructions I gave him possibly prevented him from doing something wrong allowing him to shoot properly.

I'm aware that y'all can't diagnose this over the internet completely. But I was hoping for some further drills or tests or expirments to figure out what he's doing.

He claims that he's watching the front sight all the way through the trigger press but he's not seeing the gun dip at the last second.

He dry fires quite a bit with one of those laser glock 17 replicas and his duty gun.

Any advise is welcomed.

Thanks

Like @TGS said, I think this is the issue. I’ve seen it at my own agency. The sights for Gen5 Glocks are a different height from previous generations. With the Agent/BOLD sights, and even the standard Glock sights, you have to cover the target, like the second sight picture in the image below:



If he’s using the other sight pictures, he’ll be shooting low, obviously.

[TGS]

If he’s using the other sight pictures, he’ll be shooting low, obviously.

What this thread makes me think of:

[Serpico1985]

Point taken regarding the zero for those particular sights. But at 25 he's using the middle sight picture above and hitting well below the replacement center B-8 area of the target. Seems like more than a zero issue.