Will Shooting Shorter Barrel Guns Improve Longer Barrel Shooting?

[cclaxton]

My Cz Shadow is in the shop getting the SRTS (Short Reset Trigger) installed. In the meantime I am dry and live fire practicing with a Cz 75 Compact. They are the same platform, but the barrel is 4.7" on the Shadow and 3.85" on the Compact.
Other specs Shadow/Compact:
Length 8.1"/7.2";
Weight 2.43lbs/2.03lbs
Height 5.4"/5"
The Shadow has a better trigger, since this is a standard Compact model.
The main differences are:
Shadow 2.1lbs SA mode, and short reset and no creep.
Compact 4.5lbs SA mode and longer reset and a bit of creep. Also, there is more slack to take out on the Compact trigger, but not more than 1/8" more.
The Shadow has fiber front sight and rear black competition sight. Compact has white dots front and back. The grip is almost identical although the compact is slightly shorter...didn't seem to matter to me.

I was at the range tonight and I definitely found the Compact harder to shoot accurate and as fast as I shoot the Shadow. But I noticed I worked harder on my grip and on my sight pictures.

So here's the question: Will practicing with a shorter barreled handgun of the same platform and caliber help me improve my gun handling when I go back to the longer barreled/heavier gun? (setting aside the differences in triggers). It seems to me it may be helping. And, if so, should I make this a regular part of my practice routine?

CC

[aboveandbeyond]

Longer barrels offer a longer sight radius...hence a greater degree of precision.

Practicing trigger control regardless of barrel length is key in my experience. I can hit a IPSC steel plate 8 out of times 10 with a G19 at a 100 yards easily, so long I take my time. With a G34...it's much easier due to a longer sight radius.

[breakingtime91]

Hand gun shooting is generally just that, hand gun shooting. Obviously there is a learning curve when going from one platform to another. If you understand trigger press, sight alignment, and weapons manipulation your golden. I think you made the right decision by shooting TWO CZs, weapon manipulation is almost identical. My nightstand gun is a glock 17 and my EDC is a j-frame most of the time, which means i have to practice two manual of arms which means double the practice and a lot of snickering from people who believe i don't think logically.

[ST911]

When the Glock subcompacts were new, I noticed that shooters often shot those better than larger frames in the same caliber. The shorter grip surface forced a more deliberate grip with the fingers remaining on the gun, there was less surface area to heel the gun with, and shooters were more deliberate in their sight alignment and trigger press. These results were consistent enough that the subs were used for remediation at times to correct grip issues. (This was before the thumbs-forward/reactive shooting type grips now more common.)

Others made the same observations and had the same results.

This does NOT translate to an improvement in splits or other attributes of fast handling/shooting. Just more static or deliberate drills.

[1slow]

Ross Seyfried said once that shooting a 2.5" model 19 S&W really improved his shooting.