A little high and to the left

[Mooseheadpiper]

Hi Folks,
I'm fairly new to shooting--been at it for about a year now. I mostly shoot a revolver, a Ruger GP100. I'm hoping you can help me diagnose my main accuracy problem. I can almost always shoot about an inch and a half to two inch grouping at 7 yards double action and be dead center on the bullseye. I can often get a tighter grouping shooting single action. But my single action shots are sometimes a little to the left and sometimes just a tad high. Some days I get everything inside the bullseye, but other days I get this problem of being off to the left. I've tried adjusting where I place my finger on the trigger, paid extra attention to making sure I'm doing a complete follow through, I don't load all the chambers to see if I can catch myself flinching in that direction, and I still can't figure it out. Some days I think I'm doing wonderfully and then I bring the target back and am shocked that I'm not. Other days I do just fine. I'm not good enough to call my shots yet, but I do watch the sights all the way through. Once in a while I can see the gun lifting a bit to the left, but just as often it lifts to the right. (99 percent of the time it goes straight up).
Any ideas what I could be doing wrong and why I don't seem to do it when I shoot double action? I want to move on to greater speed and farther distance, but not until I get this problem solved.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Joseph B.]

There are a few things that can be happening, but for a non-hands-on solution to your problem, I would say you may have developed over time a anticipation of recoil while using the double actions trigger press, developing a compensation for that, and then over time ingrained it into your fundamentals. As you change to the single action trigger press, you are not going through the same ingrained methods of applying the fundamentals you have developed, thus the anticipation and compensation methods are showing.

Now that's just a shot in the dark, it maybe something different, again it can be a few things. What I would recommend is taking video withva close up of the gun/hands, and fire a few strings of fire, both double action and single action, with a dummy round/empty chamber, and review it looking for any anticipation, etc. You can post it here and I or someone else can review it for you as well.

Or you could go see a marksmanship coach/instructor.

Hope this helps.

[Mooseheadpiper]

Thanks for the advice. I would really like to find a coach, but I don't know where to start. the shooting range I go to offers lots of classes and has several instructors but none of them have been able to figure out my problem. I can find lots of guys who teach concealed carry classes, but nobody who coaches for competition. At least my google searches for the Cleveland area didn't turn anybody up. Any suggestions where to look?

Also I should have mentioned in my original post that I'm using the same ammo every time. There were some issues when I didn't notice whether I was shooting 130 grain or 158 or whatever. Some helpful people on this forum made me realize that and that has improved my consistency vertically. Now if I can get really consistent left to right I will be really pleased.

There are a few things that can be happening, but for a non-hands-on solution to your problem, I would say you may have developed over time a anticipation of recoil while using the double actions trigger press, developing a compensation for that, and then over time ingrained it into your fundamentals. As you change to the single action trigger press, you are not going through the same ingrained methods of applying the fundamentals you have developed, thus the anticipation and compensation methods are showing.

Now that's just a shot in the dark, it maybe something different, again it can be a few things. What I would recommend is taking video withva close up of the gun/hands, and fire a few strings of fire, both double action and single action, with a dummy round/empty chamber, and review it looking for any anticipation, etc. You can post it here and I or someone else can review it for you as well.

Or you could go see a marksmanship coach/instructor.

Hope this helps.

[Joseph B.]

A concealed carry instructor is not always a marksmanship instructor, and not all marksmanship instructors are equal. Check your local area for IDPA, USPSA, CMP, NRA competitions, and show up and talk to people, you might also join a club and start competing, or participating. As you network with others, you will learn things you may not know or have used before. Also you may find someone willing to coach you, etc.

Outside of that, the video recommendation and or finding someone in your area on here, that's about all I can offer up.

[Mooseheadpiper]

Thanks again for the advice Joseph. I'll look into some of the organizations and competitions you mentioned. I also appreciate your offer to review video footage. If I do take a video with a close up of my hands, at what angle should I be focusing the camera?

A concealed carry instructor is not always a marksmanship instructor, and not all marksmanship instructors are equal. Check your local area for IDPA, USPSA, CMP, NRA competitions, and show up and talk to people, you might also join a club and start competing, or participating. As you network with others, you will learn things you may not know or have used before. Also you may find someone willing to coach you, etc.

Outside of that, the video recommendation and or finding someone in your area on here, that's about all I can offer up.

[ACP230]

You might try dry firing in SA mode. (No ammo in the room, safe backstop, of course).
Concentrate on seeing no movement of the front sight as the hammer falls.

I developed a flinch when I bought a .357 Maximum barrel for my Contender. I dry fired it till the cows came home.
After that, no flinch.

No guarantees, but it could be worth trying.

[Joseph B.]

Thanks again for the advice Joseph. I'll look into some of the organizations and competitions you mentioned. I also appreciate your offer to review video footage. If I do take a video with a close up of my hands, at what angle should I be focusing the camera?

Just a clear 90° view from the side, I am use to viewing from the strong hand side.

[Mooseheadpiper]

I do quite a bit of dry fire practice and I feel like I keep the sights very steady during the whole trigger pull. I even do the drill where you balance a penny on the front sight during dry fire. I've wondered whether I'm not pulling the trigger as straight back as I should, but I assume that error would show up during dry fire. Is that a false assumption? If so, how do you tell if you have a fingering error?
Thanks for the advice.

You might try dry firing in SA mode. (No ammo in the room, safe backstop, of course).
Concentrate on seeing no movement of the front sight as the hammer falls.

I developed a flinch when I bought a .357 Maximum barrel for my Contender. I dry fired it till the cows came home.
After that, no flinch.

No guarantees, but it could be worth trying.

[gringop]

Your brain knows when the gun is empty. Dry fire can help tremendously but it will not show all the issues that show up with live fire.

Ball and dummy drills are a little harder with a revolver but you could load with all live rounds and fire one shot, then open the crane, spin the cylinder and close it without looking at it. Then fire another shot and so on. At some point you will hit a fired round and you will see what it happening to the sights.

An alternative is to take 4 live and 2 dummy rounds, shake them up in your hands and load the gun without looking at it. When you get that surprise click instead of bang, see what the sights are doing and figure out why.

Gringop

[Mooseheadpiper]

Thanks for the suggestion. I do almost always practice ball and dummy drills every time I go to the range. But the only thing I've ever caught myself doing is a very slight downward movement in anticipation of recoil. It's never been off to the left which is where my problem lies. I've been experimenting with finger placement on the trigger and once in a while I see a slight misaligment of sights occuring during recoil depending on how much or how little finger is on the trigger. The odd thing though is that even if the front sight rises just a little to the right, my shots aren't off to the right. But I assume that when the front sight rises a hair to the left is when my problem occurs.
I am planning to videotape myself as Joseph suggested earlier, but I will probably need to borrow some equipment. I can't figure out a good way to set up my iPad or phone to catch the proper view. In the meantime, thanks for all the suggestions. I'm all ears if anybody has more ideas.

Your brain knows when the gun is empty. Dry fire can help tremendously but it will not show all the issues that show up with live fire.

Ball and dummy drills are a little harder with a revolver but you could load with all live rounds and fire one shot, then open the crane, spin the cylinder and close it without looking at it. Then fire another shot and so on. At some point you will hit a fired round and you will see what it happening to the sights.

An alternative is to take 4 live and 2 dummy rounds, shake them up in your hands and load the gun without looking at it. When you get that surprise click instead of bang, see what the sights are doing and figure out why.

Gringop