Accuracy problems with DAO pistols

O

Oleg Volk

Staff Alumnus
I own a P32 and thinking of a P11...but I am leery of DAO trigger on the P11. I do not shoot the P32 as well as I would like to and do not trust my aim past 5 yards in full panic mode (7 yards for a .38 snubbie, 10-12 for larger guns). For aimed fire, 10 yards is about tops and I am not comfortable with it, esp. with a marginal roun dliek .32acp.

Has oneone here learned to shoot DAO pistols (S&W, Kel-tec, etc.) well or do you still feel handicapped compared to using SA or striker or Glock-type triggers?

[This message has been edited by Oleg Volk (edited March 24, 2000).]
 
Oleg,
5 or 10 years, I am assuming yards, I can't shoot past next week with my P11. That's why I quit carrying it and went to a J-Frame .38.
I like the pistol but I can't seem to master the trigger to my satisfaction. It just sits in my safe now. I even put night sights on it and bought a Kramer pocket holster for it.
 
-beware the man who only has one gun, he probably knows how to use it.- :) I recently purchased my first DAO ( .40 S & W) on a target with a black background, my groups suck. but when i take a pink post-it,or a paper plate, it's like SHAZAAM!!!! the Lord said 'let there be accuracy' and it was good.
 
Although it took some getting used to, I find that I'm actually more accurate with the DOA trigger on my PT-111 than with my DA revolvers. I know the trigger on the Kel-Tec is somewhat different, but I think with regular practice it shouldn't be a problem. I looked at a couple of Kel-Tec's and actually liked the feel of the trigger a little better than my Taurus although I haven't actually fired one.
 
a good trigger will make all the difference. if you have a DAO gun with a good trigger you can learn to shoot it as well as a SA gun. the guns that IMO are the best DAO guns are Kahrs and Glocks. ok i know both of these are striker fired and not acutally DAOs but they have a long trigger pull on each round so therefore they act like a DAO. everyone i know who shot a kahr says it has the best DAO trigger they ever shot and with a glock people can get very accurate. i shoot a glock better than most other guns especially with point shooting. the last glock i shot (don't own one) was about 6 months ago; it was a G19. i was shooting at 8" metal plates at 25yards and could point shoot at 2 of them and hit them each with 1 round in the center quite quickly. now i can compare that to a little .22 DAO taurus i once shot where i could barely hit the target at 10 feet. it was all in the trigger.

if the gun is for CC which it seems to be by the small guns you mentioned i'd strongly recommend a kahr K9 or a Glock 26. you can learn to be a very good shot up to about 25 yards easily with these 2 little sub compact guns.
 
Oleg are you trying a SA .38 snub like M36?
I find they are not as smooth as the DA 640.


K-frame S&W which used to be fairly stiff are now much better and my M66 is very easy to hit with shooting DAO.
 
I traded my S&W49 (which had a great DA trigger) and only have a Taurus 85UL now. I took the grips off and looked at the mechanism and it is adequate if less elegant than the S&W, IMO. I find DA in snubbies to be adequate because of relatively short, if hard trigger pull. P11 has a very long though smooth pull and I wonder how that would affect accuracy. I train enough now that I am no longer certain that I'd want a trigger doubling as a safety.
 
my theory is that half of the "trigger pull problem" is a grip shape problem. if the grip shape is such that the gun doesn't move as the trigger is pulled, a heavy trigger won't adversely affect practical accuracy.

I had an Airweight for awhile, but with the Spegel "3-finger" grip I never got to the point where I could put all five shots in a decent group in rapid fire. I do somewhat better with a Glock 26. I'm eagerly awaiting the Kahr P9, I believe the full "4-finger" grip and relatively straight backstrap may help keep the point-of-aim reasonably still during the trigger pull.



[This message has been edited by Ivanhoe (edited March 24, 2000).]
 
Nothing is as user friendly or as easy to shoot as a 1911, nothing. The next closest is a Glock due to the fact that the first trigger pull is the same as the last and is a relatively light 5 pounds. As Jeff Cooper once said, double action in a semiauto pistol is an ingeneous solution to a non existant problem. I totally agree wtih the old master.
...7th

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SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL POLICE, KEEP THEM INDEPENDENT.
 
Fleet, you gotta consider them from a different perspective. I read in your other post of your fondness for S+W revolvers. If I told you I had an 8-shot revolver in .45ACP, your interest may be tickled. If I told you it weighed less than a 4" K-frame, you might perk up. If I said that it was thinner than the K, you might want one. If I said that it can be reloaded in about ONE second, w/o the use of a speed loader, you'd probably call me a lier! Well, that's my DAO Ruger P97. :)
 
VictorLouis I do indeed like Smith $ Wesson double action revolvers, and Ruger Double actions, Ruger Single actions, Colt single actions, Colt double action, I like lots of guns. But the 1911 and the Glock are at the top of the heap IMHO. I'm a firm believer if the proper tool for the job and the shooting sports, self defense, law enforcement, gun collecting is a multifaceted field to say the very least. My love afair with Smith $ Wessons double action revolvers is as dead as last weeks news because of their recent flirtation with treason. I will keep the 21 or so that I currently own but thats the end of a life long relationship, no more new Smiths.
But for now anyway, in my mind as a patriot gun collector , a veteran, a career cop, and a lover of our constitution, Smith and Wesson is as dead as the DoDo bird. Our system can suffer fools, idiots, incompentants and dip sh!ts but never traitors, such as the current owners of Smith $ Wesson. I have bought my last new Smith $ Wesson.

[This message has been edited by 7th Fleet (edited March 25, 2000).]
 
I'm always puzzled by why people would choose a DAO pistol.
They probably have some utility on the small vest-pocket guns like the P-32 where the small size might make manipulating the controls a problem.
But why handicap yourself with a bad trigger when choosing a larger piece?
I came to shooting through rifles and learned that a bad rifle with a good trigger will always outshoot a good rifle with a bad one in actual field conditions. The same is doubly true of handguns.
The piece is dangling out there in front of you only supported by your hands and arms. you're probably experiencing an adrenaline rush of major proportions. You may have bullets whizzing past you, you may be shaking, pissing your pants, experiencing tunnel vision, auditory exclusion - and you would choose a gun with a trigger that requires extra weight and a longer pull? A gun that makes hits harder, that triples the length of time between when your brain says "SHOOT" and the gun goes off?

I don't get it.



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Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan
 
I think one reason for having the double action in any pistol revolver or auto is that you can just hand it to anyone, regardless of skill, in a crisis and say "point it an pull the trigger". Not really an ideal situation, I agree, but you don't have to teach em to cock it or to use a safety etc. The emergency learning curve is very short on DAO's. Don't get me wrong, I generally do not like most DAO's cause I have grown used to and like DA/SA or single action only trigger pulls. -ddt
 
Oleg,

You know I've been a long-time KTOG member. Quite honestly, I practice my hand-to-hand skills considerably more than my shooting ones. I am aware, however, that my Kel-Tecs are intrinsically accurate.

I have shot a 1" target at seven yards with one shot, offhand.

I have shot a 2 liter past 30 yds with 2.

Considering the minor time I devote specifically to my handgun practice, I know that means the P-11 is an accurate piece, and if I become willing to devote all of 5 minutes a day to mastering it, have every confidence it will serve me well...with the ancillary benefit of helping me shoot every other weapon I own more accurately.
 
Fleet, perhaps my use of S+W was a poor choice. Sustitute another brand and maybe you'll grasp my analogy. My point is, some people just seem to shoot better with the revolver, because of the DA trigger. Suprise break, smooth, rolling action, or whatever.

You can now get that in an auto. If you have not at least TRIED a Ruger/Beretta/or S+...never mind, you should. Totally different world from the traditional "crunchenticker" DA/SA designs! Let's not forget one of the main reasons for the success of Glock: Point and pull simplicity, just like a revolver.

Keith, you are right. The Ruger does shoot "slower" than my 1911. Three shots per second, vs. -maybe- four in the Colt. If you truly feel that is significant, so be it. But at 15-25yds, I don't feel any real difference in "time on target" with either pistol, assuming a decisive hit. Rested, it will hold sub-2" if I do my part. :)

[This message has been edited by VictorLouis (edited March 25, 2000).]
 
One of my side trips has been to convert a fairly new SA/DA SIG 220 to DAO, thinking that this would be an accurate, reliable, dirt-simple .45. I reshaped the trigger to approximately BHP contour and smoothed it, and sent it back to SIG for an action job. I am sorry to report that it has not worked out, at least in my hands. I shoot quite a lot of DA revolver, and the SIG is a very different animal. Perhaps someone else could shoot it well, but in my case the revolver is just a better tool. I am in the process of converting it back to original configuration to see the difference. I must confess that I would like to try a P97 in DAO, though...

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in my classes students bring a variety of different firearms. the fundamentals for firing them are the same, as far as grip, sight alignment, proper trigger finger position, trigger press, and recovery. the smaller semi-autos i find harder to shoot, than something a little bigger. i believe this is due mostly grip and a few other specific gun characteristics as well. i have a taurus 22 beretta copy,it shoots okay, but not very accurate. i believe this is due to small grip combined with a long hard trigger pull. i have a amt 380dao backup which i shoot good groups with at 25yds. i like my glocks, which i find shoot very well for me, this i believe is due to the gun points natural for me, due to its grip angle.

i teach my students on all their weapons, when firing multiple shots, press the trigger back smoothly, once the gun has fired keep the trigger back and let the gun cycle, then ease up on the trigger slowly until it resets
and no further (usually you will hear and feel a click), then press the trigger again smoothly back for the next shot. i find that this helps most shooters get tighter groups. what i attribute this to is that they don't slap their trigger, and their trigger finger stays on the trigger in the same spot.
i call this trigger reset. i think finding a gun that fits the shooter is very important, the things i look for are a grip sized for the shooters hand, proper grip angle should be natural, trigger length and weight, and last of all a caliber that the shooter can handle. just food for thought.
 
I have never been able to see the rationale of the full-sized service DAO pistol. The design is a bozo public-relations committee notion of the ideal large-capacity, fast-firing handgun as (relatively) idiot proof as a revolver, for poorly trained operators like the average policeman. Issuing such a gun is an invitation to the 'spray and pray' debacles with which we are all so painfully familiar.

The DA/SA design typified by the Walther P-38 and it's later progeny is the abomination that Col. Cooper has always maintained: a crunchy-ticky solution looking for a problem, sacrificing fine uniform trigger control for a questionable increment of safety and (sometimes) second strike capability. Its manual of arms is needlessly complex and counterintuitive.

HOWEVER: For a small concealable pistol, the sort you'll carry when you don't think you'll need a gun, a Kahr K9 or similar is probably better than a five shot revolver, and just as accurate for the type of close-up use that it will probably get. I find the Kahr eminently shootable out to 25 yards, and with care, capable of quality hits to 50. I don't expect more from a gun like that. I would expect the mini Glock to be similar, although I have almost no experience with that marque.

In a full-size gun, I still prefer the SA auto, 19ll style, or a revolver. --slabsides

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If they take our guns, I intend to let my hair grow long and acquire the jawbone of an ass.
 
I`ve had a P-11 for a few years now,put 4000+ rounds through it. I still don`t shoot it as well as say my P-97DC but I do shoot it better than any other 12oz. 10+1rd. 9mm (there`s aren`t any others). I think it`s a matter of knowing it`s niche and not expecting it to perform too well beyond it. I can make fast easy kill zone hits from 10yds. all day long and solid aimed fire hits out to 20yds. That`s all I ask of it. I`ve never once measured a group I shot with the Keltec because I know they`re good enough for it`s intended job. Marcus
 
>>>>>The Ruger does shoot "slower" than my 1911. Three shots per second, vs. -maybe- four in the Colt<<<<<

I wasn't referring to the rapidity of fire - I was trying to express something else entirely.
Your eyes get a flash sight picture. Your brain says "shoot". Your nervous system sets off the muscular reaction to press the trigger - the gun goes off.

The delay here is something that can be minimized by training - the shorter the delay, the greater the odds that the gun will still be lined up on the target.

The DAO pistol further delays the event - perhaps triples the length of time between the "command" and the actual shot.

Again, why handicap yourself? It can certainly make sense for someone who absolutely is not going to train and requires utter simplicty,but I don't think anyone interested enough to post in this forum falls into that category.



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Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan
 
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