Help analyzing the wife's shooting.

I really learned how to shoot a handgun accurately when I started going to bullseye matches. I started showing people my target and asking questions about what I was doing wrong. Since I am right-handed, but left eye dominate, one of the first things they told me was to start shooting left-handed. After that, they started showing me how to improve my grip, my stance, trigger finger position, etc. Over time, I could see steady improvements. Not all advice will work for you and you will quickly figure out what works for you and what doesn't.

A lot of new shooters, or those who don't shoot all that great, are afraid to go to matches because they are afraid of being embarrassed. You will never learn how to swim if you don't get in the water. This is just like learning how to play chess. The best way to learn and get better is to find people who are a lot better than you and play them over and over and over.
 
JohnKsa, So do you suggest I pull the trigger as I described... taking up "slack" or I guess you could say "staging" then doing your main trigger squeeze through the 2nd "main" stage?

Gunrunner1... Really? They suggested left hand shooting just because you are left eye dominate? I'm Right Handed, Left Eye dominate also... I shot a magazine left handed and though it wasn't "terrible" I certainly wasn't as confident with it.

The worse thing about being RHLE is that my father was a real a-hole and didn't understand that and used to fuss at me all the time because I'd naturally lean over the gun (rifle/shotguns) and look down the barrel with my left eye. Then one day we went to a hunter safety class and I found out I was of course doing it right. Never got an apology but at least I knew in that instance he was definitely just being a jerk. ;)
 
OK,I have no stake in this,just read it over.OP,please re read your own last post
Do you pick up a certain stress,tension,frustration,emotion?
It is because you are too close.Its your wife.In matters such as learning to paddle a canoe tandem,drive,shoot,no disrespect intended,but ego and relationship and tone of voice and how the bacon was cooked 2 months ago can lead to not talking at the breakfast table and then shooting is not so fun any more.
Let me ask you this.As you coach her,are you looking at the target?You must be,as you see her hit the dirt.no disrespect to you,I am glad you are learning to shoot!A coach who is looking down range does not know how to coach shooting.I hope you want her to have a good coach.
If there is a local bullseye range that has firearms training,or if the game warden will give you the name of the person who trains him,etc,,
I taught my daughter to shoot a .22 rifle,her rifle.I taught her some about driving,coached her learners permit time,but we had her take a paid drivers ed class.
But whe she came of age,and was on her own,I checked with the Division of wildlife armorer,shooting coach.A retired veteran,LEO,and a quiet,kind,good man I respect.i asked about one on one training.
I approached my daughter,explained I would pay for the training and buy the handgun if she would take the training.The training was pre=requisite,and I declined to train.She did not prioritize it,so it was not done.
I suggest you get a nice 22.Very cheap to shoot a lot.Shooting a lot badly won't help.You are training unconcious things.You train shooting good shots.Bad shots have to be untrained and re trained.Noise and recoil make and cover up bad habits.Even a replica pellet gun at 15 ft may be good.
Here is a parallel.Learning to roll a kayak.Your unconcious self says hanging upside down in a boat with water running up your nose is unacceptable.This must be overcome to smoothly and powerfully grab the surface of the water and roll up.Holding a loud,kicking gun in your hand is the same.the reflexes jump.The eyes close.Anticipating recoil,the muzzle goes down.
But no spouse wants to hear from their other half criticism.And that is what coaching,especially from a frustrated,not so competent coach amounts to in a spouse.
I couod tell you grip,natural point of aim,breathing,sight alignment,trigger control,focus,calling the shot ,etc,but you have somethng else to overcome.
i highly suggest you go back to pax's post.Go to her site,follow her links,search "all posts by pax" and get an idea of who just took the time to give you an honest,respectful response.
For what it is worth,I'm a mediocre to OK handgun shot.Nothing special.So is my former spouse.
When we were shooting 25 yd pistol indoor leagues,we shot with some good shots.Old guys who shot at camp Perry.Kirkpatrick was a kind old guy,true gentleman,interested in my old High Standard GD.Coke bottle glasses,a little tremor in his hands.I recall a slow,rapid,timed 30 round string of his that scored 297 of 300 pts with a lot of "X"'s.Those guys were good.
I was averaging in the 270 something range and my ex was a 238 avg.The last shootoff we were in,we took 7 of 28 trophies.
Get a 25 yd smallbore handgun NRA target and see what that is.
Experienced folks here,when you ask for advise,give you honest answers.
You ever see "The Magnificent Seven"? The kid,and Yul Brynner,in the bar? Clap hands? pax likely has hair,but I'd give her Yul Brynner respect,myself.
 
HiBC, I understand what you are saying... especially given that she has shot a WHOLE lot more than I have. BUT, that being said, she is pretty smart and level headed (most of the time ;) )... so she recognizes "I'm hitting the dirt and no where near the target... He doesn't. I must be doing something wrong." Sure I understand that lots of women, especially my daughter, can't do that.

She ran through a good 100 rounds of ammo. That leaves PLENTY of shots that you can look at where she is hitting and realize. "hey, you are hitting in the dirt... what is going on here." Then you can adjust your focus to watching HER shoot and stop looking down range. When 9/10 shots hit the ground in front of you, you don't have to really worry if you are actually watching her make the mistake... chances are she is still hitting the ground and you can trust to just focus on her motions.

I say ALL of that with ZERO emotion. This also brings up my point. You have deducted that because I have seen her shots go in the ground that I am watching the target and therefor I am in no position to help. But you didn't take into account that we shot more than 1 magazine and that one can shift his focus. When she was first shooting of course I watched the target, I had ZERO intention of teaching her anything or critiquing anything... I actually assumed I'd be asking HER questions as she was more experienced than I was. It wasn't until she expressed frustration in her shooting that I then attempted to see what was going on the best I could in my limited understanding of "proper" technique. I was only able to recognize that she was pulling the trigger all the way through and that MIGHT be causing her to yank when she gets to the 2nd stage of the trigger. I then asked her if that was what was going on and she said "yes"... I then asked her to stage the trigger (obviously not with those words, as I have just learned them) and she was doing a tad bit better. Now she was hitting the base of the tree and not the dirt 10' in front of it and occasionally actually hitting the target. I still didn't know what was going on and I had no further suggestions. By then she was done shooting anyway.

Then I came in here to ask for some help. That is also when I got her to dry fire and realized she was flinching like others were suggesting. My suggested remedy for this? Practice dry firing and focus on not moving (flinching) during the trigger squeeze. That is all I feel I am qualified to "teach" as I don't know anything else. This is also the one thing I did while I was sitting at home for so long with a gun and no place to go shoot. I feel that is what helped me to be able to shoot as well as I did for my first time shooting. Do I have room for improvement... ABSO-FRICKIN-LUTELY! That day was all about putting some rounds through the gun and getting a feel for it... basically having fun. Now that that is done next time I'm out shooting I'm hoping it is just the wife and I and we can focus on individual shots one at a time.

As far as PAX... I have already said thank you for the links and suggestions... I certainly hope that she understands that I never meant ANY disrespect. I have already apologized to her and JohnKsa about some confusion on who posted what. That was just an oversight on my part in regards to that issue.

An example of useful vs frustrating post is as follows, yours is the first that suggested the use of a 22 for a GOOD reason (a larger gun mask mistakes)... I can see and appreciate that when said that way. But for those that said "well, you should start out the little lady with a 22 so it doesn't scare her off of shooting"... well clearly they didn't even read my post because SHE purchased the P95 a long time ago and has shot it many times and LOVES to shoot. She is no where CLOSE to "scared" of shooting. Hell, she wants to shoot larger guns, just for fun. Obviously she flinches and one could argue that is because she is scared of the gun... but I'd more likely say that is just a natural reaction like you suggested. The other post is very frustrating when you don't even feel like the person actually read your post... seems like they just read the title and tossed up a generic "guide to getting your lady into shooting" post.

BTW, for the record my quotes above were purposely condescending towards females... but not because I personally feel that way. It should be obvious that I feel the exact opposite, but only if you actually read my post. ;)
 
So do you suggest I pull the trigger as I described... taking up "slack" or I guess you could say "staging" then doing your main trigger squeeze through the 2nd "main" stage?
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Generally speaking, the goal should be to smoothly pull through the entire trigger travel until the gun fires.

When extreme precision is the goal it's acceptable to stage the trigger, but it can create some issues if it becomes a habit.
They suggested left hand shooting just because you are left eye dominate?
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When you get down to the nitty gritty of shooting, both hands have pretty important jobs to do. It's reasonably easy to make the case that there's not enough of a difference in the dexterity required to create a disadvantage by teaching a right hander to shoot left-handed if he's left-eye dominant. It's very different from forcing a left-hander to learn to write right-handed. On the other hand, teaching someone to shoot cross-dominant will mean a lifetime of trying to compensate for the issue with less than ideal shooting positions.
 
If you don't have any experience shooting pistols and you're left-eye dominant, I'd say it's worth your while to give learning to shoot left-handed an honest try.

You may find out that it just doesn't work for you at all, but if it does work then I think you'll find that you'll be a better pistol shooter down the road for not having to deal with cross-dominance issues.
 
There are definitely some things about shooting that aren't intuitively obvious. A good trainer can help you steer around some of the speedbumps.

I'd be suspicious of a trainer, claiming to be a pro, who didn't start a brand new shooter out by checking eye dominance before doing anything else. ;)
 
I agree with that, but it doesn't mean they would suggest switching to your weak hand.

So far just checking with some dry fire test I still tend to crank my head over. I guess it's become a natural habit for me to lean over to look down the barrel of a gun. :(
 
Something a shooting coach might observe and offer:
Dynamic combat shooting plays by other rules,but if you are developing marksmansip skills consider that a reasonably still,stable stance will be helpful.
What mechanism of the human body controls equilibrium?Something about the inner ear,a little ball of bone acting like a level bubble,yes?
Suppose we are wobblier with our head tilted?
I shoot best with my bones stacked balanced over my feet,myfeet pointing my bones in the right direction so my muscles don't have to pull something over.(Natural point of aim,move your feet to point the gun at the target.)
Standing natural,looking at the target,head up and natural,I bring the gun up so my eyes happen to be looking through the sights at the target.If I can just squeeze the trigger while I focus on the perfect sight picture,not the target,but the front sigh,level with the rear sight,and two even light gaps on each side,generally pointed at the target,if I really focus on that as I squeeze,bang,recoil.I want a mental picture of what the sights looked like at recoil.If I have that picture,I did not cringe in anticipation.My eye was open,looking at the sights,and I should know,a little high,left.
Not that it is real important,but,that seventy some year old guy that was shooting high 290's at 25 yds,that is all done one handed.
 
I definitely understand and don't disagree with the equilibrium issue. Just a habit I will have to work on if I try to switch hands.

I do have the mental picture when the hammer breaks of if I was high or left or whatever... obviously your hands aren't rock solid and I see them move so I know if I was on or off when it happens.

Good description of what to do though... I like it.
 
...it doesn't mean they would suggest switching to your weak hand.
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I wouldn't suggest switching either.

But for someone brand new to shooting, I would think any professional trainer would at least explore the possibility of having a new shooter start out shooting using the dominant eye hand.

Switching is hard. When you're just starting out you don't have anything to unlearn so it's a completely different story.

The equilibrium issue is a good one. One of the best competitive rifle shooters of our time, David Tubb, has his rifles set up so that he can keep his head perfectly straight up while sighting his rifle. He eliminates even the small amount of head tilt that most people employ when shooting a rifle.

While it's more of an issue when precision is the goal, I would say that even in dynamic shooting one will find that performance is better if the head is in a reasonably natural position.

And in dynamic shooting, shooting with both eyes open is the goal. This is very difficult to do, perhaps impossible, when you are shooting cross-dominant.
 
I have one small simple suggestion that I have not seen mentioned yet.
Doule up the hearing protection. Ear plugs under the muffs. I have a female coworker that I was shooting with. She was deadly accurate with the .22 lr. When she stepped up to the 9mm. Her first shot was to the x in the 10 ring of a B27 at 15 yards. every shot after that was worse than the one before. I could see her trembeling when squeezing the trigger for each following shot. We called it a day soon after that.
Next trip she was flinching awfuly. I asked her what was going on. She stated that it was so loud it scared her. I gave her a pair of ear plugs to put in. She went with double hearing protection, and figured it was not so loud then. Her shooting started to improve greatly after that.
Note 3 days later she took her CHL class. She had the top score in the class of 240 of 250.
 
Good suggestion M&P, but my wife isn't scared of the sound for sure. We use foamies and they do a pretty good job, we were also out in the wide open so it didn't retain any of the sound.
 
Over the years I've been asked by many people for some advice on various aspects of getting started in firearms. I finally started putting some of the advice in writing and then collected it into one document. It's grown to about 15 pages at this time.

For what it's worth, here are the first couple of pages of general information before it goes into focusing primarily on cleaning procedures and materials. Maybe some of it will be helpful.

Getting Started in Firearms
This document assumes that the reader is familiar with the basic rules of firearm safety. Those should be second nature before the need to clean a handgun ever arises.
  • ALWAYS keep the firearm pointed in a safe direction.
  • ALWAYS keep your finger off the trigger unless you intend to shoot.
  • ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded unless you intend to shoot.
These 3 rules will prevent accidental injury or death if they are followed. ANY time a person is accidentally shot at least one of the 3 basic rules has been broken. A fourth rule is also very important in determining what a “safe direction” is: ALWAYS be sure of your target and what is beyond it. Bullets from modern firearms can penetrate a surprising amount of target material and can travel for more than a mile downrange.

What you don’t need
Ego. Forget about proving anything and instead make it your goal to do things right and to be SAFE. Concentrate on what you’re doing, read manuals, read instructions, read cautions, follow the safety rules, double and triple-check everything anytime there’s a chance of property damage or injury. Get some professional training and don’t be too proud or ashamed to ask for help when you need it. You’ll be better and safer for it and so will those around you.

A Firearm Owners Manual
These are usually available free of charge from the manufacturer. I’ve owned many guns but I still read the manual from cover to cover when I buy a new gun. You can save yourself a lot of hassle, time, money and prevent injuries or death by reading the manual. You DO have the time to read it and there IS useful information in it. For one thing, you’ll need to know how to refer to the various parts of your firearm in order to be able to converse easily with other firearms owners and in order to read the instructions below.

A Case
The case should protect the firearm if it is dropped during transport and should also provide a safe place to put the firearm while it is being stored. There is a wide variety of cases (both soft & hard) available. Protect your investment by purchasing one if your firearm didn’t come with one from the manufacturer. Be sure to purchase something of quality and something that is specifically made for firearms since some gun cleaning/preservative products can break down the materials found in general purpose cases or budget cases. That will result in damage to the case and can result in damage to the gun.

A Range Bag
A range bag doesn’t have to be fancy. I used an old backpack as my range bag for years. You need something to hold magazines, ammunition, your firearm case, hearing protection and eye protection, etc. A range bag will protect your equipment and will help insure that you get everything you need to the range and back home again when you’re done.

Hearing Protection
Don’t skimp. Using poor quality or inadequate hearing protection is uncomfortable, can make long shooting sessions much less enjoyable and can result in permanent hearing damage. It is important to understand that shooting firearms without hearing protection will result in permanent hearing damage. Notice I didn’t say it “might” or it “can”. It WILL.

Make sure that the headband is padded and that the foam ear pads (and the foam inside the ear cups) are replaceable. I highly recommend replacing the foam ear pads with gel pads if that is an option. The comfort difference is impressive and they also seal better.

If you’re shooting a lot indoors, shooting rifles indoors or shooting compensated guns, use foam earplugs in ADDITION your muffs. Firearms are VERY loud, and typical hearing protection only knocks the sound down by about 30dB or so. The muffled sound is still very loud, still above the levels that can cause hearing damage with repeated exposure. Doubling up on hearing protection will help save your hearing and when you get older, you won’t have to say: “What?” nearly as much.

I shot a lot of years and a lot of rounds before I finally got some really good hearing protection. You don’t have to make the same mistake.

Eye Protection
The earpieces should be thin and should lie flat against your temples so that they don’t affect the seal of your ear muffs. The lenses MUST be made of polycarbonate.

I’ve had an empty case from an automatic eject straight back and cut a quarter inch semicircle of polycarbonate out of my shooting glasses instead of my eye. I’ve also had a small spring bounce off a hard contact lens and have accidentally gotten solvent sprayed in my eyes while cleaning a gun. Protective glasses are a must for dealing with all aspects of firearms, shooting, cleaning and reloading.

If you wear prescription glasses, talk to your eye doctor. He can very easily make up a set of safety glasses with prescription lenses. These can be very reasonably priced if you don’t get fancy with the frames or lens options.​
 
You start people who are shooting rookies at five yards to target.

They need to actually see where the rounds are hitting to get a feel for what they need to do.

Yes,that's close as heck but once they can get a decent group then you move that target out to ten yards and so on.

Never start any new shooter at twenty five yards.
 
As a teacher, I've come increasingly to value the approach that Real just posted: build on success. If any shooter finds 5 yards too easy, he or she can then back up, and that's more satisfying than correcting misses from 25.

That said, your wife isn't just 'any shooter,' and this rang true with me:
have you considered a shooting course or hiring a "trainer" at a range?
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I'm a climbing instructor, and my wife and I love climbing together. But I'm convinced that's easier now because when we started, she took a class from someone other than me.
 
I thought it was pretty interesting that you infered being an artist to being possibly a good shot. It's not exactly the case. Art develops different kinds of motor skills or dexterity that are more kin to typing or sewing. In general it's possible to be just good with your hands and nothing more. Another reason that art doesn't help in the shooting game, you don't have to compensate or react to feedback from art tools. Somebody who would have better success would be one who plays sports or was a mechanic maybe as some of shooting fundamentals can be applied to playing sports.

Some of the better first time shooters I've taken also were athletic.

I took a fellow soldier out who's a female. She was having essentially the same problems. We were in an indoor range and started the target at about 10 yards and she missed a full magazine so I couldn't even tell what her problem was without having any holes in the target. I then brought the target closer to about 5 yards and found that she was grazing the bottom of the target.

I use this example because she has already been trained in the fundamentals of shooting a rifle so she was under the impression that she SHOULD be good at shooting a pistol and it proved otherwise.

You can know the theory of shooting all day but it doesn't do very good without proper familiarization with the equipment.

You obviously are already set to fine tuning your skills to become better but she just needs to wade in the kiddy pool for a while and really get used to that pistol's recoil. Talking her head off about what she's doing wrong may do her no good and only frustrate her. Just let her shoot a BUNCH more and a few of the problems will solve itself. Not all but a few. Then she may become better receptive to coaching.
 
Good post, I completely agree.

I have just always had problems with "fine" motor skills being a short coming at me getting "great" at anything I have tried to do (play music or whatever). It was meerily an assumption.

I also agree, I don't talk her head off about it. Every now and then I ask her if she has been doing her dry fire practice and most of the time the answer is no. I only say that she should try if she finds her self with a little extra time and I don't say anything more.
 
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