HELP Shooting high and to the left

G

gilfo

New member
Getting pretty frustrated with my shooting. I seem to shoot high and to the left all the time. Take my time, breath, squizeing trigger. Checked a chart that points out that I am
1-Pushing anticipating recoil
2-Trigger finger not placed correctly on trigger.

I've tried using the pad of my finger and at the first joint still having problem. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Pistols in use Walther P22, Walther P1 and CZ Rami.
Thanks
 
Try focusing on the front sight as you press the trigger straight back with only the trigger finger moving, increasing pressure on the trigger until the shot breaks by surprise. Don't try to predict exactly when the gun will go off nor try to cause the shot to break at a particular moment. This is what Jeff Cooper called the "surprise break."

BY keeping focus on the front sight and increasing pressure on the trigger until the gun essentially shoots itself, you don’t anticipate the shot breaking. But if you try to make the shot break at that one instant in time when everything seem steady and aligned, you usually wind up jerking the trigger. Of course the gun will wobble some on the target. Try not to worry about the wobble and don’t worry about trying to keep the sight aligned on a single point. Just let the front sight be somewhere in a small, imaginary box in the center of the target.

Also, work on follow through. Be aware of where on the target the front sight is as the shot breaks and watch the front sight lift off that point as the gun recoils – all the time maintaining focus on the front sight.

Also, while practice in very important, remember that practice doesn’t make perfect. It’s “PERFECT practice makes perfect.” More frequent practice shooting fewer rounds, but concentrating hard on what you’re doing, will be more productive than less frequent, higher round count practice.

Think: front sight, press, surprise.
 
Are you sure that not where the pistol shoots?
Where does it group when someone else shoots it?
What hand are you shooting with?
Have you changed ammo?
That all for now;)
 
Any chance that the sights are off a bit? If you're pretty sure that you're using the right techniques, take the gun to a reputable gunsmith and see if he can determine if they're out of alignment. He can easily boresight the gun and compare the sight alignment to his boresighting tools in a couple of minutes. If that is the case, then he can probably replace the faulty sights in a couple of days for you.
 
gilfo

I read your post, with the little you have said I'm afraid it would be "shooting in the dark" to try and help.

I think you have received lots of great insight into the what might be wrong.

I really wanted to talk you about one thing that you said "Getting pretty frustrated with my shooting". So many folks came to my fundamentals of shooting classes either failing to qualify or banashed there by superiors expressing your words or worse. I recognized that in some the only bad shooting habit they had was their frustration, and we all should know that practicing bad habits just engranes them more.

So I am going to cheerlead you a little with a story that I use to tell my people before we started remedial training, you can read or not, I'll give you the moral of the story up front, "once you have fixed this problem and are able to hit what you aim at, all of the rounds you shot yesterday or last week won't mean a thing." all is not lost, patience in shooting is a must have skill!

As A boy in my early teens I knew a man, Jacob Black, he was old as the hills around our ranch, a ferrier (horse shoer) by trade an a double action shootist by passion. I was a fair 22 rifle shot but had never really been around center fire pistols.

One day I screwed up enough nerve to ask Mr Black if he would teach me to shoot pistols, you see gilfo, Mr. Black could float a tin can in mid air with his two K-38 combat masterpieces firing double action, and I just had to do that. To my great joy Jacob said that it was a "right fine Idea" as long as I paid for my own components, and that I helped him reload. It ran about $1.50 a week in 1962 dollars, a couple of 3 hours of hard work for a ranch kid in those days.

So, every Saturday afternoon Jacob and I would spend in his work shack while I learned to reload, 2.4 Bullseye, 140 wad cutter. When we had "enough" loaded, Jacob sat me at the kitchen table and pulled out a K-38 4" showed me how it worked and said this one is yours to use, now lets go shooten.

Things at first went OK, Jacob was a very patient teacher, but as I progressed thru single action to double action to fast double action using the sights, it got very hard. I started shooting many more misses then hits, and then I would watch Jacob shooting pop bottle caps and floating tin cans off the fence rail double action not using the sights, and I became very frustrated about not getting any where and making noise about quiting.

That next Sunday I got invited over for supper, Mrs Black was a better cook than my moma and so I was there with bells on. It is there at the dinner table that I received one of the best shooting lesson of my life. After dinner Jacob said to me" you know Bobby, you shot a lot of misses the last few days, but they are not important, YOU CAN NOT INFLUNENCE THEM ANY MORE, they are gone and you must forget them. So lets go get the guns and go shoot, this time I want you to think about the shot coming up in front of the hammer, cause IT IS THE ONLY ONE YOU CAN INFLUNENCE! it has the chance to be perfect, if you are.

I would like to say that the heavens opened and I was much better right then, but it doesn't work that way, I did slowly get better, I did learn to forget about the previous shot and focus only on the next shot and my frustration level went away, as that happened I got better Quicker.

So The point is, that FRUSTRATION AFFECTS US ALL, IT IS JUST ANOTHER BAD SHOOTING HABIT THAT WE ALL HAVE TO BREAK.

By the way, never did get a tin can to float, can still skip one along the ground.


I don't know your shooting skill level, but I want to second the thought that if you have not taken a formal class in the basics of shooting, I highly recommend that. I recommend a basic skills level class, I know every one wants to be High Speed - Low Drag right out of the gate. However building those boring fundamentals will be the foundation on which to build what ever shooting sports house you choose. Without them it is very hard to progress.

If your in my area, leave an e-mail, we can get'er done, on the cuff.

Good Luck & Be Safe
 
Move the target high and to the right. Just kidding.:D If any of your pistols can be dry fired, you should try that. It's much easier see what you are doing wrong if you're not worried about where your shot hits. When dry firing be sure to follow through just as if you are going to double tap. Pay close attention to what the gun is doing (if you are pushing or pulling off the target) as you squeeze off your shot. Shooting a competition grade air pistol has helped my shooting. The air pistol is very unforgiving and your mistakes are very obvious. I dry fire my air pistol almost as much as I live fire it.
 
I would agree on adjusting your sights. This happened to me when I bought my Walther P99, all my shots were to the left, so I practiced drawing and making sure the gun was comfortable in my hand, when I brought it up to my natural shooting position my front sight was more to the left, so I adjusted my back sight to the left at the range, Everything dead center. Good luck with it. A really good indications of the sights need to be adjusted if you have really tight groups.
 
You lcould think about going back to basics by buying a revolver and skip loading practicing the squeeze. You dry fire until the surprise live round goes off. This is the best way to get over any kind of a flinch. After doing this for some time you will be a good pistol shot with any type handgun.
 
Grab your camcorder and go to the range and record your shooting up close and far away. Go home crack a beer and hit the play button. You may be amazed at what you find.(or not) It worked for me.(No,not the beer):D
 
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