Just got my first revolver what distance would you say is best to improve accuracy?

B

Bomani Chisulo

Inactive
It's a Ruger New Model Blackhawk in 357 magnum it has a 6.5" barrel, and I am shooting 38 specials out of it as its the first handgun I've ever fired in my life. I shot around 30 shots out of it today at around 25-30 yards and only hit the target 15 times in a 1 foot grouping so I have really bad accuracy. Should I be moving closer to the target or get a brighter target or what?

With my rifles and shotguns at the same distance I am able to get a 1-2 inch grouping and still improving.

Do y'all have any tips on how to improve my accuracy with this revolver other then practice practice and more practice?

I have no issues with recoil as I can barely feel it and no flinching just crappy accuracy.

Really want better accuracy since I would like to be an armed body guard

Thanks all for your answers
-Bomani
 
Try sitting with your wrists supported. 50 feet to 25 yards is plenty at first.

Once you start to realize how a really good sight picture looks and surprise break feels, you can move to two hand standing unsupported.

Dry firing, by the way, is a great skill builder- just make sure the gun is empty and the live ammo is somewhere else. Focus on the best sight picture you can produce. Front sight.....presssss. You can do this at home for 15 minutes every day.
 
Closer distances will not improve your shooting, but it will make it a little faster for you to recognize errors in your hold, sighting, and/or follow through.
Say 10 yds. or so. That should tighten up groups and let you start seeing what you might be able to correct.

Skill level aside, when I get any new handgun, first thing I do is get the gun shooting to the sights.

On a bench or steady rest that allows the gun to recoil freely should come close to your offhand impact. Shooting from the rest will also help you learn the trigger.

There will be folks along to tell you to get a .22 to start. It is cheaper to learn fundamentals with lower cost ammo.

JT
 
The only way to improve accuracy is to practice. The more the better. Practice at ranges just beyond your comfort zone. Since you've already said you suck at 25 yards, I'd practice until you become proficient at that range.

Then the only problem you'll have is to decide what size groups constitute "proficient."

You also need to decide what kind of shooting we're talking about. One handed target? Two handed? Weaver stance? Isosceles?

http://www.realfighting.com/content.php?id=143

http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=35436

Determine your objectives then practice, practice, practice. It all hinges on practice.
 
First handgun:
...25-30 yards and only hit the target 15 times in a 1 foot grouping
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First off, handguns are hard to fully master.

Second, they will hit what they are aimed at when they go off.

An invariable Third is that they are largely aimed someplace else when they do go off for new shooters -- because of flinch.

Fourth, flinch is an instinctive/natural reaction to loud & abrupt insult to the body.

Fifth (Solution Part A): Trigger squeeze -- Never know exactly when the gun will go off. The body then cannot flinch before firing.

Fifth (Solution Part B): Practice, practice, practice ... that squeeze, without that insult, until the body is trained out of its instinct as a matter of habit.

GRAND BOTTOM LINE: Dry fire, dry fire, dry fire, dry fire, dry fire ... until the cows come home. Get used to that hammer falling and the sights never even wavering one iota from the bull. Not one eensy weensy teensy iota.

Thousands upon thousand of dry fire cycles for competitive shooters is their deep dark hidden secret
 
First, welcome to the forum and congrats on purchasing a fine gun!

Here's my advice; leave the ego at the front door and start out at short distance, maybe 5 yards. Then go to 7, 10, 15 etc...... When you get really good (and you will) at short distances, it will make you better at long distances with practice. It's much easier to improve when you can easily see what you're doing wrong.

Best of luck. ;)
 
Most important is to have someone who knows how show you how to shoot it.
As the saying goes, practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.
 
25 yards is really far for a 1st time out with a handgun. As other's have said, start out closer and move out. This isn't a rifle or shotgun, just don't make that comparison. They aren't even close to the same. You will never shoot skeet with your .357.

Look up everything you can about grip and stance.
 
Start off at 7 to 10 yards and shot at a larger target area . How you stand or sit does not matter much, you will figure that out. Use an aim point or " dot" that is about the size of your front sight is on the target. 3" maybe. Don't worry about sight adjustments at first . If it groups well is all you need at first. Don't choke a single actions grip. Just snug it up with your middle two fingers , It will want to roll up in the hand , let it do so. It ma also be eaiser to shot one handed than with two and if your natural grip , one handed want to roll the handgun inward a little that's fine too. most of use do.

Stand and point your finger at something or act like your throwing a straight punch , note the angle of the hand . Hold the revolver the same way. You don't need the perfect very vertical grip specially at first.

When shooting 38sp in a 357 remember to scrub of the crud form the 38 in the chambers before shooting 357. Not doing so can make seating 357 ammo difficult to do or impossible and cause higher chamber pressures that could cause a ka boom so keep it clean.

Down the road think about some very basic reloading equipment and you can load 357 brass to 38sp velocity and not have to deal with the crud ring.

Most of all , don't work at shooting , just enjoy it and shot at what ever distance's YOU want to. After 46 years of handguns I still enjoy shooting at short range as much as see what can do at long range.
 
What nc-oldfart said. Years ago, my first revolver - and first shooting experience with a handgun, involved groups that looked like patterns from a shotgun with buckshot at 25 yards. ( I was shooting only 50 FEET).

After some serious talk with my brother in law - who was a small arms instructor in the Army at the time - (Rangers/Spec-Ops) - he told me to START shooting at 7 to 10 FEET. That's right - FEET, not yards -- Increasing distance a few feet at a time, as soon as you could manage to shoot a one-hole group. Two weeks at the range, and I could shoot a raggedy one-hole group in the X-ring at 50 feet. Start close, using good shooting form & practices. -- Practice is more expensive than excuses, but it pays off.
 
Your gun might not like the ammo you're using.
If you're shooting lead bullets in remanufactured loads, or 130 gr fmj's, that could be a lot of the problem.
 
've ever fired in my life. I shot around 30 shots out of it today at around 25-30 yards and only hit the target 15 times in a 1 foot grouping so I have really bad accuracy. Should I be moving closer to the target or get a brighter target or what?
Click to expand...

You should get some instruction. There are non-obvious details of grip, stance, trigger control, etc. that will help immensely.
 
25 yards is really far for a 1st time out with a handgun
Click to expand...

I disagree. I see posts on other (non-firearms related) forums of guys bragging about groups at 3 yards. Really?

I think the OP is right on track. A newcomer to handgun shooting. He hit the target 15 times at 25 yards.

OP. Keep it up. Guaranteed you'll be amazed how fast you improve. Next time I guarantee you'll have 18 holes on the target. Then 25. Etc.

You're doing fine.

Work on your breathing. Line the sights up. Take a breath. Start to exhale. After about half of your air is exhaled, hold your breath. As you hold your breath, start to squeeeeze, not jerk, but squeeeeeze the trigger. You do all this while keeping a consistent sight picture.

Not all guns are ok for dry firing. Lucky for you, you have a gun that can be dry fired. After you make sure the gun is unloaded (and check that sucker at least twice), aim at a small spot on the wall. Using whatever stance you decided on (Weaver, isosceles, etc), get the sight picture, inhale/exhale/hold your breath, start to squeeeeeeze the trigger.

After the hammer drops, you want the sight picture to be the same as when you started the exercise.

Also, when you go to the range, begin with some warm-up exercises, viz. the above dry firing drill.

Then load your gun with a couple of empty chambers. Four live rounds. Two empty chambers. Spin the cylinder so that you don't know where the live rounds are.

Drop the hammer on all six cylinders.

Here's the important part. When the hammer drops on an empty cylinder, what does the sight picture look like? Some people anticipate the recoil and try to compensate by pushing the muzzle down. That's not good?

When that happens, the sight picture is way off where it should be. So with this exercise, when the hammer drops on an empty cylinder, the sights ideally will be exactly where they should be.

Stick with the 25 yard targets. You do yourself no favor by lowering the bar.
 
Brand new?

For brandie-new shooters I start them at 7--10 feet.
We build confidence.

As things build, the target gets farther.......
 
I think the obvious answer is to start shooting so close there are powder burns on the target, then move the target back until you start to have difficulty grouping reasonably well. Then practice at that range until you group well, then move the target further back. Rinse. Repeat.
 
7 yards is a good place to start (see where you are shooting, and adjust sights if groups are not centered on target) . When you can put 5 in one hole (should be doable at this short range off hand) then move to 10 yards. Then 15 Y and finally 25 Y. Note at 15 to 25 yards, one holers are rare, but at 25Y it should be easy to keep on a 8" paper plate (usually a much tighter group is possible off hand). As you build confidence, so will your shooting skills. You will have to tweak the sights to get to point of aim the further you get out. What seems to be 'right on' at 7 yards maybe an inch or two off at 15Y. .38s are a good way to start as being a mild load. You don't want to deal much with 'flinch' at this point. And remember ... Rome wasn't built in a day.... Takes lots of practice!

Note when I say one hole, that isn't bullets one on top of each other. What I mean is all 5 holes touching or close to it. You'll know when you are there, or where you want to be.

Since you are new to revolvers, .... forgot to mention. Use good form. Keep your finger out of the trigger guard when you cock the gun. When you in-line with target, then insert your trigger finger. Sort of make this second nature. Then use the pad of your finger under the nail to squeeze the trigger. Don't insert finger so knuckle crease is on the trigger. Just the pad.

Also there is a little thing called lock time. From the time the hammer is released to the time it hits the firing pin is a significant amount of time. You have to stay on target during this time period. A tiny twitch will pull the bullet one way or another. Makes revolvers just a bit more challenging to shoot over rifles....


Later after you know your gun a bit better....

You'll know when you are getting some trigger finger control, when you start detecting the creep in the trigger and it starts driving you nuts. Also the amount of pressure to pull the trigger will rear it's head at some point. At that point, you may want to drop one leg of the trigger return spring (half the load) and see what difference that makes in your groups. Called the poor man's trigger job. If you like it, you can leave it, or buy a Wolf spring to get you where you want to be.... A smith might be in order to remove much of the creep... Might say here the games begin to make the gun shoot like you'd like it too!

One more thing.... Once you have the basics down... Then I agree with the above poster... The only way to keep improving is to shoot far targets. If you can hit those well, then the shorter distances will seem like a walk in the park. We have small steel targets out at 50-77 yards. I make sure I practice on them every time out as they are the hardest to hit. I feel it helps me anyway.... Even my .44Spec CA Bulldog gets some action at those distances.
 
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I'd move the target close enough that you can see all of your shots.

Knowing where you're hitting tells you a lot about what you're doing wrong.

Once you can manage 2-3” groups at that range, move the target back far enough that you can only manage 6-8" groups. Shoot at that range until your groups shrink back down.
Repeat as needed until you're shooting at the range you want.

I firmly disagree that you should stick it out at 25 yards.
You won't improve as quickly, and you'll waste a ton of ammo trying to pinpoint what you're doing wrong.
 
I remember my first center fire handgun; it was a 6" Colt Python 357 mag. I was a terrible shot with this highly touted revolver. I also had a couple 22 DA revolvers and could shoot pretty well, but was lousy with the 357.

It wasn't until I got a 41 mag that I told myself that I AM going to shoot this revolver well!! It took a while, but I did, and when I went back to the Python that was gathering dust, I shot it fairly well then too. But I got rid of the Python and bought a Colt Trooper Mark III and love this particular revolver.

I think you're doing fairly well by the way. Relax and have fun.

At the beginning, shoot at fairly close range where you can see your hits (like 30 feet). Some shoot at 10 feet, but I find that kind of ridiculous. Get the shoot just to shoot out of your system and begin to pay attention to the fundamentals of shooting a handgun. Shoot slowly. Wear hearing protection ALWAYS. As you begin to improve, move your target distance out a bit and shoot some more. If you are getting frustrated, move back closer and shoot some more. You'll get the hang of it. Think fundamentals... grip, breathing, trigger contol, sight alignment, safety and so forth.

If you start to flinch badly and you hadn't earlier, hang it up for the day because you're probably tired.
 
I have to strongly disagree with some of the early posts which are soooo wrong. Shooting in close is the ONLY way you will be able to establish technique and immediately see the result. Missing beyond your comfort level or shooting at distance beyond you skill level will not help you.

Assume a good standing position and start at 3-5 yards line using a 1 inch dot. When you can shoot one hole groups, then move back. Precision work in close will carry through to further distances....nothing in the technique should change.
 
I consider myself a pretty good revolver shot, and I shoot a lot. That being said, I rarely practice at distance past 10 yards. I consider myself a practical shooter. I focus on speed and target acquisition rather than pinpoint accuracy. I carry a revolver for self defense, and combat handgun situations occur within 7 yards most of the time. I'm not sure what security guards are required to qualify at, but I'd assume shooting fast is preferred to shooting out to long distances.

Another thing to consider is that you're shooting a single action revolver, which most experts will agree is not really viable defense gun due to the slow time it takes to cock the gun. That being said, it's a fine target and hunting gun. And it's capable of very good accuracy.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I decided to try some distance shooting with my Smith and Wesson 4" barrel. The following target shows how I did. All of this shooting was done in double action (I actually shoot better that way, I'm just not used to single action shooting).

targetdistance.jpg


Like I said, I think I'm a pretty good shot, but there are people WAY, WAY better than me. I'm talking group half the size of mine or even smaller. Granted, a Model 10 does not have target sights. They are wide. And a 6" or 8" barrel would help as well. All that being said, these group sizes are tight enough for self defense (although, I'd never engage a target 35 yards unless they were pointing a rocket launcher at me or already shooting at me and I couldn't run).
 
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