Stumped about accuracy

A

Ace_Breaker

New member
Today I'm a little confused after a trip to the range. I duty carry a Glock 34 and put new Trijicons on it. It was shooting high and over to the left with the sights at factory settings. I tried adjusting the sights over and got them to adjust enough to make the group closer to the center. It wasn't perfect though. I kept putting rounds to the left and high. I know about trigger slap and all that. The rangemaster watched and said they thought it was my trigger finger, not slapping, but thought I was speeding up the trigger pull near the end of the pull. I then fired my Glock 26 only to have a super tight group in the ten ring. The little bugger was awesome! Back to the 34 and more shooting up and to the left. The rounds were all in a nice group. I then pulled out my HK P2000sk. To my surprise it also shot way to the left at about 7-10 yards with a much looser group than the Glock. The cause was again suggested to be trigger finger. I went back to the 26 and it fired perfectly on target. We were all a bit confused. I'm not sure if I need to pull the sights over on the other guns or do more dry fire/ live fire practice with a focus on the trigger finger. I've been shooting for decades and shoot expert rifle and pistol. The guy next to me said he'd be happy with my groups compared to his. The groups were nice, I'm thinking it's just needing the sights adjusted but the rangemaster has me thinking it might be my booger finger. I also shoot with the front sight over the target and to fix the shots being high I had to aim at 6 o'clock. It's puzzling to have to adjust my sight picture as well. I also shot to make sure I wasn't focusing on the target by accident and still the results to the left. I'm just looking for perfection and can't find it!! Any qualified, experienced people have a thought?
 
Verify the rear sight is tight and not moving around, after that hand the gun to another experienced shooter and see what it does. All that extra grip on the 34 could be causing you problems, you may be contacting muscles in that part of the heel of your hand that don't mean a thing on the compacts because the don't touch the short grips.
 
Interesting. After much trigger work and aftermarket sights, I still cannot shoot my G20 as accurate as my G33. I couldn't hit the side of a barn from the start but I am getting better with the 20 now. It has proven to be the biggest challenge for me though and I've yet to figure it out.

I don't claim to be an exceptional shot, quite the contrary, but I'm happy with all the groups I can get with all my handguns except that darn G20.
 
Are you sure its the gun???

Sounds like "Heeling" to me. Get someone with know abilities to fire your gun before you start screwing with it.
 
I was going to suggest the same thing kraigwy did; as well as Navy Joe's suggestion.

Could be heeling, due to the difference in grip size. Could also be the difference in trigger reach causing you to use a different squeeze.

I'd also recommend having somebody else shoot the gun first.

FWIW, I had a bunch of work done on a Browning, only to find it has made no difference to my shooting with the Browning - even though the quality of the work was excellent. In my case, the BHP is smaller than what I normally shoot (with regards to trigger reach) and I suspect that is causing me some issues.

Good luck,

M
 
What's 'heeling'?

Also take heart, if you're shooting tight groups with your Glock 26 (or any of your handguns for that matter) you know you're doing SOMETHING right.
 
Heeling is pushing the bottom of the grip with the heal of your shooting hand in antisipating the recoil. With right hand shooters the groups will be high left.

Tight group or not, its not right. You may get it to work at one range, at one shooting session, but it wont always work.

Better to study and practice standard marksmanship fundamentals.
 
Copy, and file where you can have it handy. Better yet make a copy and put it on a bulletin board. I do even though I memorized this 40 years ago.

Error Analysis and Correction
Army Marksmanship Unit​

The Wheel of Misfortune
Every day of the shooter's life brings a new lesson. Identifying errors are crucial in order that these lessons be learned. The following chart can help pinpoint such basic flaws in a shooter's technique by analyzing group locations. As printed, it is for a right-handed shooter. (A left-hander's chart would be mirrored horizontally.)



Top Eleven Bad Habits of Shooters
1. Not Looking at the Sights. This quite frequently is listed as "looking at the target." A shooter may be focusing his eye on neither the sights nor the target, but since he does not see the target in clear focus he assumes he is looking at the sights. You must concentrate on sight alignment.

2. Holding Too Long. Any adverse conditions that interrupt a shooter's ability to "hold" will cause him to delay his squeeze, waiting for conditions to better. The disturbing factor about this is that you will do it unconsciously; therefore, you must continuously ask yourself, am I being too particular?

3. Improper Grip or Position. Suffice to say that you cannot fire a decent score with any gun at any range if you continually change your grip or position.

4. Jerk or Heel. The application of pressure either with the trigger finger alone or in case of the heel, pushing with the heel of the hand at the same time. Apply pressure to the trigger straight to the rear and wait for the shot to break.

5. Anticipation. Anticipation can cause muscular reflexes of an instant nature that so closely coincide with recoil that extreme difficulty is experienced in making an accurate call. Anticipation is also the sire to flinching.

6. Loss of Concentration. If the shooter fails in his determination to apply positive pressure on the trigger while concentrating on the front sight his prior determination needs renewal and he should rest and start over.

7. Anxiety. You work and work on a shot, meanwhile building up in your mind doubt about the shot being good. Finally you shoot just to get rid of that particular round so you may work on the others.

8. Vacillation (Plain Laziness). This is a mental fault more than a physical one, which results in your accepting minor imperfections in your performance which you could correct if you worked a little harder. The end result being you hope you get a good shot. Just like you hope you will get a gratis tax refund, and you will get one just about as frequently as you get the other.

9. Lack of Follow Through. Follow through is the subconscious attempt to keep everything just as it was at the time the shot broke. In other words you are continuing to fire the shot even after it is gone. Follow through is not to be confused with recovery. Merely recovering and holding on the target after the shot is no indication that you are following through.

10. Lack of Rhythm. Hesitancy on the first shot or any subsequent shot in timed or rapid fire. Develop a good rhythm and then have the fortitude to employ it every case. Frequently many shooters will have fine rhythm until the last shot of a string and then hesitate, doctoring up that last shot.

11. Match Pressure. If there are 200 competitors in a match, rest assured that there are 200 shooters suffering from match pressure. So what makes you think you are so different? If you are exerting all your mental energy toward executing the correct fundamentals rather than the arithmetic evaluation, your shooting match pressure will be what you feel when people congratulate you on a fine performance.

http://www.bullseyepistol.com/training.htm
Click to expand...
 
I find that I'm more accurate with my G26 that my G17. I have large hands and I find that the grip fits very well in my palm. That helps especially when I draw from concealment.

With the G17 the swell on the back of the grip fits in a different place. I have to adapt to it when I shoot from a draw.

Dave
 
Thanks for the great information everyone. It goes to show you that you need to keep up on skills to perform at your peak. I shoot quite a bit but have been doing just that and not really training to maintain skill levels if that makes sense.
 
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