What handgun isn't accurate

E

Elvishead

Moderator
I was at the gun range one day, and overheard a guy that seemed to know nothing about handguns saying, "I want a handgun that is really accurate"

I thought to my self, with in reason, "What handgun isn't accurate in realistic handgun range let's say 5-25 yards. But more like 5-15 yards"

I had people say there handgun isn't accurate until I show them it was accurate by shooting it.

Also, I had somebody tell me the Beretta Bobcat 21A 22lr isn't accurate, until I bought one, and showed him it was accurate at least to 10 yards for me (Hard gun to shoot).

Sure, you have your handguns that can shoot a 1-2" group at a 100 yards but those are very special high rated, and expensive guns.

What do you think? It's got to be the shooter most of the time!
 
I guess it depends on exactly what is meant by "accurate".

As far as I can recall, every handgun that I've ever shot (with decent sights) would make 3" groups or smaller (usually smaller) at 15 yards with ammunition it liked.

The only times that I can recall running into problems attaining that level of accuracy have been due to "vestigial" sights :D or due to a severe problem with the ammunition. For example, I one had a batch of 10mm that would keyhole out of a Glock 20 at 15 yards.
 
Oh there certainly are inaccurate guns out there, they're just not commonly used. And with good reason. I once had the great pleasure of firing an RG .22 revolver. Was shooting at a phone book (gotta love informal plinkin' in the woods). Couldn't even hit it most of the time at 20 feet. I'm not a great shot, but even with my pocket pistols, including one that has virtually non-existent sights, hitting a phone book at 20 feet with every round in the mag or cylinder is an easy feat.
 
I had a Glock 19 that had something wrong with it, because at 7 yards it would shoot about a 7" group. I thought that Glock had started making shotguns when I first shot it. I let 6 other people shoot it and no one could get it to group any ammo we tried. We tried Remington UMC bulk 115gr, WWB 115gr, Speer Lawman 115gr, Speer gold dot 124gr, Winchester SXT 147gr, and Federal Hydrashock 124gr. I don't know what that gun's issue was, but I was glad to be rid of it.
 
I think the guy really did know nothing about handguns. It's a lot easier to blame the gun for inaccuracy than it is for the shooter to blame themselves and practice more. There are some guns that are more difficult to be accurate with and some guns easier to be accurate with. But, the guns that are difficult to be accurate with can still usually be plenty accurate in the right hands. Most guns don't have a bent barrel or anything. :)
 
Well it is nice to have a gun that can group two inches, so you have something to work up to if you need to work on practice or technique or something. If you know going in that the thing is gonna fling bullets at random on a target like a shotgun, then you have little incentive to try to improve your skills? It is a mental edge too. If you feel your skills are honed to the point that you can shoot small clusters but the gun is loose or crappy, what is your motivation to drag it and you out to the range, and produce a sloppy pattern all over a target? I know in practical terms it is not that vital to have a small cloverleaf group at 25 yards, and the gun is sufficient to work up close and dirty, but I think it robs you of motivation to practice if you cannot tell if the gun is crappy or if you are having a bad day. And on some ranges the closest you are allowed to a target is the 75 feet.
 
The brand escapes me, but it was a 380 ACP in a less than $100 pistol that only hit the target once at about 25'. And we shot the whole box of 50 (FMJ). Piece of junk. It was meant to be a fishing weight I believe. He sold it to help fund a Star 9mm Largo.
 
I think for the most part, most guns are more accurate than most of us can shoot. The one exception that I shot was a little Jennings pocket pistol. I believe it was chambered in .25 auto, but not 100% sure. At roughly ten yards, one shot would be 5 to ten feet high, the next one would hit the dirt halfway betwen me and the target. Left and right wasn't any better. Besides that, it jammed more often than it worked(and it was clean). Plain and simple it was a piece of junk.

If I knew I was going to be attacked by a bad guy, and my choices of weapons were that Jennings or a baseball bat, I'd choose the bat.
 
I guess there must be some out there, but some handguns just have a bad reputation. When I bought a Colt 1903 (made in 1920) I was told that I'd be lucky to hit the paper at 10 feet. This is 11 yards, the first time I fired it; I was shooting offhand:

Colt190333ft.jpg


The sights are pretty much a bump and a rounded slot. But it ends up that shooting that Colt is like pointing your finger!
 
I equate inaccurate handgun with bad trigger.

I have owned three S&W semi autos. The only accurate one was the Chief's Special 9mm. The 915 was a terrible gun. It had a mushy trigger and after 150 rounds it became a jam-o-matic. The M&P's trigger broke at 8 pounds. I shot good groups with it but they were nowhere near my point of aim. I saw no need to spend the range time getting used to that trigger when I had two Glocks and a 1911 that shoot to my point of aim.

Nobody liked the Beretta 92 I had. When my girlfriend (who had only been shooting for a few months at the time) shot it she said "I don't like the single action trigger on this gun." I agreed with her, the double action broke clean but the single action was sloppy.

My girlfriend has an old 1920 vintage .38 whose back sight is no more than a tiny notch. She can shoot better groups with that than she ever did with the Beretta or the M&P. Trigger makes 'em or breaks 'em. At least in my little corner of the world.
 
Doesn't my Beretta 21A Bobcat have "vestigial" sight?
Click to expand...
I was thinking of the Kel-Tec P32 sights when I typed that. They're just a hair this side of non-existant. There's not really any rear sight at all and the front sight is just a small triangle shaped protrusion near the front of the slide.
 
I guess that depends on which incarnation of the P32 you have. I don't think the sights are THAT bad on mine, which I believe is the most recent variety. The sights don't lend themselves to extreme accuracy, but then again, neither does the gun.
 
I guess as the OP, I was speaking in general terms. Like somebody said, there Glock 19 shoot very inaccurate, but the fact is, the glock 19 is very accurate.

Also you have your weird guns (Japs, Jennings....), but in general, I have never out of about a 100 differant models of handguns shot, not one that didn't get close to POA.

IMOP, it's mostly (99.9%) human.
 
Any S&W J frame with adjustable sights.

Not really, I just can't shoot them very well. The slot in the rear sight blade is just too narrow.
 
I break down accuracy into three areas:

1) Basic mechanical accuracy of the gun. If that's not right, bzzt, fix it, sell it or throw it in the nearest deep body of water. It's unusual this side of a Jennings or Rohm or something to see it REALLY bad. Some calibers are more accurate than others, and subsonics (bullets going less than 1,050fps) usually have an edge. Some *calibers* have a rep for mediocre accuracy...the 40S&W for one. It has a short shell that isn't stabilized all that well in the chamber, it's usually set up with supersonic bullets and for other reasons people don't fully understand, it generally doesn't shoot as tight as either the 9mm or 45ACP. It's not "terrible" but you don't usually see 'em in pro competition, for a reason. Shells that are "long for the caliber" combined with subsonic bullets tend to be very accurate: 22LR, 38Spl, 44Spl, 45LC are all good examples. You can also get accurate supersonic loads but then your best bet is a heavy slug and VERY supersonic, don't mess around with the sound barrier, blast on through with a 454Casull, 475Linebaugh, 500S&W or the like. The 357 can't "blast through" the sound barrier unless you run heavy hardcast loaded hot, and then you "sorta can", but you won't match the heavy big-bore supersonics from the 454 on up.

BUT, the differences we're talking about won't be noticed until you hit 50+ yards, for all practical matters.

2) Usable sights. The sights make an incredible difference. Now granted, I've gone basically gonzo in this direction :). One thing people don't think about is "sight glinting" - in other words, take a bunch of shooters, see where their rounds are going early in the day, check again in the afternoon. The glint depending on where the sun is hitting their sights can throw their point of impact off - even good shooters run into this. I've gone to the last possible insane crazy length to fight glint :).

3630584151_db71ea1b65.jpg


My sights are based on the theories of Tim Sheehan at Goshen Enterprises - his real production sights are better than mine:

http://www.goshen-hexsite.com/index2.htm

3) "Natural pointability": in other words, say you have no access to sights, or have to shoot from the hip. Does the gun "line up correctly" with your hand/wrist/forearm? In this one area, I think the Colt SAA ergonomics of 1873 flat-out dominates, esp. if you tune the grip panel thickness, shape and hammer reach to your hands as I've done with my near-clone Ruger New Vaquero.

What does all this add up to?

Well I can give you an interesting perspective. I went shooting today. Had a *terrible* time...this was out in the desert outside of Tucson, went way out there, went down a side-road that turned into a real roller-coaster of a rocky mess, managed to crash my 450lb streetbike, ended up with a bruised knee, sore right wrist, AWOL rear brake pedal, trashed turn signal...just a lousy time. Finally got it back up and rolling, got to a shooting spot that was already crowded so I couldn't do draw-from-holster work, decided to just plink...had to do so at long range because I was sharing a spot with some rifle guys that liked to bump-fire, NO WAY was I walking downrange.

And despite how crappy things had gone, I was rolling tin cans reliably at 40+ yards. And when I missed, it wasn't by much and windage only.

It was actually a pretty good test in the end: could I make hits even feeling like crap, just starting to get dark, with a shooting hand I'd landed on and had a blood blister on the palm? Answer: yeah. Sure could. Headshot accuracy offhand from a Weaver hold at 25 yards, *easy*. Those sights aren't just insane homebrew, they're also dialed in exactly for elevation and windage for 135 to 140gr ammo, and I had 130gr milsurp 38Spl ball with me, close enough.

Yeah. It's a weird as hell daily CCW piece, but I can hit what I shoot at. Not as fast as I want yet, that'll come...but I've got the basics together.

Now...it's NOT common that you need pinpoint accuracy in a personal defense situation. Most are close-range and fast. "Hostage shots" are incredibly rare, having to plink at some lunatic partially behind cover not quite as rare but still not too common. Having to headshot or hip-drop an assailant wearing a vest is also rare as hell.

But it feels good knowing I can make that kind of shot if I had to.
 
There are some models of course, that has a reputation for being "more accurate" than some others. Mostly related to design...Some related to years of experience in a single model, getting almost perfect in the field of craftsmanship...

However IMHO the best answer to the question, "what handgun is not accurate" is "the one being used by the shooter who is doing something wrong"...:D
As you mentioned...


All the best
 
The late George Nonte broke accuracy pistolsmithing work into two categories: mechanical accuracy and practical accuracy. Mechanical was anything that made a gun group better from a machine rest. Practical accuracy was anything that helped the shooter control and make better hits with the weapon (sights, trigger work, change of grip panels, etc.). Most mass-produced guns can be improved at least some in both categories, even if only from the shooter's perspective with his preference in sights and so on.

As to inherent inaccuracy, that probably is mostly going to come down to mechanical accuracy problems, though I've seen a few things that come pretty close. You are not normally going to get target accuracy out of a gun made to chamber more that one cartridge if the two don't call for the same exact bullet diameter. I am thinking here of combo .410 and .45 Colt revolvers, and revolvers with change-cylinders for .44 Special and .44-40, and that kind of thing. One combination just won't shoot as well as the other. Running modern .452 lead down an old .454 sized Colt barrel leads the barrel fast and doesn't shoot well. So watch your ammo choice.

Back in the 80's, a friend of mine got an H&R single shot in .30-30 that came with a 9 1/2 lb trigger that had a lot of overtravel. Even on bags, neither he nor any of his friends could get it to group. That hard trigger pull slipping past the release and slamming to a stop just disturbed the sights too much. You could tell by dry firing it. I think I finally managed to keep it on an 8" plate off the bags with some practice, but a trigger job was the only cure.

The only inherently bad individual guns I've run into had defects. I once got a Charter Bulldog in .44 Special. One of the 3" ones made by the original Charter company. It would shoot low and left at 25 yards, spraying out a foot and a half in diameter. I sent it back to the factory, and what was returned to me shot under 2" at 25 yards. The factory note said the frame was bent and they sure fixed it. I later learned this was a common complaint with those guns. Likely a heat treat problem. I've seen one Smith model 41 and one 4" Dan Wesson barrel that both had their lands and grooves off-axis with the bore. The DW had grooves 0.006" deep on one side and 0.002" deep on the other. I didn't get to measure the model 41 as I did the DW, but just looking at the muzzle at an angle and turning it made obvious that the lands almost faded away on one side and were overly prominent on the other. Both guns threw keyholes by the time the bullets had gone 50 ft. Needless to say, bullets spinning like Frisbees don't fly straight. Both owners got factory corrections.

The only other blatantly defective weapon that comes to mind was one of these cheap, short barreled, blow-back operated 9 mm's with big magazines that are intended to resemble sub-machineguns. I was shown one that I suppose had 1 1/2" barrel. The crown had been cut so far off-center that the muzzle was shorter on one side than the other. Needless to say, it threw Frisbees, too.

Another thing that causes inaccuracy is bad metal fouling. I've seen revolvers leaded until they wouldn't shoot. I've also seen a couple of hunting rifles the owners could have sold the mineral rights too. I have no idea how so much copper got built up around their throats, but standard factory ammo was causing sticky bolt lift, so the bullets must have been getting pretty beat up on the way through. After cleaning, firelapping is the solution for guns that pick fouling up that badly, pistol or rifle.
 
Hand Guns

I shoot a .22 mag Taurus Tracker 7 shot revolver. Believe me its a shooter. At 25 yards or less with stock sights you'll be surprised what it will do. I have a red dot scope on mine that has 4 different optic settings. You can easly shoot groups inside of a quarter at 25 yards ,off of a bench. I can shoot it exceptionally well so It's my small game side arm. Carry a shooting stick and you won't miss with this one. 50 yard shots are no problem.! :D Tree rats look out.:eek: If your really looking for a accurate hand gun. Get a Thompson Center Arms Encore .308 No thats an accurate hand gun. More like a rifle that has a hand gun barrel. 15" Barrel and a good scope and there is nothing inside 100 yards thats hard to hit. I can hit a dime size circle at 100 yards.off { BENCH } And Of coarse I reload and all my rounds have been developed for Big game and paper out to 100 yards. I recently started shooting it at 200 yards and it is pretty impressive to say the least. Put it this way, Fill a milk jug with water and nail it at 200 yards . That's pretty darn cool. So yea Hand guns are accurate , and as accurate as most rifles if your a good shot. On a bench I'll shoot my T/C Encore .308 against any of my buddies rifles thats for sure. LOL Take that to the range and see what your buddies say when you out shoot there rifles. See who has the last laugh now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top