why are my groups so terrible?

N

nolaOE800

Moderator
this seems like an easy enough question to answer.:rolleyes:

however, I've noticed that the more I try to learn about proper stance and shooting technique, the larger and larger my groups get at the range.
now, by no means am I an expert shooter, I just got my first handgun a few months ago but I've been going to the range as often as I can manage and afford to (about once every other week, i'd like to go more but ammo is high, and 5-month-olds cry:()

the guys at the range always tell me that I might have picked a bad gun for a beginner.. Glock 22 .40S&W. I couldn't agree more. but when I decided on the .40S&W, I was thinking more about home defense, not so much about tight groups. but, I'm broke and can't buy another gun anytime soon so i gotta make do with what I've got. don't get me wrong, I LOVE my Glock, but apparently .40 S&W is a difficult gun to shoot.

any suggestions for tighter groups?
 
Lots of dryfire practice.
As Gil Hebard put it, the key to accuracy is applying pressure to the trigger without disturbing the sight picture until the gun goes off.
 
Nola,

Couple things:

How bad are your groups? What distance are you shooting at?

Have you looked at using a target like this, http://www.reloadbench.com/pdf/image/TargetRightHanded.gif , this may help you to see what you are doing wrong.

The best thing I have seen to show someone what they are doing is to load a dummy round, like a snap cap, somewhere in the mag (best not to know where it is at). The round won't go off but if you are moving when you pull the trigger you will see it.

Its a good idea to get some snap caps to help practice dry firing your gun. This will help you big time as you will see the effects of pulling the trigger. You need to be able to move your trigger finger without changing your grip, the finger needs to move alone.

Shooting isn't easy but don't try and shoot a far distance at first, keep it around 7 yds, and you don't have to shoot fast, work on your grip, stance and think about every shot.
 
Dryfire practice is the answer. Stop your live fire training for awhile.

What you've been doing is training yourself to flinch--now you're going to have to untrain yourself and retrain yourself not to flinch.

Be very careful when doing your dryfire practice. A lot of unintentional discharges result from carelessness while (or immediately after) dryfire practice.

Here's a good procedure for doing safe dryfire.

http://www.corneredcat.com/Practice/dryfire.aspx

I probably wouldn't recommend a .40S&W for a first pistol, but then again I started out with a .357Mag so who am I to talk? I will say that I had to fight flinching pretty hard--I would have had an easier time if I had started out with something a bit easier on the hands & ears...
 
The above chart is excellent. Blaming it on a bad gun is most likely counterproductive. I would recommend you try some trigger management exercises.

1. Make sure the gun is empty and no rounds are in the magazine and chamber.

2. Snap caps are recommended but not necessary.

3. Cock the slide to arm the trigger.

4. Pick a target. (this can be done while sitting in your chair watching TV)

5. Practice squeezing the trigger until the trigger breaks (which should come as a surprise.) Here's the important part: The sights should be exactly where they were prior to trigger break as after the trigger break. Make sure you are breathing during this exercise. This will help with your shooting and follow-thru.

Have fun with it and don't be hard on yourself.
 
Lots of dryfire practice.
As Gil Hebard put it, the key to accuracy is applying pressure to the trigger without disturbing the sight picture until the gun goes off.
Click to expand...

Dry firing teaches the proper technique, but you still have to learn to do it the same way when actually firing the gun. That's where front sight concentration really comes in. Without it, you can't succeed, since you'll still anticipate the recoil.

A friend was having similar problems. He couldn't understand why his "sights could be right there" when he shot, and still hit low.

I explained that there's a delay between the brain saying "shoot" and the finger actually pulling the trigger. He, of course, thought the shot was instantaneous with the thought and had been giving up on his sight picture before the actual shot.

You don't stop your swing when wingshooting, and you don't give up on your sights before the shot breaks with a pistol. You have to follow thru. It's not where the sight is when you're brain says shoot. It's where the sights are when the gun goes bang.

How is the problem corrected?

As it's been explained many times, you concentrate on the front sight-- and in so doing, you insure the sight will still be on target when the shot breaks. Your mind can only focus on one thing at a time, and attention to the front sight prevents you from anticipating recoil and flinching, or giving up an quitting on the sight.

Gabe Suarez explains it about as well as anyone, if you want to Google around.

I agree with Gabe when he says that most shooters don't understand the real reason for front sight focus---I was one of them.
 
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my groups are about
14-16'' at 25 yds.
8-10'' at 15 yds.
6'' at 10 yds.
and usually 4" or less under 10 yds.

the strange thing is that i shot tighter groups the very first time i went to the range. the more and more knowledgeable I become about handguns and shooting techniques, the worse and worse my groups get.
I'm hitting body mass on silhouette targets at pretty much all distances up to 25 yds. but my groups are still very random and loose.
 
Try shooting at smaller targets. Shooting at man sized targets at close range is not the the best way to get good groups. If you like shooting man size targets, get some of those stick on orange dots and put them over the heart area. Then shoot at the orange dots. Small targets make better shots.
 
As the others have said, your poor groups are almost certainly due to flinching. That's a problem that almost all of us have to overcome. I went through almost the exact same frustrations that you're experiencing, the first year I owned a gun.

I don't routinely fire .40 Smith but I don't think that the round is causing the problem so much as anticipation of the recoil is.

No offense to Glock owners but Glock triggers (and those of pretty much all striker fired guns) are kind of mushy and I think that they are conducive to developing bad habits. Which is not to say that one cannot shoot a Glock accurately, one can, and in fact, Glocks do well in competitive shooting sports. But, it means that you have to work hard to get things right.

I agree with what the others say about dry firing. It's the best cure for flinching that I can think of. What you want to accomplish is to be able to pull the trigger without the gun moving from your point of aim. In other words the gun should remain still right up through the instant in which it fires.

Forget about everything except keeping the muzzle of your gun steady. Concentrate on pulling the trigger without it moving. You might want to practice in front of a mirror (facing the mirror). Squeeze the trigger slowly, with steady pressure, until you hear and feel the "click" of discharge. Keep the gun steady even afterwards. Another trick: balance a coin flat on the top of the barrel while you dry fire. Concentrate on being able to pull the trigger without the coin falling off the gun.

There is no such thing as too little dry fire practice. Do it over and over, 50-100 times per day, until the firing cycle becomes automatic and you can do it without thinking about it. Then, when you go back to the range, try to replicate exactly what you've been doing dry firing. Don't worry about hitting the target, just worry about holding the gun steady!

One last recommendation. Go out and buy a .22 and practice with that. Since you're shooting a semi-auto I'd think about buying a .22 semiauto. Glock doesn't make one and I don't know whether anyone makes a .22 Glock conversion unit (a drop in slide and barrel that converts your gun from .40 Smith to .22). If someone does I'd look into buying it. If not, go buy an inexpensive .22 semiauto, such as a Ruger Mark III or a Smith & Wesson 22A. Then, practice your shooting with the .22 until your groups diminish. .22 ammo is a fraction of the cost of the 40 Smith you've been firing and you'll make up the cost of the gun within a few months just by shooting the cheaper ammo. One caution -- generally, 22s should not be dry fired so, if you buy one, do your dry firing with your Glock.
 
my groups are about
14-16'' at 25 yds.
8-10'' at 15 yds.
6'' at 10 yds.
and usually 4" or less under 10 yds.
Click to expand...
Then stick to shooting at distances of ≤10 yds, that way you are close enough to being on target to see how you are off. Also give yourself times to just burn ammunition: Some dirt pit, soda cans, a box of ammunition... and not a care in the world. Accuracy isn't a goal, it's just something you pick up along the way :p You just have to be comfortable on the right side of a gun.
 
I used to be a .40 fan since thats all that I really shot, especially out of a top notch gun, the Walther P99. But for me the .40 was way too snappy. So I tried the .45 GAP and was WAY more accurate since it didn't have the snappiness, just more of a "push". So i did something that i told myself i would never do, i sold my P99. I bought a Glock 39 and fell in love with it the first day i shot it. IMO the GAP round is the best out, FOR ME, and thats all that matters.:)
 
stevieboy - great info there.

I have a Winchester 290 .22 rifle, so I'm familiar with the cost of .22LR and yes, it is fantastically cheap! I don't know if I'll have the cash for a new gun (even if it's just a plinker) but I do have a pretty good buddy that has a Ruger Mark III. I think I'll ask him to borrow it. I never thought of target shooting with a smaller caliber for the purpose of improving my skill with .40smith but it makes sense after hearing someone else rationalize it.

also.. I feel that I should clarify my actual goal here.

I really don't aspire to be the greatest marksman on the planet, nor do I plan on shooting competitively... what I do want is to be 10 times better at operating my weapon than the sorry SOB that puts a boot-heel to my front door.
 
The best thing I have seen to show someone what they are doing is to load a dummy round, like a snap cap, somewhere in the mag (best not to know where it is at).
Click to expand...

Had this problem when I started shooting a .45, and cured myself with dummy rounds. I pulled some rounds apart, popped the caps, drill holes in the sides, and then pushed bullets back in to the same overall length. I filled the cases with hot glue through the hole in the side to prevent set back.

At the range, I would mix the dummy rounds with live ammo in my pocket, then load the mags without looking. It was surprising how much my trigger finger was moving the gun.
 
learn and understand what trigger reset is, and how it can help your groups. Crossed thumbs also produces larger groups, check out two thumbs forward and try again. Google those two terms, and do some reading.It will come around.
 
My biggest accuracy problem is with .40 S&W. I can regularly get at least 3" groups at 12 yards with .45 Colt, .38 Special, .357 Magnum and .32 ACP. But the .40 S&W always gave me trouble. People say the recoil is snappy and I agree. My trick to getting better was pretty simple: avoid flinching by forcing my eyes to stay open through the shot. Once I started doing that I could get 3-4" groups with any .40 S&W at 12 yards with no problems.

It's a little like golf: you have to keep your head down and follow through with the shot. If you look up to see where your ball is going through the swing, effectively you have flinched.
 
Hear ya nola, A friend of mine recently bought a retired S&W service pistol in .40 S&W at a gun show,and couldnt even land a shot in the 4x3 foot piece of pressboard that the target was stapled to, much less the actual target, but after moving in to 10 yds, and resting the gun (albiet off a jeep`s hood), and doing his best to overcome the flinch, he was starting to group them. but he still has to experiment with different weights and velocties of ammo.
 
Stop.
Save up and buy either a Ruger MKIII or Browning Buckmark .22. go back to basics.

Stance; it's not rocket science and it's over done/over thought by many. Shoulder distance with left foot further forward. leaning forward from the waist ever so slightly, not back.

Sight Picture; for defensive shooting it's all about point shooting. For groups, it's all about focusing on the front sight. This is the number one/main/most significant aspect of any tight group. Back sight should be blurry, the target can/might be a bit blurry but that front sight should be crystal clear. The mind is good at lining up the back sights or a peep sight but it needs that one focal point to put it together and that's the front sight. If you don't do anything else, this is the most important.

Breathing; Stop; don't hold your breath, just stop breathing when your lungs aren't too full, not too empty and time it so it's natural and a second from when you believe you're going to fire. If you stop too long then by default you're holding your breath. Just stop as the finger is squeezing the trigger and the front sight is coming into focus.

Finger: squeeze, with the pad. If youi're only using the tip that's no good. If your finger is buried and the trigger is on the joint that can be a problem. Key is to squeeze. It should surprise you but if you're focusing on that front sight the with all your intensity (and keep focusing after the shot) it'll work.

Hearing; double muff. Put some ear plugs in and then head muffs so it's really really quiet. A good technique for new shooters although it makes range communications hard. Everyone reacts to sound. It's how God made us.

Grip, for revo's hight and tight and I mean tight, for autos you don't have to be choking it so bad.

Caliber; .40 is a snappy son of a gun. I think it's one of the best SD rounds out there but it's difficult to shoot well and I think a lot of people won't admit how badly they shoot it becasue they've bought it already and so what are they going to say? :o Truth be told many folks would be better off stepping down to the 9mm or even stepping up to the .45 that has more of a push/thump type of recoil versus a snappy crack type recoil.

Finally; relaxe and give yourself a break. Pistol shooting isn't easy. We've all be ruined by hollywood. It's actually hard on a good day and real hard on a bad day.

start reading and learning about point shooting. Try to get a realistic understanding of how you're likely to deply that handgun in a civilian SD situation. 99 out of 100 you won't be using sights. You'll be fortunate just to make up your mind and to be able to bring the gun to bear in time.

Practice unloaded presentations of the gun and practice point shooting. Think softball size group COM (Center of Mass) at 7 yards. Then work to do that moving left and right as you shoot or retreating. But that's all for another day.

Get a .22; $300 or so and you can shoot all day long and work on the fundamentals in a way you can't with a .40.

And although I agree that dry firing has it's place, I believe it's WAY overrated. It's just not the same as shooting a gun with a live round. It's just not and never will be. there's no noice and no recoil. I won't argue with anyone but to me it's way overrated.

When I'm shooting bad I go back to the basics I learned almost 40 years ago...
front sight, front sight, front sight, front sight, no, I'm not kidding, front sight, then breath control (stop don't hold) and a gentle squeeze.

And walla, you'll have it!

God Bless
Gideon
 
You are better than most of the people I took my first handgun course with, most were shooting 12-inch or larger groups at 5 yards. A couple of people didn't hit the target at all and it was a pretty big one. Of course a couple of people shot 2-inch groups, I fell somewhere in between. It reads like you may be getting a bit more tense when firing either do to flinching or just from trying too hard. Try to relax as much as possible when you shoot and I would not worry too much about tight groups at 25 yards for a while yet, 4-inch groups at less than 10 yards will get the job done in most SD situations.
 
Just out of curiosity did you shoot the G22 before you bought it?
I think your other problem is that you need to relax. My first gun was a 45 and I had to learn to set up my sights before i even tried to shoot. Your sights could be off. You never know.
Also, dry firing helps lots. Do it often, don't shoot yourself on accident.
Surgical Speed Shooting is a book that really helped me learn some stuff fast.
http://www.amazon.com/Surgical-Speed-Shooting-High-Speed-Marksmanship/dp/1581601433
 
the noise doesn't bother me and neither does the recoil.

I find myself heavily anticipating the shot and leaning the gun forward and down at the point of pulling the trigger, but it's not out of fear or nervousness. i really don't mind the noise or recoil at all, I actually kind of like it, I wish I didn't have to wear ear muffs at the range (my ears are already shot from years of playing live music) but I still anticipate anyway.

I first noticed this when I detail stripped my Glock for the first time and I installed the slide-stop lever incorrectly so it was locking the slide back before the magazine was empty. a couple times, i didn't even realize that the slide was locked back, and tried to take the shot anyway and when it didn't fire, I also noticed that I was almost jerking the gun forward in anticipation of recoil.
honestly, I'm not scared of my gun, or its recoil, it's just something that I'm doing without even thinking about it.

i suppose i really should just go buy a Mark III or something, if nothing else, it'll be fun as hell to take to the outdoor range where I can plink.

also, kyo- I have been avoiding mentioning this because it is dumb and embarrassing, but no, i did not shoot, or even hold my G22 before buying it. if you want the truth, about 6 months ago I was given my first child and with that came a new sense of responsibility for protecting my home.
well, I had a few drinks one night when my fiancee and my daughter were out of town about 5 months ago and decided I needed a handgun. (I already had a Winchester 290 .22LR and a 12 gauge pump, but I had been craving a pistol)
so I did about 3 hours of research on popular handgun models and calibers and decided that I wanted the G22, and I ordered it on Davidson's gallery of guns. this is back before I knew ANYTHING about handguns.
since I got my Glock, about 75% of my free time has gone to learning anything and everything that I possibly can about guns, bullet calibers, shooting, techniques, etc.
I don't regret the Glock because now that I actually know a thing or two, I still think I (unknowingly) made a great choice.

so that's the story of how I got a .40smith for my first handgun. :/
 
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