Can anyone explain to me what causes flyaway rounds in my target shooting?

I usually shoot a minimum of 75-100rds. at my LGS&R when I go to shoot. Invariably I will get at least 3-4 rds, not even close to my center spot! I always shoot at 10yds. I have been shooting now for about 5 yrs.
Thanks in advance.

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It's The Carbonaro Effect!

No two rounds will be the same. Some may weight a little more/less. Maybe enough to see a difference on paper. Along with that you can never shoot exactly the same each time. Eyes fatigue, body fatigues, slightly different trigger pull, one round is slightly different....etc......It all comes into play

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At ten yards, it is not the ammo, unless they are really crude reloads. In general, small, more or less random, errors tend to add up, usually cancelling each other out somewhat, but out of a hundred rounds, you will occasionally have all these small random errors acting in the same direction, and that shot may be farther out than usual. That is NOT what is happening here. If you are more than a couple of inches out at ten yards, YOU did something. Some of the ancient charts used by beginning bullseye shooters may give you the answer, but it is more often helpful to have some competent personal shooting instruction. At some point you will probably want to shoot at 25 yards, or at least use an NRA 50-foot bullseye target at 50 feet.

Best wishes!

Find a good Instructor and pay him/her to watch you shoot. Take the resulting constructive criticism and run with it. Also, shoot fewer shots at the range, take longer to take those shots AND don't hurry to get a shot off. When up in position to take a precise aimed shot....and it doesn't 'happen', bring the handgun back down to ready, breathe several time very deeply and only then come back up to position. DON'T look at the target after every shot to see where it hit. That becomes habitual and some start to hurry the shot just so they can take that look/see. .......

AND it very well could help considerably to practice at home (safely) while dry firing.

As others have said unfortunately it's most likely operator error. Nine out of ten times I can call a flyer as soon as the trigger breaks. Try shooting from a rest and shoot a five round group with the sights dead center. Then move the front sight so that it's slightly off center (3 dot sights work best for this). You'll still see all 3 dots but the POI will be off more than you might think. Doesn't take much barrel movement at all and the shorter the barrel the bigger the difference will be.

It's usually shooter error but sometimes can be ammo related.
5-6 years ago at a gun show a guy was selling some off name .38 158 FMJ stuff. IIRC it was $5/50 rds. Not reloads. All the writing on the box was Portugese or some such but it came out of Brazil.
Fired the first 6 rds out of a 2.5" Model 19 at 25 yds. The first thing I noticed was they were hot. Checked the target and 4 were centered about a 2" group. 2 other rounds were a foot away from the group of 4. Those 2 rounds were keyholed. Fired 6 more rounds and exact same results. 2 keyholed away from the group. Loaded up 6 in a 6" Model 28. 3 in a group and 3 a foot off and keyholed.
Still noticed they were hot. I loaded 3 of the .38 FMJ rounds and 3 .357 mag rounds. I couldn't tell a difference between them. Same amount of recoil. I pulled the bullets on the remainder of the box and weighed them. They all appeared OK but weights were off by up to 5 grains each. That small difference shouldn't have caused the keyholing tho unless the weight was distributed to one side. Pitched them.
Later on thinking about I wished I had mic-ed them to see if they were undersized. I have loaded some 85 gr bullets for a .380 in .357 rounds just for play and never had a bit of problem with them grouping or keyholing.

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183rd FBINA

As remarked earlier, "It's usually shooter error".
I believe my shooting techniques need to be addressed and improvements made! I think I will study the tips and suggestions made by helpful posters.
I will be going to the range next week to practice shooting with my BG380. Man... how snappy that little gun is!

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It's The Carbonaro Effect!

What I've seen with some shooters, mostly those who have shot a bit and particularly shooting a gun that's new to them, is when firing a string of 5-6 rds the first 3 or 4 rounds will be centered and fairly well grouped. Then the next rds will be all over the place. What they're doing is doing proper sight alignment for the 1st few rds but they can't resist watching the target and not staying on the front sight to see where the remaining rds go. They may not go off the front sight long to glance at the target but they're not concentrating on the front sight. Shots will go anywhere and groups will open up. Reduce the number fired at a time, stop so you can properly check your target which will reduce the temptation of dropping off the front sight to watch the target.

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183rd FBINA

I've got a little Taurus TCP and my wife has the BG. The size (or lack thereof) makes them a difficult gun to shoot. Took me a couple hundred rounds to really get the feel for it. My wife still struggles with the BG after 500 rounds. I'm a mechanic by trade and constantly turning wrenches helps my grip which is important with the little guns. My wife is an accountant and has very little grip which IMO is causing most of her problems. One thing for sure, if you can master the tiny guns it will improve your skills on the bigger ones.

As an NRA pistol instructor, I agree with ispacpt's comments. A very common problem with new shooters is their failure to follow through. Another issue is a tendency to adjust their grip after each shot. All things that can be corrected if the problem is identified and the shooter works on it. As another poster noted, a good instructor or experienced shooter can often spot these problems. I've even videoed shooters who don't believe they are making the mistakes I've pointed out.

Also, conscientious dry fire can build muscle memory that translates to live fire on the range.

Although many folks, including me, have bought defensive weapons as first guns, they are not ideal learning tools. Perhaps ideally, young children are started out with .22 single shot rifles. AFAIK, this is the classic American practice, although there are certainly many exceptions. It is not impossible to start out with a .22 pistol, preferably a revolver, or even a .38 target revolver.

The idea is to start out with the basics of trigger control and sight picture, leaving recoil for later. To start out with a gun that not only has a lousy trigger but may not fit the hand very well and has insufficient mass for reasonable stability is much worse than starting out with one hand tied behind your back. If you weren't aware, the smiley is because this is virtually the way bullseye shooters shoot.

I recommend getting a target gun and achieving proficiency with it. I fully recognize the flak I am about to get for choosing this forum on which to recommend buying another gun.

Good luck!

momentary lack of concentration

If you are shooting an Auto-loader it's more than likely shooter error. If you are shooting a Revolver it could be you as well, but I would temporarily mark the Charge Holes in the Cylinder so that you can keep accurate track of which rounds are flyers. If the flyers are always from the same Charge Hole then you probably have an issue with the gun itself. If all the shots from several Cylinders full are all tightly grouped, then it's probably shooter error but have a known accomplished shooter try it and see how he groups.

It's pretty easy to see if the problem is you or the gun/ammo. Shoot a few 10-shot groups (no less) at 15-20 yards from a very steady rest, sitting down, using sand bags to eliminate as much as possible of the human factor.

I guess your meaning .5gr as a 5gr difference could be catastrophic. And when the gun is held on target unless the charge is a full case nearly compressed it will lay on the bottom when fired.

Nope. I mean 5 gr difference. If you read my post again you'll see I was talking about bullet weight, not powder weight. I was pretty clear. You even quoted it. "I pulled the bullets on the remainder of the box and weighed them."
5 gr bullet weight would not be catastrophic and has nothing to do with if a charge is compressed.

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183rd FBINA

I suffer from occasional flyaway rounds with my 9's, i know when it happens something didn't feel quite right. Could be at the end of the range visit, sometimes my eyes just arent working as well as i'd want and being at a small indoor range can get a little dry, and sometimes its lack of focus.
I tend to apply stick on targets (that show the hits) to the targets supplied by the range so i can see my hits, but yes i do at times find myself watching for hits over keeping on the sight. Kinda of like a bad golf swing, and i'm watching the ball before the club swings all the way around.

I do try to finish a range trip by getting a good mag's worth of shot placement, so i dont leave wondering what went wrong that day. And I fully admit there is always room for improvement.

Thank you for straightening my out.

But your post talks about a hot charge. In an ammo forum weighing "them" would indicate the charge weight.

My mention of a compressed charge was helping you understand how powder sits in a loaded round.

But you were meaning an oddly cast bullet. cut one in half and see if it has an air pocket.