I'm having a little trouble shooting revolvers. When shooting single action, I tend to push the gun resulting in low or low/left hits.

I can overcome this by being very slow and steady and deliberate with trigger pull until discharge.

I would appreciate some shooting advice.

Thanks

I can't shoot worth a hoot if I stand with both arms fully extended. If my stance is more of the bent elbow, left below right (I'm a righty) I do pretty well. I know there's a name for this stance, and I'll bet someone here knows it.
Have you tried altering your stance?

Slow dry firing, double action only. It should be a surpise when the hammer falls. After a bunch of dry firing, start practicing with ball and dummy shooting. Load 2 rounds, skip a charge hole and load one more round. Close the cylinder, pull the hammer back a little and give the cylinder a turn so you don't know where the rounds are in the rotation and slowly shoot until you're not anticipating.

That always gets me back to basics whether I think I need it or not and it helps my single action shooting too, although the only revolvers I fire single action with any regularity are those made to fire single action only.

I learned with the Isosceles stance and only shot with a Modified Weaver stance when forced to by a guy who couldn't shoot nearly as well as me, but was going to tell me how to shoot "correctly"....Shot better with Isosceles.

quote:

I can overcome this by being very slow and steady and deliberate with trigger pull until discharge.

I'm thinking you answered your own question. Controlled breathing, and hold it just before the trigger pull. Think front sight and the squeeze is deliberate...the bang should be a surprise.

Missing.

The stance sparky9 is talking about is the Weaver stance. You can search the internet and find out about it, it's a great stance but won't overcome bad habits. Here are a few of my suggestions for improving your single action shooting and they can also work on double action:

1. Sit in your most comfortable chair in the house, with an unloaded gun, make sure it's unloaded. With your arms relaxed across your stomach, cock the hammer and slowly press the trigger to the rear while not aiming at anything, just let gun rest across your stomach as well, make sure it's unloaded. Do this all the time, the thing you want to do is, get to where you know the trigger well enough that you can feel every tiny movement of the trigger as you are pressing it to the rear.

2. When you are actually at the range. Bring the pistol up to aim at the target, settle your eyes on the site ensuring you have a fuzzy rear site, crisp front site and fuzzy target. Now, start saying to your self "front site, front site, front site..., over and over again to help you focus on the front site. At the same time bring your finger to bear on the trigger and start pressing the trigger to the rear. What this exercise does is makes you so focused on the front site that you forget the gun is going to fire. It sounds silly, but it works. Now, when the trigger breaks, you're likely going to jump from being scared because you "weren't anticipating the shot and pushing the gun forward in preparation for it." After doing this for a bit you won't jump as much and you will see your shooting improve. I've used this technique on everything up to my 500 and it still works.

3. If this is a revolver, leave a charge hole open, if it's a semi, get a couple of snap caps and put one or more in each magazine. When you pull the trigger on the empty hole or snap cap, if you are doing everything correctly you should stay focused on the front site, if your not, you will probably jerk because you were anticipating the shoot again.

4. Practice good follow through. Most of us want to see where the last shot just hit so as soon as we pull the trigger, our eyes jump out to the target so we can look for our hole. Don't do this, as soon as the shot breaks, resettle the sites on the target, regain your focus on the front site and let the trigger reset. Shoot a full cylinder or magazine and then worry about where the holes are. This will better prepare you for getting multiple shots on target in rapid succession without losing focus.

I'm not the worlds best shot in pistol or rifle. I am a Marine Corps Expert on pistol and rifle and a shooting coach for both. I've seen these techniques work and I learned some of them from a coach from the Marine Corps Rifle Team.

I hope some of this helps.

Bill

Great advice, Bill. This chart might be useful:



- Jim

Thanks Jim, I like that target and need to print off some to take with me to the range every once in awhile.

Yeah, it's fun to try to do all that shit and see if you can hit the right area -- kinda like playing darts. -Jim

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Controlled breathing, and hold it just before the trigger pull.

I was taught to take a breath and left half out.

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Originally posted by BarbC:

quote:

Controlled breathing, and hold it just before the trigger pull.

I was taught to take a breath and left half out.

That was for something else, Barb.

quote:

Originally posted by BarbC:

quote:

Controlled breathing, and hold it just before the trigger pull.

I was taught to take a breath and left half out.

+1 Barb. Actually take a few relaxing breaths to slow the heart rate, then as you say, exhale, hold and shoot.

Me, I don't worry about it - if I hit any where near to the target I'm happy... I worry about getting to the range and back home safe.

Pete

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Originally posted by Mickey D:

quote:

Originally posted by BarbC:

quote:

Controlled breathing, and hold it just before the trigger pull.

I was taught to take a breath and left half out.

+1 Barb. Actually take a few relaxing breaths to slow the heart rate, then as you say, exhale, hold and shoot.

OK, Mike. I gots nothing more to post in this thread. -Jim

I happened to have the take-home sheet from Appleseed lying next to me. Here's what they have:
*The Six Steps to Firing A Shot*

1: Sight Alignment: Line up the front and rear sights. Simply center the front sight in the rear sight.

2: Sight Picture: Keeping the sights lined up correctly, bring them onto the target

3: Respiratory Pause: As you breathe, the front sight will pass vertically through the target. Use the natural act of breathing to adjust your vertical alignment. Breathe deep, slowly exhale, and pause.

4A: Focus your eye on the front sight: It may be a little hard to do at first, as you naturally want to look at the target. But keep your eyes focused on the front sight, even if it means that the target gets blurry.

4B: Focus your mind: Keep front sight on target: your concentration should be on "keep that front sight on the target". It may help for you to consciously repeat, "front sight on target, front sight on target..."

5. Trigger Squeeze: Squeeze straight back while front sight stays on target. while you are doing both parts of step 4, you'll take up the slack and squeeze the trigger straight back. At the same time, you MUST keep your concentration on the front sight! Don't let the front sight off the target; if it does move off target, gently bring it back on target while continuing to squeeze the trigger. The discharge should surprise you.

6. Follow Through: Call the shot and feel the trigger sear: With your sighting eye open, take mental picture of where the sights were when the gun discharge. If you can't "call the shot", you won't ever be able to tell whether the shot was bad because you did something wrong. Next, feel the trigger sear reset and/or hear the trigger sear reset. Now you're ready for the next shot.
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The steps are really designed for rifle shooters, but the principles all hold true for pistols too. Learning to follow through will make a tremendous change in your shooting. Just keep the trigger held back while your mind forms the words "follow through". That's all it takes. If you're able to keep an eye open through the discharge and SEE what happens to your sights, you will know what happened to your shot.

Being able to call your shot lets you see what you're doing wrong and correct it. If you have a place to do it, and a willing friend, do ball and dummy drills where they load the mag/cylinder for you so you don't know whether it's going to go -click- or *bang*. Have them stand a few feet away at 4- or 10-o'clock and WATCH what you do. Watch your hands, wrists, eyes, everything. They should be able to tell you whether you're slapping the trigger, flinching, pushing, bucking, limp-wristing, etc.

A friend went shooting with me a couple weeks ago and was constantly going low-left with his Sig .40. We did fifteen minutes of ball and dummy, found that he was pushing forward with his strong hand, and brought groups back closer to center pretty quickly.

Well worth the time involved. :-)