As I understand the original poster, his groupings were tight but way off at 7 yds. At that range even a cheap bore sight should be able to rule out (or not) misalignment of the iron sights. Not trying to zero in, just help determine if it's the pistol's problem or operator's.

9mm factory reloads can be bought from a half a dozen places on the internet for less than $0.30/round, making a box of 50 about $15.00. And prices are slowly starting to come down. I've had zero problems in over 2,000 rounds with these in an M&P Pro40, Shield 9, two Kahr CW40s and a HiPoint 40S&W carbine.