Accuracy expectations with my Shield 9?

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redwing57

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What is a reasonable expectation for accuracy when shooting this pistol?

I've had the Shield 9 for about 3 months, and have run 1-2000 rounds through it by now. I get to the range a couple times a week, and also dry-fire practice at home (and sometimes between mags at the range).

This isn't a bullseye shooter. That's not its purpose. I'm mostly interested in combat accuracy, putting rounds inside an 8" circle out to 25 yards or so.

At this point, up to 15 feet, I can hit without using the sights at all within a couple inches of my focus point. 15-50 feet or so, no problem at all within 8" circle. 50-60 starts getting more erratic, and at 75 feet I can do it only very slowly and carefully, and even then it's not 100%. (I could do that with my Ruger SR9c without much trouble).

It seems it's all in trigger control and grip. The sight errors I think I can manage well enough, but the rounds will go wider than I'm aiming. It's small flinches, and inaccurate trigger presses I think.

But realistically, what do y'all think is a reasonable accuracy level with this pistol? It's small, and my overly large hands have some trouble gripping it properly, but I'm working on that too. I did put Talon grips on it, and recently added XS Big Dot sights due to my aging eyes (sigh).... but the errors I'm getting I don't think are due to errors in the sight picture. That's fine.

I go home sometimes a bit discouraged that I'm still getting occasional "flyers" at 60+ feet, as it seems I should have better control by now.
 
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Do you plan on getting into shoot-outs with people that are 25yds away from you?
At 45' (the farthest distance at my indoor range), with the Shield sandbagged, I can can get all rounds in a 3" group. Freehand is another story though... I can get everything within a 6" group with (usually) 1 Flyer, but that's on me... Not the pistol. :)

When looking at accuracy, we need to keep in mind that a 3" barreled pistol, with it's short sight radius, 25yd accuracy is not going to be anything close to that of a Full-Sized pistol.

Rent/shoot some comparable pistols and you'll see that the Shield is probably one of the better Subcompacts out there (compared to the Nano, P938, PF-9, LC9, etc). The best 3" barreled pistols I've used, are the my G26, Shield, XDsc and XD-S (not necessarily in that order). The new G43 is pretty good too, but I haven't tried it at 45'.
 
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With my 9mm shield, I practice for vitals up to 25 yards. It's my self defense piece. I practice no slower than 1 shot a second from double tap to a full mag. I have other firearms, from 22 up to 45 Colt, for bullseye work. Dave
 
RobzGuns said:
Do you plan on getting into shoot-outs with people that are 25yds away from you?
At 45' (the farthest distance at my indoor range), with the Shield sandbagged, I can can get all rounds in a 3" group. Freehand is another story though... I can get everything within a 6" group with (usually) 1 Flyer, but that's on me... Not the pistol. :)

When looking at accuracy, we need to keep in mind that a 3" barreled pistol, with it's short sight radius, 25yd accuracy is not going to be anything close to that of a Full-Sized pistol.

Rent/shoot some comparable pistols and you'll see that the Shield is probably one of the better Subcompacts out there (compared to the Nano, P938, PF-9, LC9, etc). The best 3" barreled pistols I've used, are the my G26, Shield, XDsc and XD-S (not necessarily in that order). The new G43 is pretty good too, but I haven't tried it at 45'.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the thoughts! No, I don't think I'd ever need to take a 25 yard shot. That would be pretty tough to sell as a self-defense situation. And taking a shot that far away at some 3rd party situation, like in a store being robbed, is pretty unlikely too.

I'd like to use the Shield for IDPA, and there sometimes are 25 yard shots. I think I'd probably just have to let them go, if we kind of consider that just beyond a realistic expectation for this little guy.

I may consider something like the M&P9c. It's a bit too thick for my preferred EDC system, but it seems like a nice pistol.

My Ruger just came back from service the 4th time, and now it's even worse. So, I'm off of Ruger. Royally. Like never again. So S&W for me! I like the M&P series very much.
 
ppodpearson said:
With my 9mm shield, I practice for vitals up to 25 yards. It's my self defense piece. I practice no slower than 1 shot a second from double tap to a full mag. I have other firearms, from 22 up to 45 Colt, for bullseye work. Dave
Click to expand...

That's pretty much what I'm aiming for. I can get in the vitals, if not always center-mass, firing at that rate at 25 yards. Maybe good enough!

Thanks for the encouragement.
 
In my opinion, your expectation should be a magazine-load 7 or 8+1 on an 8" pie plate at 7-10 yards. Anything beyond that is luck and loss of speed, or both.
 
I'd like to shoot that well....

You are doing as well as I could expect with a compact pistol. Now Hickok45 on youtube seems to be able to shoot pocket pistols well enough to hit his gong at 80 yards. I suppose that the way to find the 'ultimate' would be with a Ransom rest (somebody may have this data out there) or at least a sandbag, which could be done yourself.

I like shooting the Shield and since it holds so well, I'm sure it's capable of shooting MUCH better than say, my Kel tec. In fact the manufacturer's themselves say beyond 7 yards it's pretty useless.:D:)
 
Here's a target of mine from last week. At the end of my time I tried head shots at 25 yards. I think I did OK.

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redwing57 said:
What is a reasonable expectation for accuracy when shooting this pistol?

It seems it's all in trigger control and grip. The sight errors I think I can manage well enough, but the rounds will go wider than I'm aiming. It's small flinches, and inaccurate trigger presses I think.
Click to expand...

You nailed it. If you are a competent shooter who understands accuracy, trigger and grip are very important components.

To determine the accuracy of THE GUN, you need to remove the shooter"s negative input. Shoot from a rest very slowly and carefully to see how accurate the gun is, and maybe try some different types of ammo.

For me, the biggest indicator of inaccuracy is the slightest movement of the sights when I dry fire any gun, but especially a small pistol. Does that front sight move? If so, the bullet will too, and by much larger margins than the sight at 25 yards.

If your Shield trigger is heavy (>6#), gritty, clunky and has over-travel, as is the case with many stock Shield triggers, no one can hold that trigger let off free hand. If the gun is small for your hand and you use a proper high grip on the parts of the frame where there is nothing but smooth plastic, the gun is going to move in your hand.

Re: Big dot sights. These may improve speed of close range target acquisition, but they seriously degrade longer range accuracy. You need precision, not a larger cover up of your target.

You are shooting at the upper limits of your and the gun's capability, given the factors you posted.

Shields can do better, but I believe they need some tuning to do so, especially with the trigger, grip and sights. I think you went the wrong way with the sights for 25 yard shooting, but perhaps it is better for you as a closer range defensive pistol.

Shooting IDPA will give you a more realistic experience of your capabilities with this pistol, but be prepared to be smoked by the gamers with their larger, tuned guns. Compete against yourself, not them. Find your weaknesses and work on improving them. That will be your satisfaction and confidence builder. Square range shooting only gets you part way to knowing how you and the gun will actually perform in a true self defense situation.

BTW, given the potential for you to be peripherally involved in a crime 25 yards away, there is nothing wrong with having the experience and knowledge that you could make a deliberate shot at that range and have it be a good shoot. Better to have that tool in your box than not. Think: theater, large restaurant or ball room, parking lot. If you are confident at 25, then 12 yards becomes more of a BB gun shoot.

Keep shooting.
 
Great thoughts, CB3! Thanks.

My Shield's trigger is kind of heavy, but it releases pretty cleanly. Dry-firing, my wife's P238 hammer fired just goes "click" when the trigger releases, sort of the proverbial glass rod snap. My Shield is closer to a "bonk" sensation, but still a reasonably sharp release. It is way heavier then the P238, and heavier than my Ruger SR9c which may be one reason I'm more accurate with the Ruger.

I did get the Big Dots for quick target acquisition; I realize they're certainly not the best for bulls-eye shooting. My geriatric eyes were having distinct trouble picking up the stock sights for any reasonably fast shot (aligning 3 small blurs!). This pistol is primarily a self-defense tool for me, and fully intended for nothing beyond 10-15 yards realistically. I guess I like to try the further ranges to train myself better for the closer ranges. And, as mentioned, possibly for a long shot if it became necessary. My Tactipac holster draw is a little slow (2 1/4 seconds or so), so quicker target acquisition becomes ever more important.

I took a one-day IDPA training at our local range. They said there were commonly 3 types of people competing in it. First were the gamers, with pistols, training, and so on designed to shave every millisecond, to WIN. Second were kind of average shooters with their SD weapons, trying to compete just for their own satisfaction. Third, and I'm probably in this group, were ones that were not really competing, but entering so they could go through the scenarios and use their SD weapons in a mindful way. Not going for speed, not really caring about it much, but neutralizing the targets with the expected methods. Perhaps not very realistic training, but it sure beats standing at a square range poking holes in paper.
 
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Like I said before, I practice at 25 yards. Real life situation would be a lot closer, I'm sure. In a real self defense situation with fear and adrenalin flowing, I think I'd be happy with my 25 yard spread at 7ish yards. Once you get comfortable at 25 yards using sights, bring your target up to 5 - 7 yards and do a point and shoot, relying little to none on the sights. You might be surprised with your "self defense" weapon.
 
Ok, tried something new at the range today. (I'll have to try Rastoff's challenges now that I'm gaining on this a bit). I've modified a magazine already for dry practice by carving its follower a bit so it won't lock back on empty. That lets me dry-fire with the extended magazine without it locking back. Painted blue for identification.

So today, I took I took that to the range, loaded one round. Thus two trigger pull events, one live and one dry, every time. If I'm flinching, the second dry pull should reveal it! This worked very well. It's sort of an ultimate slow fire, but it absolutely shows what my trigger press is doing after each live round. This immediate feedback, one live/one dry, was quite helpful. I also made targets without bulls eyes. So, I focus on the front sight, and merely center it within the square. Not aiming at a specific spot, rather concentrating on ONLY the front sight, and just getting it evenly in the square.

45 feet, <3.5" group I saw those two fliers happen just before I pressed the trigger. Since my goal is fixing trigger press errors, for this exercise I'm going to discount them :-)

60 feet, inverted image, sorry

75 feet, at least 9 of 10 on the paper. Also inverted.. Not *real* proud of this, but it's far better than I've been doing! None went way wide, one was just off the paper.

This practice method greatly helped me focus on the physical sensation, the mental focus, of really focusing on the front big dot sight. So, obviously could do better at 75 feet, but man if I can get a bit faster at that my combat accuracy will be more than adequate. I'm quite happy with the 45 foot group though!
 
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My Shield 9 is almost as accurate as my Glock 26. Not a bullseye target gun, but acceptable.
 
Have to ask, what model Ruger are you having issues with that you had to send it back 4 times??
What issues? Just curious....have had to send back a LC9 and SR1911, but issues were resolved. Shield replaced LC9.
Now looking at an LCP Custom or something smaller than the Shield.
 
I have been having most all my shots be left of the Bull,tried a different grip hold,different amount of trigger finger helped some but not much.

I thought the front site was off center to the right a bit(just eye balling it) had some I Dots put on today and asked the gun smith if he thought it was off center before changing it. Guess what yep it was off set,can't wait to try them out and see how it does with the front site centered now :)

Just an FYI If anyone else is having this occurrence.
 
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