[LordOfTheRing]

I took my dad shooting yesterday. He was shooting his new PT111, and I was shooting my new Sig 220. We noticed that the rear sight blade is slightly off on his gun (it's further toward the right of the top of the slide than it is centered) and he was shooting off to the left. Also, POI is about 4-6 inches below POA @ 20 feet. To hit the center of a paper plate, you had to aim at the top. I figure that the gun needs more rounds put through it to break it in. There were 3 malfunctions in his gun out of 150 rnds (2 FTF's - mag issues, and one failure to fire. I think that was also an ammo thing, because when I tried clearing the chamber on that one, the slide was stuck. It wouldn't budge. I did a double-strike on the round, and it fired. After that, the gun worked without a hiccup (this was still w/in the first 50 rnds) and accuracy improved 100% (before that malfunction, the damn thing hardly hit a 18 x 30 inch piece of plywood w/ 4 paper plates stapled on it!) Accuracy was improving a bit the more we fired it, but my pops is still not entirely happy. He likes the gun, and is confident that if he does point shooting (how he trained before) he'll do fine at self-defense ranges. He called the gunshop and talked to them about it. The guy on the phone was jacking him around about the sights, told him to "tap the rear sight to the center" (the PT111 uses fixed sights attached via screw to the slide. It ain't dovetailed! My dad explained the lack of dovetailing, and the guy says "bring it in and we'll send it back to taurus"...considering that the gun he originally baught, back on August 6, is STILL in Miami...he doesnt' wanna do that.

Regarding the elevation issue, he was told to go with a heavier bullet, because they'll hit HIGHER on the target than lighter loads (this doesn't seem to make sense to either of us)

We were shooting 115 gr FMJ's, all UMC. Gunshop guy said "try 125 grain or 147 grain" because they'll hit closer to POA. Does that make sense to anyone???

I'm attributing much of the gun's lack of target-grade accuracy to the 3" bbl, and a very short sight radius. The rear post being off really throws the gun out of whack because of this. We still can't explain why it's hitting low. It shoots consistently low and left for both of us. My pop was able to hit dead on w/ my Sig 220 (was shooting 230 gr American Eagle [federal] FMJ's)

Will the heavier rounds actually hit higher? His carry ammo is 115 grain Winchester JHP's.

[C.R.Sam]

If a heavier bullet is going out at a lesser velocity, likely it will shoot higher with the heavier bullet.

Sounds like the rear sight was incorrectly installed.
If your pop burned out re their repair time...
Suggest he try for refund or credit.

Sam

[Jim K]

That heavy bullet business needs a bit of explanation.

A gun begins to recoil the instant the bullet begins to move, so there is actually recoil while the bullet is still in the barrel. The longer the bullet is in the barrel (called "barrel time"), the more the gun will recoil in that time. So a fast bullet will exit the barrel quickly before much recoil has taken place and will shoot low, where a slower bullet will stay in the barrel while the gun recoils further and the shot will go higher. It is more the speed of the bullet than the weight, but commonly a heavier bullet moves more slowly.

Jim

[Walt Sherrill]

If the rear sight is already to the right and the gun is shooting left, moving the sight to the left will make it shoot MORE to the left! The gunshop guy disengaged his brain when answering that one...

The shooting left issue is more likely technique -- maybe too much finger in the trigger guard, too much knuckle, etc., forcing it left as he pulls the trigger...

With any new gun, its generally a good idea to shoot from a rest. (Rest your hand on sandbags or something like that, be sitting, and squeeze the rounds off. Then you are able to cancel out some of the "poor technique" issues that raise their ugly heads when shooting new/different guns.)

[LordOfTheRing]

Walt,
I'm not sure you understand...the entire rear sight is positioned too far toward the right of the slide, thus when you align the sights, the muzzle is actually pointing to the left. What we want to do is to have the rear sight centered like it SHOULD be...He's taking it to the gunshop today to have their smith take a ganger at it and see if there's anything he can do. If not, he's thinking about trading for ANOTHER version of the gun (and possibly moving to the .40 cal)...*sigh* he won't take any other gun. It's the Taurus or nothing, so the Taurus is better than nothin. Hell, the gun is mechanically sound other than the sights being off.

Also, I'm doubting it's technique either, because neither one of us had problems hitting POA with my P220. Went shooting again later that day w/ the wife and my best friend, and none of us had problems hitting POA either. It's his gun. I'm still betting that a lot of it has to do with the sights being off and having such a small sight radius. That's not the main concern of this thread tho, I just wanted to find out if a heavier load would shoot closer, vertically, to POA than the 115 grain stuff does...

[Walt Sherrill]

But I do understand... You misunderstand what's happening when the rear sight is to the right. That position of the sight is actually making the barrel point more to the right than would normally be the case if the sight were centered.

When adjusting rear sights, you move the sight in the direction you want the point of impact to move to. Moving the sight to the left will move the point of impact to the left. If you don't believe me, go ahead and move the sight back to the center point. (That's why I said the gunshop guy had disengaged his brain.)

Think about it: line the sights up on target as they are. Hold the gun steady and move the rear sight to the left. If you align the sights again, and put them on target, the end of the barrel will be pointing more to the left than was the case before. You can see/visualize this by holding a pencil out as though it were a barrel and imagining sights on the pencil. Moving the end of the barrel more to the left is going to make the problem worse, not better. (That's probably why the sights are already shifted to the right.)

the left of center impact may not be a trigger/technique problem causing you both to shoot left -- but its a very common problem. And just because you do it right with one gun (especially an easy-shooting P-220) doesn't mean you're doing it right with a harder-to-shoot gun like the light PT-111. Those two guns are really different!

I suspect your dad witll have even more problems with a .40 version of this gun. It is not an easy gun to shoot well.

[LordOfTheRing]

Walt,
I tried what you said (actually not w/ a pencil, but using a drawing of the top of the slide) and I see what you're saying now. I was getting it all reversed in my head. My bad. The sights should be pushed further right...which seems weird because they're already closer to the right than not...

I really didn't notice much of a harsh pull on his gun. The DAO pull is @ or near 7 lbs, which is considerably lighter than the 12lb DA pull my Sig has. It's roughly the same pull weight and feel like that of the wife's Ruger P89. I'm hoping that my pop doesn't decide to trade his current gun. We KNOW that the gun functions good - Taurus seems to have spotty reliability and *@#($&(*@#$&(*@#!$&(*!@&$ "customer service".

My idea that I came up w/ was to loosen the setscrew on the slide, and turn the rear sight blade just a hair to correct for the problem then tighten it back down (seeing as his gun doesn't have the nifty notch that the sights sit in like some PT111's...his just sit right on top of the smooth slide and are held in place by 1 screw.

I figured if that worked it'd be cheaper than trading his gun in for one which may or may NOT work, and may or may not break or be broken when he gets it...it's the only damn compact auto wich meets his standards though (manual safety, DAO heavy trigger pull, firing pin block)

I wish he'd be willing to carry something bigger, but he won't. A Glock 19 or a SW99 would serve well his needs I'm thinking, and have a better trigger pull to boot. Sigs, while he seems to like em, are too spendy for him at the moment...

oy veh...

:banghead:

[Walt Sherrill]

If the front sight is in a dovetail, you can also move it a bit to the left -- the opposite of what you'd do with the rear sight -- to move the point of impact to the right. You won't have to move either one much.

Small guns are frequently harder to shoot well than bigger ones...

[BigG]

Small guns are frequently harder to shoot well than bigger ones...
You can say that again! :o

[LordOfTheRing]

Welps,
Pop did the unthinkable: He sent his new gun back to Taurus to have them fix the stinking sights. Came home and circled November 25th on the Calendar, as that'd be the exact same amount of time that it took them to get the gun he originally bought back to the gunshop. 8 bloody damn weeks...

I told him to try adjusting the sights himself, but he didn't want too. So he's down to his little .22short caliber Beretta pocket gun. That gun needs work itself, as the left grip panel is cracked, and and can lock the slide back...*sigh*

ohwell.