Confession time: guns we can't shoot

I have a NAA .22 Magnum. I know it's a "get off me" gun, and I can shoot it well enough for that. But offhand or from a rest, I can't hit doodly with it. I even bought and installed boot grips on it to improve my grip. It holds and aims well, just when the sear breaks it isn't pointing where I want it. I'm going to keep the little gun because I can hit a man-sized target at five feet with it. So it will have some function if needed.

I've had a devil of a time with a Ruger P89.

The grip is smooth and slippery, and appears to have been designed for a grizzly bear. I think I have difficulty getting a consistent grip on it from shot to shot, which is what is causing issues.

Jim NE said:

The gun that's been disappointing for me as far as accuracy has been my surplus CZ 52

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It might be worthwhile to slug the bore. For some reason, bore diameter wasn't well controlled on these. Bore diameter could be anywhere between .308 and .312, although ISTR that some were worse!

I often shoot a new-to-me gun in anything other than .22lr poorly for a few shots until I learn to "trust" that the gun isn't going to blow up. I'm a flincher/blinker from way back. I've mostly overcome it, but my brain won't let me really see the shot all the way through on a gun until I've fired a few rounds through it.

Years ago I bought a Colt Trooper that I couldn't shoot for crap. The grips were just too big for my hand. So I sold it and bought another Ruger single action.

As someone else said, Glocks. I never could get a decent group with my g17. Maybe 4" at 25 yards rested. I understand they're "combat accurate" but so is a plain jane 1911 and I do much much better with one of those. Also my naa mini revolver, but that's for obvious reasons.

Sig P226. I have never been able to run fast doubles with the P2anything series. That "three day reset" sucks. I can shoot an HkUSP very well, and when our department had a 2 year love affair with the USP40, I qualified 296/300 on the average with a low of 289/300 and a high of "possible". With the Sig, which was an optional before the department went to Glock exclusively (Happy Meal) the best I could manage was 279/300 with a low of 265/300.

The Walther PPK/PPKS. That little bastard ate my wookie sized mitts back in the late 80s early 90s when our choices in compact semiautos were limited unlike they are today. So, I carried a Beretta Model 85 as an off duty gun when I wasn't really carrying a gun.

Once I got my hands on my first Kahr....life was good.

Glock 23. It was my first handgun, so obviously I wasn't a good shot at the time, but I never could get decent groups even at close 5-7 yard distances. But I could knock over bowling pins at 20 yards no problem with a High Standard revolver that was my second handgun, so I always blamed the Glock.

Then one day I was shooting with a buddy that had just bought a SIG 1911. I shot great with his gun, and he shot great with my Glock, so I figured out something between the Glock and myself wasn't compatible and sold it and used the money for an SR1911.

I've since learned I can't shoot Kahr's worth a darned either.

Shotguns. I struggle with shotguns. I'm darned good with a handgun, especially a 1911. Above average with a rifle. Lousy with a shotgun. I'm sure much of that stems from having formal training with both rifles and handguns and none with a shotgun. My "training" with a shotgun consisted of watchstander qualification in the military. Load, point, bang. Qualified. I've carried a shotgun nearly my whole life hunting. I can manage to bag game, doing best with slugs on deer when I can treat it like a rifle. But I struggle most of the time.

Originally my DW 357 Max, took yrs to get it /me tuned. I had a DW 357 mag that was a total tack driver, I literally couldn't miss with it, but the Max was another story. Carefully measured and weighed all components of the bullets, polished the bores of the various barrels, and finally got DW accuracy, but now with arthritis I'm redeveloping a FLINCH shooting it.

A Glock 19 !?!?

I had a Gen3 Glock 23 that was almost the perfect pistol. It felt great in my hand, hit where I pointed it, and was utterly reliable, but after two or three magazines I would have to stop because it hurt my hand and wrist too much (a lifetime of turning wrenches and screwdrivers has taken its toll). A Glock 22 LE trade-in took its place and I could happily shoot .40S&W all day out of the longer barrel, slide, and grip frame equipped pistol. The G23 went to my 30 year old nephew and he just loves it.

But ... I could not stop thinking how the size and feel of that G23 was almost perfect. I bought a Gen3 Glock 19 and went to the range happy as a lark. I was smiling the whole time until I started shooting it. My traget at 10 yards looked like the proverbial shotgun pattern. Dismayed, but determined, I took the G19 out numerous times shooting various factory and handloaded cartridges, but I just never could shoot it the way I wanted to. After 8 or so range trips I gave the G19 one last test. I labelled four targets and fired thirty rounds of the same ammunition SA at ten yards alternating ten at a time from my old FEG Hi Power, my TAURUS PT111 GII, my ZASTAVA M70A(!), and my Gen3 GLOCK 19. The worst looking target by far (not a whole lot better than the first time out) was from the G19. All three of the other ones actually looked pretty good (for me).

After two months, if I could not shoot it as well as the M70A, I figured it was time for that Glock to go. I thoroughly cleaned it up and put a sign in the window priced at dealer cost plus $5.00. In one day and after my full disclosure of why I was selling it a happy buyer bought a LNIB Glock 19 for $445. He absolutely loves it!

That was the gun I could not shoot

bannockburn said:

I consider myself a pretty decent shooter with just about any handgun I have owned, but for one: an Astra Model 600. It was my first autoloader and I knew nothing about what a straight blowback 9mm. was about but I certainly learned quickly! The gun itself was very accurate, at least for the first 5 or 6 shots. After that it became a painful ordeal just to get through the rest of the box of ammo. I always shot it last whenever I took it out because I knew my hand would hurt too much to do anymore shooting after that.

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I rather like my A600- don't find the recoil objectionable or the grip angle too strange, but, ya, its not a tack driver. Spanish troops called it "The Pipe Wrench"- functional, but not precise, lol.

[QUOT E="stoky, post: 1062 3325, member: 20277"].45/.410 American Derringer [/QUOTE]

Just reminded me of the Cobray 410/45 Colt side x side Derringer. Stamped steel POS

I have to remind myself to use a tight grip and really lock in my 43 Glock. I was all over the target when I first started shooting it. Tightened my grip and groups shrank.

I don't shoot single-action revolvers well. I have had a Blackhawk 45LC and have shot several others and have to really pay attention to business to hit consistently with them.

Any handgun that has just a right handed safety, because I'm lefty.

I toyed with a S&W 329PD 44 Mag for a while to potentially replace the Glock 29 10MM I carry as a woods gun. I have owned and shot competitively with many 44 Mags. I have never been remotely recoil sensitive, however the 329 with factory magnum 240 grain loads was just miserable to shoot. I could not shoot it enough in a given range session to feel comfortable with it. I loaded it down to 10MM power levels and the recoil was tolerable but that negated any advantage over the Glock. I cut my teeth on S&W revolvers in the 70s and absolutely love them, but this one I just hated.

I have big hands, so like large grips, but have index fingers that barely qualify as medium-length, so, there are plenty of quite popular handguns I cannot hold properly, and an improper hold is often a recipe for bad shooting. My highest accuracy potential is with revolvers the size of S&W K/L-Frames, but N-Frames are my nemesis, assuming all are fired DA. The one exception is my Model 58, with its narrow trigger having been dressed-down to remove the striations in the face of the trigger, and contour the face to effectively shorten the reach from backstrap to trigger face.

Glocks vex me. I can shoot them well enough to be quite a five-to-seven-yard warrior, so would normally be, well, "good enough," but I feel better with a GP100, K/L-Frame, P229 with optional slim-profile trigger, or 1911 when the range gets to fifteen yards and beyond.

lsudave said:

We're all fantastic marksmen on the internet here , even if we don't actively intend to come across that way. I suppose some of it is pride, we want to brag and show off a little when we do something we thing is good, and we tend to keep the failures minimized.

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Except for me, of course. Any time I don't outshoot everyone in the county is merely a 'bad day'...

By the way, I've got beach front property in Kansas and I can make you a deal on it.

lsudave said:

So my latest endeavor is old .32 ACP pistols, they tend to be inexpensive and classy. Got a CZ 27 ... and added a Savage 1907.

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As it happens, I collect 'Art Deco' era .32 ACP pistols and have a CZ27 and a couple of Savages (one 1917 and three (I think) 1907s. And some others. (An FN 1900, for instance; the first semi-automatic pistol John M. Browning designed!)

I shoot all those guns for test purposes - I don't carry any of them currently - and find them all suitable for self-defense within 25 yards or so (meaning torso hits constantly.) This is of course in the knowledge a .32 ACP isn't currently considered a 'serious' caliber for self-defense. (It was up until the end of WWII.) I do admit it does take some time for my old eyes to find and align the sights these days. Presumably the Sub-altern or Lieutenant in WWI had better eyes, being younger.

lsudave said:

Anyone else have experience with something like this?

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OH Lord, YES!

Specifically for the pistol you were shooting in this encounter (Ruger Mk II?); if your groups, big as they are, are more or less 'round', you are doing things right. You just need to work at doing the correct things better and the groups will shrink over time. Usually no dramatic change. If your groups are 'oblong' to any direction - up, down, left, right or some diagonal - you are either flinching or pushing or anticipating recoil. You will probably need an advisor to shoot with you and direct specific practices and actions to you.

If you are shooting a huge, more or less round group centered on the aiming point, your group is loose and needs work. If your group is close, round and very close together but away from the aiming point, you need to adjust the sights.

Any guns I really can't shoot? The tiny pistols with poor sights, wretched trigger pulls, itty-bitty grips and heavy recoil.

And Colt double action revolvers. They're horrible.

Throw me into the Glock camp... can't shoot 'em

ewlyon said:

I have an LCR that i just cannot shoot, even with light loads the recoil in that light gun is punishing. I bought it as a carry gun but it stays locked away as a last resort gun. The combination of the sights, the weight, and the trigger pull make it almost useless. Meanwhile the 3" version gets carried quite often and I can put a lot of my +p reloads downrange accurately and comfortably

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Basically the same thing here. I bought my LCR in .327 Fed Mag for CC. Shooting .32 S&W Longs is not bad. A decent practice round but not something I would dedicate to defensive carry. The .32 H&R Mags are a little stout but manageable. Full load .327's are really harsh but fun, and expensive, to shoot. First round is pretty much dead on but accurate follow up shots are difficult with .327 ammo. It's a sure enough fire breather though. It's my dedicated night stand firearm now but I'll throw it in my back pocket from time to time when taking the dogs for a walk in the woods.
My LCRx 3" in .38 SP is another story. It's one of my favorite guns to shoot. I would carry it more often if I could find a decent thumb snap OWB holster. .

I had a police trade in Gen 2 Glock 22 that I couldn't hit the side of the barn with. Paper plates at 10 yards were a matter of luck. After a couple hundred rounds I started trying some things like grip sleeves, a ghost 3.5 trigger connector and I replaced the sights, no help. I thought that it was just me til I went shooting with several of my friends and nobody else could shoot it either. This includes a police officer who only owns Glocks, and whose service pistol was a gen 3 Glock 22. The first time I shot his G22, I shot a group that was half of the size of my best group with my gun.

I ended up trading that gun in at the same gun store I got it from ( I told the clerk why ) and bought a new Sig SP2022 9mm that was on sale.

Creaky_Old_Cop said:

Sig P226. I have never been able to run fast doubles with the P2anything series. That "three day reset" sucks. I can shoot an HkUSP very well, and when our department had a 2 year love affair with the USP40, I qualified 296/300 on the average with a low of 289/300 and a high of "possible". With the Sig, which was an optional before the department went to Glock exclusively (Happy Meal) the best I could manage was 279/300 with a low of 265/300.

The Walther PPK/PPKS. That little bastard ate my wookie sized mitts back in the late 80s early 90s when our choices in compact semiautos were limited unlike they are today. So, I carried a Beretta Model 85 as an off duty gun when I wasn't really carrying a gun.

Once I got my hands on my first Kahr....life was good.

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hahaha me too...it took some shame and humiliation to figure out how to draw and fire without the muzzle dipping below where i wanted my point of aim to be for some reason. shooting hammers and doubles werent much better. i always thought it was because of the high bore axis messing me up from everything else i had been use to shooting. maybe i just suck with a sig.

Klint Beastwood said:

hahaha me too...it took some shame and humiliation to figure out how to draw and fire without the muzzle dipping below where i wanted my point of aim to be for some reason. shooting hammers and doubles werent much better. i always thought it was because of the high bore axis messing me up from everything else i had been use to shooting. maybe i just suck with a sig.

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It had nothing to do with the bore axis, and the grip frame felt great...it was that suck balls trigger reset. Even with the Short Trigger Mod...it takes a week and a half for the Sig trigger to reset. This is unacceptable to me. If the gun can't reset as quickly as I can, I have no use for it. I found myself over running the gun.

lsudave said:

I can sympathize with that. I'm nearsighted, with mild (and uncorrected) astigmatism, and up until the last year or so I've been fine with contacts or glasses. I gave up the contacts about 5 years ago, after getting some abrasions, and figured the glasses would be fine now that "I'm old" (contacts make me look nicer, but they've led to a couple issues of sore eyes. Back in the day I used to wear 'extended' lenses, which they told us would be fine for up to 2 wks at a time. Sure you could wear them that long, just like you could wear underwear for 2 weeks without changing or washing them, but that was asking for trouble).

Anyway, my reading vision is finally going, so a pistol sight is in a funny place for me. I can see sharply without glasses up to about that distance, and require glasses at about the same and outwards. I guess I need a new pair, maybe bifocals.
But even with that, it seems like I've maintained the same accuracy with my other pistols.

This is a peculiar problem... I'm lefty, and when I'm missing, I go down and to the left.
View attachment 760201
Right about on the boundary of tightening fingers, and jerking or slapping trigger. With focus I go back to the center, it drifts out that way whenever I shoot a few fast.

But not the case with this Savage. And it's not limited to me, or just my son, as his friend (who shoots his Shield and 1911 fine) all have the same experience: first shot might miss 4 inches to the right, then 3 inches to the left, going up and down. Just random. I've never done this before, not nearly to that extent... and it's just this one pistol. Like I said, it was so bad I thought the crown was damaged.

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Fixed it...LOL