25 yard accuracy with a pistol seems impossible...

[solvability]

I enjoy shooting IDPA and have progressed as a pistol shooter in the past 5 years. I am not a bullseye shooter by any means.

My best practice is on steel.

I setup 4", 6" and Torso targets out to 50 yards and practice making good hits then when I am at a match the typical 20 yd shots are easy as pie.

My thought is why are you practicing - for target or for a practical purpose - I put practical accuracy at speed over paper accuracy.

What you want may be entirely different.

I like steel - I know if I hit or don't and I can practice in a drizzle and not change targets. IMHO a real good investment.

 

[Ben86]

Do you have to use frangible ammo on steel targets? Every label says no fmj, what's up with that?

 

[jollyroger]

I've been a LEO instructor 18 years, and from what I've seen, a six inch group offhand at the 25 yard line with a stock pistol and ammo is pretty respectable. The problem with marginal shooters is almost always with recoil sensitivity, which cannot be addressed through a high volume of rounds (doing the same bad thing over and over) or dry firing (no recoil impulse.) The simple answer is ball and dummy drills (much easier with a revolver) where dummy rounds are intermixed with live rounds in random order unknown to the shooter. Feeling what you are doing with the gun when you hit a round that doesn't go off will allow you to "untrain" your subconcious from the flinching that kills your accuracy.

As noted, revolvers are easier because you just stuff three empties into the cylinder with three live rounds, spin, close and start shooting. Results usually come pretty quick.

 

[Omaha-BeenGlockin]

1.Get a Ruger or Browning .22 and several spare magazines.
2.Get 3 or 4 500 round bulk packs of ammo.
3.Use both hands.
4.Spend a long day at the range.

Trust me on this.

 

[BCRider]

To the OP, you didn't mention how old and how fit you are. At 56 myself and with decent overall fitness but not all that strong an upper body I find fatigue after a 1/2 hour of steady shooting is a big issue. I tend to shoot for 10 to 15 then take a short break. Pushups and holding weights at arms length regularly would likely help this aspect a lot. It's something I've just started in part for shooting but mostly just to keep age from gaining a toehold and dragging me down over the next 20 or more years.

Coffee is your enemy. I'm a one to two cup a day max sort and even then I definetly go for the decaf to suck on during the early morning drive to a match. If you're a multi cup a day sort then try to cut back or at least switch to decaf and see how much it smooths out your hold.

Vision is a big killer of accuracy and tight grouping if your own is on the edge. I'm borderline for wearing prescription glasses but I really notice the handicap when doing something demanding of sharp vision such as shooting for really tight accuracy. The local optometrist and I have played with some prescription options but so far with very mixed success. I got much tighter groups but they were positioned 5 inches to the left due to the lenses fooling my brain. So I gave up on that solution for now and just accept that with my eyeballs I won't be doing any Olympic match grade shooting.

Finally I do find that a feather light trigger really helps. But that's only a good option for range shooting. If you're also practicing for defense shooting then you want to stick with the heavier stock trigger pulls or near to them to avoid an "oopsie". There's a reason why match grade target pistols have trigger pulls rated in mere ounces. But it may not be realistic in your case on all your guns. It depends on where your own priorities are.

The only thing I can definetly say you're doing wrong from your own admission is snatching at the trigger. Work on a firm but not death grip hold and practice isolating your trigger finger movements from the rest of your fingers. You can do this without a gun by just making a loosely held fist over an imaginary grip and move your trigger finger smoothly back and forth. Practice doing this until ONLY your trigger finger moves. When shooting learn to pull back quickly but smoothly and go for a full follow through where you pull the trigger right to the rear stopping point and only release it after you can feel and know you pulled it fully. Going for a "full pull" in my case seemed to help me disconnect my expectation of a bang and the flinch that went with it. Do this with the .22 at first and then the center fire guns.

I got in a year and a half and my results pretty much mirror your own on average. On a good day at 17 yards, the max distance at my indoor range which is pretty much the only place I've really tried to do slow accuracy groups, I can manage to pull off 3 inch groups at 17 yards with the odd flyer or two out of 10 shots. But all of them would be within 6 inches in any event. Translating this to 25 yards makes it roughly a 4 inch group with the couple of flyers within the 8 inch ring. I can do this with concentration with my CZ Shadow and with my revolvers shooting .38's. With the .22 I can sometimes get the groups a shade smaller. As noted my biggest limiting factor is my eyesight.

It's not about accuracy shooting but when when practising for IPSC I'm really happy if I can keep 8 out of 10 shots in the A zone at about 10 to 12 yards. When I do this I mix up shooting DA/SA and SA/SA to get more practice with the dreaded first shot from the holster being DA for production class.

 

[Mike OTDP]

Back to the OP....

First, take the Ruger and either get yourself a Volquartsen trigger kit or just send the whole gun to Clark Custom Guns for a trigger job.

Second, do ALL practice with that gun. Shoot one-handed. Yes, I said one-handed. At 25 yards. Forget speed, shoot ONE, repeat ONE, shot. Then put the gun down. Regrasp, repeat.

Basic slow fire is the foundation on which all shooting skills are based. Master that, and everything else will come quickly.

Now, when shooting...focus on the sights. And ONLY on the sights. The target does not have to be sharp, the sights must be sharp. Press back on the trigger smoothly while focusing on the sights....it's kind of like walking and chewing gum, it takes a bit of practice.

Repeat. Repeat some more. Then go home, clear the gun, and dry-fire. When I was 14, I borrowed a revolver and dry-fired ~25 rounds/day...and by the time that I was 16, I had a solid competitive record.

 

[S&Wfan]

I picked up this LDA Para "bottom feeder" . . . always intrigued with the LDA trigger concept and wanted to check it out.

Here are a couple of 25 yards targets shot standing/unsupported with this gun right after I bought it.

Ten round standing/unsupported targets are always a challenge. Three shots? Easy! Five rounds into 2 1/2" - 3" is more challenging.

However, the gun was shooting pretty well so I decided to go for a ten. Naturally, there's always a shot or two out of ten that will spoil your group!

Ticked off, I shot the lower target next . . . and ALMOST pulled of a nice group on top of the 3" orange stick-on target.

Anyhow . . . some can shoot better, others worse I guess . . . but this size group is what I get with all my iron sighted handguns, except my Kel-Tec P32.

The key is never flinching, seeing the muzzle blast when the gun fires (which means you didn't blink or flinch), using excellent hand and finger technique and remaining focused on the front sight with a perfect sight picture around that front sight!!! That . . . and a hundred other tiny little things, of course.

 

[RippinSVT]

I do a lot of 50 and 100 yard steel plate shooting offhand, and it REALLY helps me shoot up close, say 10 or 25 yards. I routinely hit my 10" gong at 100 yards about 60% of the time with my revolvers. When I start shooting my 25 yard groups, I'll put 80%+ of my shots into 2-3" with the occasionally flier.

 

[huntsman]

1) I use paper plates as my targets. A 9" paper plate gives a good approximation of the kill zone on a human or a white-tail deer. If you can keep all rounds in that plate at what ever your given distance, you have sufficient functional accuracy.

+100

 

[SaxonPig]

" 25 yard accuracy with a pistol seems impossible..."

Now, I wouldn't say that. I am a fairly poor shooter but even I can occasionally put a decent group together, even with some vintage revolvers.

Maybe not match grade accuracy, but good enough for my purposes.

1955 44 Special



1938 S&W with full power Magnum ammo.



6" Python with full power 357 ammo.

 

[BCRider]

SP, you're being overly modest or yanking our legs . From all I've seen the last year and a half that's darn fine 25 yard shooting by any standard. If you can pull that off with any degree of consistency then there's no way I'm in your league. I've managed the odd group here and there of your quality but it's a 1:20 occurance and I chalk it up to all my errors canceling each other out for one magazine or cylinder rather than actually any great moment of marksmanship brilliance that can be repeated on demand.

 

[ROGER4314]

I'm a fairly good pistol shot and used to be a lot better. The first suggestion I have is to stop using large targets. Use a bullet hole for a target or a 1" dot. The smaller the target, the better your accuracy will be.

Take a target and turn it around backwards. Put a 1" sticker or make a circle with a magic marker and use that as an aiming point.

If the distance you choose is too far away to be successful, then move closer. Start popping those tiny targets. When it gets easier, then move back a bit.

Stop shooting cans. A miss on a can will still bump it. Paper doesn't lie.

I echo the above comments about dry firing. One of my 1911A1's has been dry fired tens of thousands of times. There is a pistol to dry fire on the desk as I type this. I have black stickers on my door to use as aiming points. Take your shot (dry fired) and call the hit (high, low, left, etc).

Flash

 

[SwampWolf]

The standard Bullseye course of fire includes ten shots slowfire @ 50 yards; ten shots timed fire (five shots in twenty seconds) @ 25 yards and ten shots rapid fire (five shots in ten seconds) @ 25 yards. The following stages (thirty shots slow fire, timed fire and rapid fire each) are mandatory: .22 rimfire stage; the centerfire stage (usually fired with the .38 Special or the .45ACP) and the .45ACP stage. All shooting is done standing, using one (unsupported) hand and many of us rely on iron sights. Any decent, serious Bullseye shooter would be disappointed if less than half of his shots didn't fall in the "black" and many keep almost all of them in the black.

I consider Bullseye one of the most difficult shooting disciplines to excel in there is. However, almost anybody can eventually shoot respectable scores with plenty of practice and strict attention given to the basics of pistol shooting: acquiring a proper stance, sight alignment, trigger squeeze, breath control and maintaining a consistent follow-through. By adhering to the fundamentals and shooting often but deliberately (that is, assessing your shots- "calling" them- and working to correct bad ones as you go along), including lots of dry-firing, will make "25 yard accuracy with a pistol" not only possible, but probable. Good luck with your shooting!

 

[Macchina]

I am 25 and in good shape.

This is all helping a lot to read through this thread every day. I guess it's also helping me realize my shooting below average, but not too far below at all.

I think I'll wait for the weather to warm up a bit (loading mags in 25 degree weather gets difficult after a few) and shoot my Ruger more. I'll try some dry firing in the mean time.

 

[MCgunner]

I read gun mags when they review a gun I am interested in and always notice the groups are ridiculous numbers in the 1.5-2" range freehand at 25 yards

No way unless the guy is an Olympic shooter and shooting his target pistol. I'd summit that any such group in a gun test is a benched group to test the accuracy of the gun. Most zines either rest the gun on bags or preferably in a machine rest to test a gun for accuracy, take human error out of it. You cannot possibly quantify a gun's accuracy any other way. That's why when someone says how accurate their gun is because they can shoot 4" at 10 yards off hand with it, that tells me zilch, absolutely nothing about the handgun especially as I don't know how good a shooter they are.

Handgun shooting is about trigger control, concentration on the front sight, follow through, letting the sear break on its own. I mean, it's not unlike marksmanship with a rifle in this regard. If you're a decent rifle shot, you'll understand how to not anticipate the shot, to let the sear break. My Ruger .22 is my most accurate and most fun plinker.

Now, DA shooting is a bit of another story, but the principles of smooth trigger control still apply and not anticipating the shot.

 

[MCgunner]

BTW, a goal, in my experience, an average good shooter with a good gun can shoot 4" at 25 yards pretty consistently if he hasn't overdosed on coffee. Better shooters can shoot better, but that's just sort of your average good shooter and it is an attainable goal IMHO. As I age, I can still do that and a bit better with optics so I can actually focus without worry of which lens in my friggin', frackin' glasses I'm using. I'm no bullseye shooter. Some of those guys are human machine rests.

 

[Damon555]

I just takes practice......and remember, front sight, front sight, front sight.

Here is a video I took of some informal shooting @ 25 yards......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfju3HNzapM



Here's a 50 yard target shot with the kimber. I did miss the paper once.......As for shooting at 7 yards, their all stacked on top of each other. I don't bother. Just shoot a lot if you can.

 

[NMGonzo]

I cannot see the bullseye at 25 ...

I can hit my 8 inch metal plate at a 100 though

 

[JoeSlomo]

Slow aimed fire is my nemesis as well.

What helps me tighten up the groups is ALOT of dry fire, a deliberate attempt to maintaining a proper mental state, and to run through a mental checklist of the fundamentals prior to EACH round fired.

I treat it almost like a pilots checklist prior to take off.

1. Stance: Balanced, weight forward to absorb recoil. CHECK.
2. Grip: Gun properly positioned in hand, firm grip, good arm extension. CHECK.
3. Aiming: Front sight focus. Good sight alignment. Good sight picture. CHECK.
4. Breathing: natural respiratory pause. CHECK.
5. Trigger control: Use the part of the finger that gives you the best leverage to squeeze the trigger straight back. Take up slack. Slowly squeeze through the break. Follow through. CHECK.
6. Follow through: Call the shot. Watch the sight lift and return. Reset the trigger. Maintain a conscience effort to maintain the fundamentals during and after the shot breaks.

I run through the checklist using dry fire prior to live fire. Than I'll mix dry fire with single live rounds, and if I am putting the rounds where I want them, I do some straight up live fire for groups.

I find that this process helps me identify and correct fundamental errors, and it allows me to maintain a calm and focused mindset. This helps me tighten up my groups, and gives me the confidence and skill I need to be able to keep rounds on the heads of USPSA and IDPA targets at 25M, and 8" plates as well.

Shooting at range pays off up close in that it allows you to see the effects of fundamental errors that degrade accuracy, and when corrected, enhance your accuracy up close as well.

Keep at it, you'll get the hang of it with enough practice.

 

[testosterone]

i shoot in a pistol bullseye league during the summer, the targets are at 25 yards.

I personally am dreadful at it...but there are several guys there that shoot score 95+ on every 10 shot string.

I am embarrassed to shoot next them, but I will attest that it is doable.

 

[[email protected]]

I was 66 last year and I shot a 99 in National competition. If you score it by
modern rules, it would score a 100. Wife shot a 100 and 7X's her best. This
was Black Powder matches, but we use NRA standard pistol targets. Still hard.
At 50 yds, our record is a 98. That's on a NRA pistol target.

 

[MrWesson]

I had the same problem as you when I first started shooting 25 yards seemed so far. The range I shoot at is outdoor and the stands are 25 yards so unless you make and bring your own thats where your shooting. I never really got accurate until I bought a decent .22 pistol and started shooting it at 100yds. It really helped notice my mistakes and correct them.

 

[welldoya]

This thread makes me feel better. I was beginning to think it was just me that couldn't put them all into a 1.5" group. After seeing some of the targets, maybe I'm an average shooter after all.

 

[sqroot3]

this thread has convinced me that although i shoot handguns way more than any of my friends, i am still way below average.

wilson brags that the cqb's precision is 1" at 25yd. i guess handgun owners don't talk about MOAs all that often, but that is about 4 MOA. some shooters on this thread therefore approach the intrinsic precision of at least one very well-made handgun...that's damn impressive.

 

[Drail]

Some of you guys need to get out more. Go watch a Metallic Silhouette match with targets at 200 meters. 25 yards is child's play.