cant shoot handgun?

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Axis II

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I went to the range today with a buddy and was shooting handgun. I'm a good shot with handgun he on the other hand has a very hard time shooting handgun. I think we were around 25ft and he was shooting a Taurus slim 9mm compact. I tried helping him with stance, sight picture, grip, etc and it didn't seem to help.

I told him try my fullsize M&P and he did a little better but could barely keep it on target. I had him grip it the way I do, don't jerk the trigger and use the tip of finger and let the trigger reset move your finger into position. align the sights up bend the waist arms strait out, arms bent and nothing seemed to work.

any idea whats going on here? to me his form and everything seems okay but he always shoots low. say a foot or two.
 
Well at least you're teaching him the correct fundamentals to begin with, so he has a good foundation to build on. Shooting handguns accurately is difficult and takes a lot of practice. Everything that comes into play shooting a rifle is multiplied when you take away the stock and hold the gun with outstretched arms. The part about shooting low can only be explained by improper sight alignment. If it was a trigger jerking issue I don't think it would be consistently in one direction; they'd just be all over. Make sure he's got the tops of the front and rear all lined up flat across. Some people think that the front sight needs to sit in the bottom of the u notch of the rear, and that would explain him shooting low.
 
Most new shooters tend to hit low with any DA pistols.
Maybe try some sand bags and a single action trigger and see what happens. Once he gets the hang of that he will learn the rest slowly but sooner or later he should get it. Between the tip and the first joint is maybe better for trigger tripping. Heavy triggers are always a problem.
 
Two things.

He is very likely trying to look at the target, and the front, and rear sight, all at the same time.

Nobody in the world can focus on three different distances at the same time.

(Next time, FRONT SIGHT, FRONT SIGHT, FRONT SIGHT mantra while squeezing the trigger.
Every shot.)

Ignore the target and the rear sight.
Your eye will align them perfectly, even though they are a little fuzzy looking.

The other thing is, I firmly believe it is important to start first time shooters out with low recoil guns, and those that aren't terribly loud.

A 9mm Slim isn't one of those guns!!

Start with a .22 target grade pistol and master it first.

rc
 
If he's shooting low, he needs to make sure the front sight is level. It's possible to dip the muzzle down, and not even realize it.

His problem will stick out like a sore thumb, to a competent instructor.
 
ohihunter2014 said:
I went to the range today with a buddy and was shooting handgun. I'm a good shot with handgun he on the other hand has a very hard time shooting handgun. I think we were around 25ft and he was shooting a Taurus slim 9mm compact. I tried helping him with stance, sight picture, grip, etc and it didn't seem to help.

I told him try my fullsize M&P and he did a little better but could barely keep it on target. I had him grip it the way I do, don't jerk the trigger and use the tip of finger and let the trigger reset move your finger into position. align the sights up bend the waist arms strait out, arms bent and nothing seemed to work.

any idea whats going on here? to me his form and everything seems okay but he always shoots low. say a foot or two.
Click to expand...

1- Front sight. Focus on the front sight, keep the front sight over the (blurry) target. Front Sight.

2- Smooth trigger press, don't try to make the gun fire at a precise milisecond, smoothly press trigger back until it fires, Front Sight can wobble on the target during this, that's okay, wobble zone will/should be small enough it won't matter

3- Load up some ball and dummy drills. Snap caps or dummy round randomly in the magazine. See what happens when the trigger breaks. Some guns will feed a spent case for this if you don't have snaps/dummies (get some!), or you can have him turn away, "load" the pistol, safely hand it to him at the line, and fire one shot at a time. Sometimes the gun is actually loaded, sometimes it's empty, see what happens when trigger breaks

Getting just one round at a time slow fire reasonably onto target at close/defensive/practical/typical handgun ranges isn't usually too hard if the gun has a halfway acceptable trigger and sights.
 
Sounds like a flinch to me. Flinches are curable. They begin with the eyes. I'd bet money he's blinking just before the gun goes off and he can't see the sights drop off the bottom of the target.

Take him out and have him just focus on watching the gun go off. Don't worry about a target... don't even put one out. Make him tell you what color the muzzle blast is. Make him tell you which way the brass is ejecting. Make him tell you how much of the top of the slide he sees at the top of recoil. Make him LOOK through the entire duration of the shot.

Once he can do that, all the other stuff comes along pretty easily. Because if you can see the sights move around, you'll figure out how to quit doing that. But if your eyes are closed, it just seems like bad magic.
 
suggestion

I agree w/ RCMODEL, start with .22 Target pistol, earplugs and muffs.
Big target, close in, work on confidence and fundamentals then increase distance.
 
Step 1, Hand him the gun with a full magazine and an empty chamber.
Step 2,Tell him it's loaded and ready to go, and all he needs to do is take the safety off.
Step 3, Focus on him when he pulls the trigger.
There's a high possibility that he is anticipating the recoil and flinching during the trigger pull, this is a good way to see it, and it will probably be obvious. You can shoot a pistol accurately hanging upside down, with your weak side hand, if you have 0 flinch on the pull and proper sight alignment at the same time.
 
Did you check which eye is dominant and which one he is using? I am right-handed and right eye dominant and the first time I tried shooting with left hand only I first thought I could use my left eye and the shot ended up not only on the outermost ring of the target but also way high, after switching to using the right eye accuracy was pretty good.
 
he can shoot a rifle out to 300-400yards and hit a pop can right handed so not sure if eye dominant would be different using a handgun. when I changed his grip he said he notices hes holding the gun tighter. I did notice he was slapping the trigger but they never went left and right only down. we had a 4 spot rifle target and I said put the dot right on the bulls eye and they wouldn't even hit the paper. say if we had a fullsize man target he would aim at the x on the chest and hit close to the belly button or lower.

he said he was aligning the sights up. he took out his ruger mark 2-22lr auto pistol and shot decent with that. one thing I noticed he kept wanting to spread his legs far apart and lean back or strait as a board. I had him bend the knees a bit and lean forward and that's when they started showing up close to the bottom. I think that Taurus may have screwed him up over the years because its got a long horrible trigger and its small, loud and a lot of muzzle flip.
 
Based on my observation of new shooters in our NRA Basic Pistol class, lack of follow through is the most violated fundamental. Shooters want to look where the shot went instead of holding sight picture after the shot breaks. The suggestion for ball and dummy rounds is a good one and should help you determine what he's doing.

rc is also correct that starting shooters with a good .22 is better than a center fire to develop fundamentals and correct form.
 
The sights on that Taurus aren't the worst, but they leave a lot to be desired. Recoil on mine is manageable, but it is loud. I'd put my money him flinching, as well.
 
ohihunter2014

What rc said.

Start with a decent .22 target pistol or revolver and concentrate on the front sight. Learn the fundamentals of upper and lower body stance, a shooting position your comfortable with, trigger control, and practicing a proper breathing technique.

I like to take a boxer's stance when shooting: for a right handed shooter left leg out at about 10:00, right leg back at around 4:00, upper body leaning slightly forward. The problem with having your feet evenly apart parallel to the target and your upper body straight up and down is that there's a tendency to start rocking back and forth while standing there trying to align your sights on target.
 
Shooting handguns accurately is difficult and takes a lot of practice.
Click to expand...

Er, I must disagree.

First and most important is proper coaching. Just because someone is a good shooter doesn't mean they are a good at teaching their skills to someone else.

Most women can quickly master shooting a handgun and will show noticeable progress after just one shooting session. In our shooting classes women progress faster than men.

Men as a group are much harder to teach. Something to do with the male ego and not willing to listen to instructions.

My gun club offers a Women on Target class every year. The ladies are very receptive to shooting different guns and accepting advice when their significant other isn't around.

In regards to the O.P.'s friend it is clear he has not mastered the fundamentals. Speaking personally when my handgun shooting scores slip it is because I forget to focus properly on the front sight. I get in too big of hurry when shooting in competition. I try to cut corners for speed.

I will go so far as to say out loud to myself "front sight, front sight, front sight" when aiming and pulling the trigger all the way through. Once I regain my focus on the front sight I am rewarded with small, tight groups.

The comment about small guns being more difficult to shoot due to it's small sight radius is a good one. Everything is trade-off

I told him try my fullsize M&P and he did a little better but could barely keep it on target.
Click to expand...

This comment is too vague to be useful. Is he shaky with the muzzle of the gun waving all over the target? Or is he jerking the gun when he pulls the trigger? Or is the muzzle dropping in anticipation of the shot? Or is he just firing all of the rounds as quickly as he can?

First and foremost your friends needs a good coach and to learn (or relearn) the fundamentals.
 
A few weeks ago I took a friend shooting. He is really new to shooting. We were on the 7 yard line and he was shooting at a target stand that was 2 feet by 2 feet square.

He was all over the map so I stopped shooting to observe. One shot might hit the paper, the next one might send wood flying off the target stand. We worked on all the fundamentals but nothing helped.

My next diagnostic step was to have him face away from the firing line. While his back was turned I took all but one round out of his magazine, then replaced it. I put the gun on the table and told him to face the line and pick it up.

He shot, and didn't even hit the paper. I had him turn away again, put an empty magazine in his gun, and placed it on the table. I told him to face the line and pick it up. He pulled the trigger and his hand jerked violently in anticipation of a shot that never came.

He looked at me and exclaimed "Did you see that!?!"

I said "Yeah...I'm the one who set it up."

He had a major league flinch. For the next 20 minutes we did this drill. He'd face away and I'd configure the gun. Then I'd tell him to face the line, pick up the gun... and see what happens. He never knew if there would be a live round in the chamber.

Sometimes we'd spend a few minutes just dry firing...maybe 10 dry fires with no flinches...then do the drill again. By the end of that session he was back on target at 5 yards and made a commitment to dry fire at home.

I don't know if that's whats going on with your friend, but it's a good drill to check for a flinch that you might not be able to see during live fire.
 
J1

Buy him a baseball bat and teach him how to swing and let him be happy. :)
 
BSA1 said:
Er, I must disagree.

First and most important is proper coaching. Just because someone is a good shooter doesn't mean they are a good at teaching their skills to someone else.

Most women can quickly master shooting a handgun and will show noticeable progress after just one shooting session. In our shooting classes women progress faster than men.

Men as a group are much harder to teach. Something to do with the male ego and not willing to listen to instructions.

My gun club offers a Women on Target class every year. The ladies are very receptive to shooting different guns and accepting advice when their significant other isn't around.

In regards to the O.P.'s friend it is clear he has not mastered the fundamentals. Speaking personally when my handgun shooting scores slip it is because I forget to focus properly on the front sight. I get in too big of hurry when shooting in competition. I try to cut corners for speed.

I will go so far as to say out loud to myself "front sight, front sight, front sight" when aiming and pulling the trigger all the way through. Once I regain my focus on the front sight I am rewarded with small, tight groups.

The comment about small guns being more difficult to shoot due to it's small sight radius is a good one. Everything is trade-off



This comment is too vague to be useful. Is he shaky with the muzzle of the gun waving all over the target? Or is he jerking the gun when he pulls the trigger? Or is the muzzle dropping in anticipation of the shot? Or is he just firing all of the rounds as quickly as he can?

First and foremost your friends needs a good coach and to learn (or relearn) the fundamentals.
Click to expand...

We may have different ideas of what it means to "master" shooting a handgun

I think I agree with what you mean, though I wouldn't call it mastering.

It is not that difficult to get decent slow fire carefully aimed hits at reasonably short (typical) distances. The kind of shooting that the shooter in the OP is not obtaining.
 
ohihunter2014 said:
he can shoot a rifle out to 300-400yards and hit a pop can right handed so not sure if eye dominant would be different using a handgun. when I changed his grip he said he notices hes holding the gun tighter. I did notice he was slapping the trigger but they never went left and right only down. we had a 4 spot rifle target and I said put the dot right on the bulls eye and they wouldn't even hit the paper. say if we had a fullsize man target he would aim at the x on the chest and hit close to the belly button or lower.

he said he was aligning the sights up. he took out his ruger mark 2-22lr auto pistol and shot decent with that. one thing I noticed he kept wanting to spread his legs far apart and lean back or strait as a board. I had him bend the knees a bit and lean forward and that's when they started showing up close to the bottom. I think that Taurus may have screwed him up over the years because its got a long horrible trigger and its small, loud and a lot of muzzle flip.
Click to expand...
OK, sounds like eye dominance isn't the problem.

The handgun you gave him to fire, how does it fit his hand? Can you have him try with different shapes and sizes of grips? And is he gripping it properly (high)? Is he lining up the top of the front sight with the top of the rear sight before firing? And following through?
 
Trigger finger control has been mentioned, but I will add a comment regarding tightness of grip changing as the trigger is pulled. In other words I have seen folks squeeze their entire hand as they were pulling the trigger. That will always send the muzzle low.
 
mnrivrat said:
In other words I have seen folks squeeze their entire hand as they were pulling the trigger. That will always send the muzzle low.
Click to expand...
Yes, very common. It even has a name: Milking the Grip

The solution is to relax the thumb of your trigger hand, the easiest way to remember is to leave the thumb up
 
I'd be somewhat reluctant to encourage folks to dryfire unless they've receive instruction on how to do it correctly.

I can recommend glancing at the instructions in my signature
 
Dry fire, then dry fire, then dry fire again. Rinse and repeat. I find dry fire drills most beneficial at the range. Gunfire in the background is good. Acquire target, squeeze slow on the index finger pad. Load and repeat the same process. The trigger break should surprise you. Keep at it and consider the turd trigger pull of his pistol. Front sight focus is hard to master as we try to focus on both front and rear as well. Tell him to focus on the front sight like a laser, and the rear sight and bull will be hazy. He'll get there. Practice is key.
 
Wont go into what is already been said except to say practice. I do a lot of handgun shooting and can tell if it has been awhile since I've been out. :) That being said, 25 yards is a bit of a stretch for a beginner-- work on 7 yards first then move out to 15 then 25-- if you cannot hit it at 7 you sure are not going to at 25-- JMHO :)
 
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