Hardest handgun for you to shoot well?

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Peter M. Eick

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I went to the range today to start trying to get back into my handgun shooting skills. A long term medical issue has knocked me from shooting around 20,000 rounds a year down to only around 5000 last year so my skills went to pot. This morning when I was thinking about it, I decided I wanted to assess how bad off I was. So I was thinking what handgun do I personally have the hardest time to shoot well.

After some thought I came up with this one:

45colt_1_041412.jpg

My Cimarron single action in 45 Colt. Mine as is a Pietta with some nice inlaid grips and some great case hardening colors that frankly I was a sucker for. The picture above was shot now 3 years ago and you can see for 50 shots I had a fair amount of spread. Today I decided to just blast steel and just worked on the overall routine of loading, focusing on the front sight and squeezing off the shot. After 400 rounds of 45 Colt and 400 rounds of 22LR (Dan Wesson 722, my favorite 22lr) I called it quits.

I have trouble with the 45 Colt because of the poor sights, and the single action really requires a consistent grip for best accuracy. Right now I need to work on that grip to get the best accuracy.

So, think for a bit. What handgun do you consider your hardest to shoot well and master and then why is it a challenge for you?
 
For purely target work, I would agree with you, a Colt clone of some variety. In general, I have trouble with self loaders but now that I am working with them more, they are getting a bit easier.

A couple of years ago, I wrote about how dry firing helped me come back to shooting. It might be something for you to consider.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=693816

Kevin
 
For me, an AirWeight or AirLight J-frame...especially one in .357 Mag. I no longer own a Mag J-frame, but still have a 637. Much less painful to shoot, although still not what I consider fun. And I still don't shoot it as well as most others. Honestly, not sure why I still have it.
 
Colt SAA / clones / and Ruger Blackhawk grips are the hardest for me to wring great accuracy out of.

They require a very hard grip, bordering on hand tremors, to keep them from slipping in the hand and stringing shots vertically.

But it looks to me like you already know that!
Nothing wrong with that SA shooting right there!!

Rc
 
Sweet! I spent last weekend shooting shooting 4x4 blocks of wood at 35 yards with a Model 36 J-frame.

Little gun worked great. Better than any of the micro .380's I've shot. More natural.

I'd say that the Kahr P380 and Keltec P380 are the hardest to shoot pistols I've shot.
 
Any double action revolver.
Always feel like blaming the gun, until seeing that same gun actually hit what it's supposed to in the right hands.
 
Hardest gun to shoot accurately is one of two extremes. The NAA mini revolver is so small it's hard to hold properly let alone aim. The other direction is my 16" 44 mag contender. It kicks so hard with standard loads that I have developed a flinch that I can't mentally surmount. The 7-30 barrel I can drive tacks. The 44 I can miss soda cans at 30 yards
 
My Ruger SP101 .22 lr in double action. The trigger is pretty stiff, but that's expected on a DA 22 revolver.
 
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The worst gun I have ever shot that I couldn't hit the broad side a barn with was the Diamondback DB9 and DB380. I consider myself a fairly accomplished shooter but I just couldn't hit anything with those guns.
 
I used to have a High Standard .22WMR derringer. That sucker was best aimed by placing the muzzle into the ear of the target. As it was a last-ditch BUG, that was OK.
At the range, target distance was best measured in inches. Sometimes 25 was too many...
 
Bar none - a Nagant revolver. The worst ergonomics on any gun ever made. The heaviest DA trigger pull I've ever felt...SA pull is high, gritty. All around a miserable gun.
 
I suppose it kind of depends on how you define "shoot well". A Ruger LCR with the 2" barrel and no hammer, well...that's not gonna be an easy gun to bulls-eye shoot at 50 yards with. But it's not too hard to get COM shots at 7 yards. Still I suppose that's the gun I would say is a hard to shoot.

My USP Compact is also not quite as easy to shoot well as I expected it would be considering it's a conventional DA/SA gun that I only ever shoot SA. I'm pretty decent with it now but there was a bit of a learning curve to it.

HK's LEM trigger also required a fair bit of practice for me to figure out. I still can't shoot a LEM gun as well as a good SA auto but I'm getting there.
 
1) Ruger Super Blackhawk (with factory grips)
2) Any super lightweight S&W J frame
3) KelTec P3AT
 
Rather funny this should be posted now.. For the last 2 days I have been shooting an XDS-9 to prove for possible EDC, after 390 rounds I wont be winning any target competitions. I am shooting it low and side to side. :banghead:

The gun shoots true when benched so I know its ALL me. I generally don't like 3 dot sights, so I will black out the rears and try again.
 
For me it's the Beretta 92. I can't do a consistent group, only average, with this gun and I've got the opportunity to try many different examples and variants during the years. There's no feeling between me and the 92.
 
I have very large hands. I shot my friend's 38 derringer a few times. The grips were so small that I could barely hold it steady. Moved so much in my hand that I literally had to aim two feet below the target (at seven yards) so that the muzzle flip would put the rounds roughly on target.

It is hard for me to shoot any small/light handgun that has even moderate recoil well.

But with my big paws Ruger Blackhawks are perfect for me. I have a 7.5" 45 that I shoot very well.
 
I don't shoot inaccurate guns very well. I can shoot anything if it'll shoot. And I don't know how many rounds I put downrange a year, but it probably ain't 20K. Most of it's .22 and that's somewhat hard to come by now days, but I shoot a lot of cap and ball as well as my centerfire handguns. All I have to do is walk out the back door, step off the porch, and I'm on my range, now.

BTW, if I don't like the grip, I replace it with something i do like. I have folding grips, full fingered grips, on my 3 NAAs for instance.
 
I have to "work" a bit more with my Ruger Vaquero and Cimarron SAA clone. But it's worth the effort!
 
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