Shooting Groups

Rem725 · Sep 26, 2012

davef
pistol it is. First tell us your game. I shoot bullseye matches. My accuracy concern extends out to 50 yards. My desires are groups about 1" at 50 yards, but my expectations are 2"at best. This come from much experience. Once in a while I get the sighting and trigger control just right and shoot some fantastic groups. You can usually tell a good group from the feel and "call" of the shots. There is a caveat to group shooting from machine rest or even sandbags. It can lead you to expect to much from your following offhand groups. Frustrations from this should be avoided.

So yes shoot the same point of aim all the time. Even adjust your sights so the group is lower and you can not see it in the sight picture. Be as consistent as you can. Try to find a comfortable sandbag position so your eye remains the normal distance from your sight. And KEEP your eye on the front sight. Pull the trigger straight back.

Spitpatch · Oct 1, 2012

"Desires are groups about 1" at 50 yards, but my expectations are at 2" at best."..... From a handgun. (Reminds me of some desires and expectations I had from girls in Junior High School).

This is fine company. Achieved, "come from much experience". Best experience of all: "Frustration from this should be avoided".

We're all hanging on the finest of techniques: "Pull the trigger straight back".

If there's any money in it, follow him around like a dog: he's got it all.

Spitpatch · Oct 1, 2012

Okay, so now that we are talking pistol grouping, my praises go to those saying no Ransom Rest is needed to accuracy test a pistol. It is a precision machine device, and will produce precision machine results: it will NOT produce results that are comparable to human firing of the weapon. Anyone with extensive experience with a machine rest will tell you this (and operate under that axiom) to start with. I have actually witnessed a Ranson Rest owner (who had it for ten years, and on his own demand) shoot BETTER groups from a revolver he held on sandbags (just to show me what the true worth of the machine was). This is NOT to say the rest is useless. This IS to say that frequent users fully understand the purpose of the machine. More importantly, this is to say that the human hand (and brain, and eye) can with training be BETTER than a machine. That the human brain, and hand and eye can actually make a gun they are familiar with, shoot BETTER than a machine that doesn't give a damn.

This principle is fully understood by those who extensively bench test their hunting guns off hard sandbag rests, fully respecting those hard results; and yet will readily change sight settings when they shoot from prone, sitting , kneeling and offhand prior to going afield. They know that the human body may well deliver strikingly different results than things not human.

If you want your gun to shoot where you point it, then target it with you pointing it.

teflon6string · Oct 10, 2012

I'm hardly scientific with my methods, but here are a few things I do that seem to help:

- I never actually rest a pistol on anything. I tried that before using a nice cushioned baseball glove or a rolled up blanket across the roof of my truck - super steady, but with terrible results including extreme torque snap, and who knows what else. Rather, I steady my forearms on something and try to approximate natural joint angles and stance. I keep my wrists, grip and trigger squeeze as normal as possible. The goal while I'm looking for groups is to eliminate gross variables like posture, strength and breathing. Those are things I can isolate and work on later, after I know the pistol is zeroed.

- A little self-discipline helps me get new pistols sighted. In my mind, a group is a trend. If I'm seeing holes (for instance) up and right, I have to fight the urge to adjust my aimpoint and get more bullseyes. The object of shooting groups, for me, is to stay on center and keep missing in the exact same spot. I can fix that with a click or two on the sight if all the groups agree.

- I did this with a new pistol a couple weeks ago and got some pretty sloppy groups - all over the place. No help. So I used the back of a target and drew the tiniest dot I could see. Everything tightened up immediately. Three 10-round mags in a row confirmed that my now-crisp groups were generally 1/2" high and right. So I nudged the sights. True, I can't always have a tiny dot as a target, but at least I know the sights are properly adjusted now and I can start working on other things with confidence.

I'm not an expert at all. But over a few decades this stuff has worked for me. Zeroing any weapon can be time consuming, but sooo worth it, fun, and very satisfying.