Freedom Forged
Regular Member
I have had accuracy issues for some time now. At 61 my eyes are not as good as they use to be. I went through 4 sight sets on my G19 trying to fix the issue. I even bought a sight tool to make it easier to swap sets. XS Big Dots, Ameri-Glo, one other who's name escapes me right now, and finally Trijicon HD in orange.
While the Trijicons did help me to see the front sight better they did not fix my issue. Though I had been told moving the rear sight is not a fix, finding nothing else wrong as far as I could tell I started fiddling with different rear sight positions. It was easy to move it, hell, I own a sight tool what could it hurt. Much to my dismay it was not a fix either.
I saw a video by Tim Herron titled Pistol zeroing and it's effect (or lack) at close range. Later I saw another video where Aaron Cowan was shooting a G17 with NO sights and making hits. I then realized what a waste of time moving the rear sight was.
It has to be my reloads I thought. Even though I am anal about my reloads their had to be something wrong with them. This is easy to discover I'll just take some factory ammo next time. No difference.
I know what it is. I can't see. I contacted Frank Robertson at Shooting Glasses Specialist and after several phone calls, a few emails and $350.00 I had a pair of shooting glasses on the way.
Now mind you the indoor range I shoot at is in the basement of a store/gun shop and it is not well lit. But, its 5-6 minutes from where I work and my boss has no objection to me going so that is where I shoot 90% of the time. Usually once a week and average 150 rounds per visit.
The glasses came in and I was excited to get to the range and see what I had been missing. I truly could see my front sight crystal clear and it was nice to see the crisp edges and not an fuzzy orange dot. After my usual 150 rounds I was completely and totally pissed off! While the glasses did help me and gave me front sight picture I remember when I was 25 it did not fix my issue.
So I'm now somewhere around $600.00 trying to make my accuracy better. I didn't necessarily wish to be able to keyhole shots although that would be great I just wanted to be able to consistently put 95% of my rounds in the heart or brain box of my anatomically correct paper targets. I didn't go to the range for several weeks I was so disgusted.
I have watched a million, billion videos where they talk about grip, I've read a zillion articles talking about grip. There is nothing wrong with my grip. I have practiced my grip. I have shot videos of me shooting with a close-up of my grip. I even had an instructor tell me once that my grip looked great. So there is nothing wrong with my grip! Or could their be?
On my next trip to the range I took my normal 10 mags full but this time I went to work on one thing and one thing only, MY GRIP. I wanted to prove it good or bad. I made myself a promise that I would not break a single shot until I was satisfied with my grip. I still did not shoot that great through the first 3 mags. Then I decided to fire one round and examine my grip. I realized that my support hand was not making the contact with the gun like I thought it was. Their was somewhat of a gap under heel of my support hand and the gun. This is what I had to adjust my grip sometimes after 4 or 5 shots. How could I not know this?! Training scar?
I began to experiment a little with my support hand trying to get more of the base of my thumb (what I call the heel) on the gun. I was placing the fingers of my support hand on top of my primary hand (or what ever the hell you want to call that hand) and then wrapping my hand around and that just didn't give me full positive contact that I thought I had. It was leaving a gap. God as my witness I did not realize it!
I tried placing the heel of my thumb in position first against the grip and then wrapping my fingers around. The opposite of the way I was doing it. The rest of that magazine was in the A zone with a few in C.
I finished off the rest of my rounds that day refining the grip I had just changed and I noticed a marked improvement. I was on cloud 9 when I left. Then I began to think..... A fluke or a discovery? Is it repeatable? Over the rest of that week I practiced that grip dry firing to try to break the old grip habit and ingrain the new one. After a few days of dry fire I knew something was completely different.
I had my grip was stippled by NAF Solutions some time back. While the stippling is not very aggressive I discovered I had a hotspot on the heel of my support hand that I never had before. My grip was surely changed.
I went back to the range today with great anticipation. I wanted to know if it was a fluke or not.
It wasn't a fluke. I shot better today than I have in a very long time. At 7 and 10 yards (please don't laugh) taking my time on every shot to be sure to reproduce that grip every time I put 95% of my rounds in the heart or brain box of my target. That's nothing for most of you here but it's a big deal to me and that is a great feeling.
I want everyone to know that I by no means think that I'm a great shot now. I'm not even a good shooter now. But I am a better shooter than I was and I'm going to build on that. I plan to replicate this on my next range trip and then start on building speed and shooting at greater distances.
I hope all of this makes sense. My whole reason for writing this and showing how dumb I really am is in hopes that it will help someone else. I hope if you are having accuracy problems before you spend a lot of money on gear you will at least explore, in great detail your grip. It's that important!
That said I do plan to put an RMR on my G19. It will be a little while before that is done so I'm going to continue to keep working with the irons and hopefully retrain my brain and hands.
Sorry this was so long, I just want it to help somebody.
FF
While the Trijicons did help me to see the front sight better they did not fix my issue. Though I had been told moving the rear sight is not a fix, finding nothing else wrong as far as I could tell I started fiddling with different rear sight positions. It was easy to move it, hell, I own a sight tool what could it hurt. Much to my dismay it was not a fix either.
I saw a video by Tim Herron titled Pistol zeroing and it's effect (or lack) at close range. Later I saw another video where Aaron Cowan was shooting a G17 with NO sights and making hits. I then realized what a waste of time moving the rear sight was.
It has to be my reloads I thought. Even though I am anal about my reloads their had to be something wrong with them. This is easy to discover I'll just take some factory ammo next time. No difference.
I know what it is. I can't see. I contacted Frank Robertson at Shooting Glasses Specialist and after several phone calls, a few emails and $350.00 I had a pair of shooting glasses on the way.
Now mind you the indoor range I shoot at is in the basement of a store/gun shop and it is not well lit. But, its 5-6 minutes from where I work and my boss has no objection to me going so that is where I shoot 90% of the time. Usually once a week and average 150 rounds per visit.
The glasses came in and I was excited to get to the range and see what I had been missing. I truly could see my front sight crystal clear and it was nice to see the crisp edges and not an fuzzy orange dot. After my usual 150 rounds I was completely and totally pissed off! While the glasses did help me and gave me front sight picture I remember when I was 25 it did not fix my issue.
So I'm now somewhere around $600.00 trying to make my accuracy better. I didn't necessarily wish to be able to keyhole shots although that would be great I just wanted to be able to consistently put 95% of my rounds in the heart or brain box of my anatomically correct paper targets. I didn't go to the range for several weeks I was so disgusted.
I have watched a million, billion videos where they talk about grip, I've read a zillion articles talking about grip. There is nothing wrong with my grip. I have practiced my grip. I have shot videos of me shooting with a close-up of my grip. I even had an instructor tell me once that my grip looked great. So there is nothing wrong with my grip! Or could their be?
On my next trip to the range I took my normal 10 mags full but this time I went to work on one thing and one thing only, MY GRIP. I wanted to prove it good or bad. I made myself a promise that I would not break a single shot until I was satisfied with my grip. I still did not shoot that great through the first 3 mags. Then I decided to fire one round and examine my grip. I realized that my support hand was not making the contact with the gun like I thought it was. Their was somewhat of a gap under heel of my support hand and the gun. This is what I had to adjust my grip sometimes after 4 or 5 shots. How could I not know this?! Training scar?
I began to experiment a little with my support hand trying to get more of the base of my thumb (what I call the heel) on the gun. I was placing the fingers of my support hand on top of my primary hand (or what ever the hell you want to call that hand) and then wrapping my hand around and that just didn't give me full positive contact that I thought I had. It was leaving a gap. God as my witness I did not realize it!
I tried placing the heel of my thumb in position first against the grip and then wrapping my fingers around. The opposite of the way I was doing it. The rest of that magazine was in the A zone with a few in C.
I finished off the rest of my rounds that day refining the grip I had just changed and I noticed a marked improvement. I was on cloud 9 when I left. Then I began to think..... A fluke or a discovery? Is it repeatable? Over the rest of that week I practiced that grip dry firing to try to break the old grip habit and ingrain the new one. After a few days of dry fire I knew something was completely different.
I had my grip was stippled by NAF Solutions some time back. While the stippling is not very aggressive I discovered I had a hotspot on the heel of my support hand that I never had before. My grip was surely changed.
I went back to the range today with great anticipation. I wanted to know if it was a fluke or not.
It wasn't a fluke. I shot better today than I have in a very long time. At 7 and 10 yards (please don't laugh) taking my time on every shot to be sure to reproduce that grip every time I put 95% of my rounds in the heart or brain box of my target. That's nothing for most of you here but it's a big deal to me and that is a great feeling.
I want everyone to know that I by no means think that I'm a great shot now. I'm not even a good shooter now. But I am a better shooter than I was and I'm going to build on that. I plan to replicate this on my next range trip and then start on building speed and shooting at greater distances.
I hope all of this makes sense. My whole reason for writing this and showing how dumb I really am is in hopes that it will help someone else. I hope if you are having accuracy problems before you spend a lot of money on gear you will at least explore, in great detail your grip. It's that important!
That said I do plan to put an RMR on my G19. It will be a little while before that is done so I'm going to continue to keep working with the irons and hopefully retrain my brain and hands.
Sorry this was so long, I just want it to help somebody.
FF
