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How To Improve Your Handgun Accuracy

Discussion in 'Outdoors' started by lawrence global, Aug 25, 2017.

  1. lawrence global

    lawrence global New Member

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    1. Here’s a dry fire practice checklist:

    2. Step 1: Remove all ammunition from your gun.

    3. Remove the magazine from your gun. Next, rack the slide to remove the cartridge from the chamber. Look in the magazine well and chamber to verify that your gun is truly empty.

    4. Step 2: Move the ammunition away from your practice area.

    5. Humor me here. Get those bullets you just removed and place them out of reach from your practice area. It’s amazing how life’s distractions can cause you to forget you just reloaded your gun after dry fire practice.

    6. Step 3: Choose a safe target and backstop.

    7. Since we’re obeying Rule 1 and treating our gun as if it’s loaded, we need to aim at a safe target and backstop during dry fire practice. I use a dresser that’s backed up against a stairwell wall. If I did manage to launch a bullet at it, the dresser full of junk would stop the projectile.Here’s a tip that I use. I line up the ammunition I removed from my gun on top of the dresser. I place the rounds from the magazine next to each other and set the round I removed from the chamber a bit off to the side. That’s a visual cue and reminder that all of the bullets from my gun, magazine and chamber, are safely removed.

    8. Step 4: Focus on your front sight!

    9. Focus on your front sight, so it’s crisp and clear. Your chosen (safe!) target will be a bit blurry and that’s OK. You want all of your focus on the front sight. Your sight will move around a bit as no one can hold a handgun perfectly still. This is OK and normal.

    10. Step 5: SLOWLY PRESS the trigger.

    11. Never try to press the trigger quickly the millisecond your sights are where you want them - that leads to moving the gun and a missed shot.

    12. Slowly PRESS the trigger as smoothly as possible while the sight is in the vicinity of your target. As you practice, you be able to hold your gun more steady and the sights will move around less on target. The goal here is to complete the full trigger press until the gun’s action releases – without moving the sights off target. Just accept the little bit of wobble.

    13. You’ll notice I say “press” instead of “pull” and that’s deliberate. If you practice a slow and smooth “press” perfectly every time, your brain will acquire an excellent habit. When at the range, you’ll find that the smooth press is automatic.

    14. Step 6: Follow through!

    15. As the gun dry fires, keep watching the sights until the action is complete. After the gun “clicks”, you’ll want to see the exact same sight picture as before the shot. That’s where your shot would have hit had you been firing a live cartridge. Think of this last step as follow through. Train your eyes to see the sight alignment just after the gun “fires.” Eventually, you’ll know where your shot hit without looking at the target.

    16. Step 7: Reset if necessary depending on your gun type.

    17. Semi-Automatic Pistols (Double / Single-Action)
    18. With a double-action, you can configure your dry fire practice depending on what you want to accomplish. You can always just pull the trigger to simulate a full, double-action firing sequence. However, in real life, after that first double-action trigger pull, your handgun will cock itself so the second shot is a light trigger pull single-action motion. When you’re dry firing, you’ll have to pull back the hammer manually to prepare the gun for a single-action shot. It’s up to you if you want to simulate a first double-action shot, followed by a series of single-action shots or some other scenario. Do practice double-action shots, immediately followed by single-action shots though. The transition from heavier to lighter trigger takes some getting used to.

    19. Striker-Fired Pistols
    20. If you’re shooting a constant action striker-fired pistol, you'll have to cock the gun after each shot. To do this, just rack the slide. Fortunately, you don’t have to do a complete slide rack. With most pistols, you can pull the slide back ¼” or so and the striker mechanism will reset. Experiment with your gun to see how little of a partial slide rack you can get away with.

    21. Step 8: Make a deliberate show of being done.

    22. When you are finished, reload your gun with the ammunition you moved earlier. Now here’s the most important part - immediately store your gun in its normal place - holster, safe or lockbox. People have dry firing accidents when they reload their gun, get distracted, then resume “dry firing” only to experience a loud bang.

    23. Those are the basic steps of safe and effective dry fire practice. In a future article, we’ll talk about other practice steps you can add to your dry fire routine.

    24. One more thing. Always check with your gun manufacturer documentation to make sure your gun is safe to dry fire. Some guns, like most .22s, should not be dry fired. Most centerfire pistols are OK though.

    25. Remember, do everything slowly, deliberately and perfectly. You are programming your brain so each action has to be exactly the same. Your brain will speed things up on its own when necessary. Brains are really smart like that.
     

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