500 rounds with three guns

Do any of the rest of you have to relearn good habits when you go shooting and forget bad ones? I don’t think anything exposes that more than trying to stick three magazines worth of rounds in a ring the size of a cantaloupe or better yet a grapefruit at 20 feet.

Today I found that the gun I have had to longest, a 380, was pretty easy at first. The 9mm was closer to a soccer ball size pattern with 24 rounds. The 45 was the hardest. However as I fired more rounds I concentrated more on proper alignment of the front sight and squeezing the trigger.

By the time I was finished practicing I had changed the aiming point for the 45 so that the front blade sat on top of the ten ring. The 9mm was holding at 10 o’clock just inside of the 10 ring and the 380 was just inside the 9mm aiming point.

Does anyone else have to change holds for different guns with different calibers? FYI the 380 is a DA/SA. Once the slide is racked the trigger pull is half what the other two guns have.

For me the good news is even the 45 was all center mass with the big FMJ rounds. The home defense rounds are only 185 gr and look like they will expand to 3/4 of an inch.

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I get what you mean. My point of aim with the P365 with NS and point of aim with the lead sights of my S&W .38, RM380, and my .410 are definately different. I learned to shoot with, a have done the most shooting with, a lead sight, over many years before I had something else of my own to get used to.

Yeah, unfortunately each of my firearms shoot differently. I use the same 9mm caliber and trying to keep the same size of grip for all of them, but that’s all what can be done.
Different triggers and different POI cause that I have to put few rounds before hitting dead center.
Only my EDC can hit where I’m aiming every time. I practice with this one every day.

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My eyes have gotten old and I will never be a competition shooter again (I was a member of my units M16 shooting team while in Germany).

I have a wide variety of hand guns in various calibers. Now when I go to the range my objective is to put rounds on target (silhouette) not in a bullseye ring.

If I can keep 95% of my rounds inside a pie plate at 30 feet or less I am confident I will be able to stop a threat if I had to.

Dont get me wrong, shooting bullseyes is still impressive and I wish I could still do it like I use to but my days of shooting like that with open sights have passed. Yes I am considering lasers/red/green/or any other color dot system that might work for me.

Looking at those options closely is one of my priorities at this years USCCA Expo.

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From what I understand, most handgun sights fall into one of these three sight picture alignments from the factory:

Sight_Picture

My Springfield is “6 o’clock”, my Sig Sauer is “Center Of Target”, and my FN is “Combat”. This of course only affects elevation, not windage.

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I’m with @DBrogue :ok_hand:
Hitting bullseye is a fun. It also proves we can still hit with precision (sometimes precision is needed to self defense).
However every year we are getting older (no exceptions here… ok, “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” doesn’t count :wink: ) and have to realize that hitting 8in x 8in torso area is what we need :ok_hand:

My “defense shooting” Instructor always tells that 10 bullets making 1 nice whole in center of the attacker’s chest may not stop the threat… yeah, that’s definitely true statement. :upside_down_face:

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@DBrogue
We must be brothers from another mother. Though I can still hit pretty well with a long gun.
If I were to use the chart posted by @Gary_H none of my Handguns will hit the pie plate you describe if the hold in 6 o’clock. Combat maybe but I discovered that takes tilting my head back to get the front sight clear with my Bifocals. I have been toying with the idea of those top bifocal shooting glasses but so far taking the extra step of tilting my head back to get a clear picture of the front blade is working. As long as I remember the other fundamentals.

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@Jerzees
Maybe to put a bit of an another sport analogy on it? To me it is a bit like Golf. We work pretty hard at getting our game to the point where we can break 100. For many people that seems to be enough. However for others, like many here I assume, the goal is to make par not to break 100.

Shooting used to be more like that to me. Going to the range meant putting 10 in the bulls eye by the time you were ready to call it a day. Then it was the ten ring and by today as long as we stay in the nine we are good. And finally to qualify we only need a few center mass shots and we get signed off.

The biggest difference for me is it no longer seems natural. I have to work at it, I have to concentrate, I am not complaining mind you. I am coming to the realization that we have to practice and adapt as we go along just to stay in the game.

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The point that has not been mentione is that EVERY pistol and EVERY brand / type / weight / velocity boolet will impact the target at a different location with the same sight picture at a given distance. It will do this twice in the trajectory of the boolet. One near and one far.

For example: My 1911 Officers Model .45; with a 3.5" barrel and TZZ Match 230gr Ball will hit POA/POI (Point of Aim /Point of Impact) at 7.5 yards and (near as I can tell or hold still) 100 yards.

So, to hit POA/POI or (“Combat” as stated above) you may need to adjust the distance from the target you shoot at if you have fixed iron sights. Anything closer will be low anything farther will be high until the trajectory crosses over at another given distance.

The above of course A$$uME’s perfect sight alignment, trigger control and follow through.

It’s called ballistics and it does apply to pistols.

The take away from the above is that given your average indoor range with targets that are run out to a particular distance from 1 - 25 yards you can determine, with a little work, where you pistol falls out of your preferred accuracy zone. Lets say 5". Anything inside 3 yds is a waist of time as the powder and muzzle blast will put the hole in the target as well as the boolet. Run the target out 2 more yards (or 5) and shoot the same spot. The boolet impact will slowly climb into your sight picture and continue to climb out of it the further you get from the target.

In the hunting world this is known as “Minute of Bambi” Where in I know that with this load in this rifle if I zero at this yard line I can stay inside a 8" circle out to XYZ yards. Hold center and send it.

Cheers,

Craig6

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Yep, same thing, it seems each of my handguns has a slightly different aimpoint, and then to take it a step further I have a different aimpoint if I have both eyes open or am shooting with dominate eye only.

That’s why I try to train frequently so that I don’t forget.

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