Lefty needs help!

[uphill]

I'm left handed shooting a 40 cal. in limited class. I've sighted my pistol in and it shoots right on, but as soon as the buzzer goes off I pull a lot of my shoots to the right and slightly low. Please help!

[Jake Di Vita]

There are over a million posts on this forum...I bet 10% of them deal with that topic.

Do a search as this is not an original question.

[sfinney]

Not a left handed issue, per se. Rightys tend to pull low and left. Its called trigger control.

[Flyin40]

There are over a million posts on this forum...I bet 10% of them deal with that topic.

Do a search as this is not an original question.

LOL and Jake probably post the answer 5 times a week. The bullet went exactly where the sights were aimed when you broke the shot.

You need to do a ton of reading but it will probably take you awhile to really soak it all up and absorb it. Until then just dryfire without moving the sights off target. You can also live fire working on groups. As you read more you'll understand more and learn how to apply dryfire, group and bench shooting to an actual match.

Flyin

[fiddler]

Grip and trigger control. This is something I am working on.

I thought my grip was fine then in slow fire practice I noticed that I had to regrip after each shot. The gun was moving in my hands when I shot. A little bend in the elbows and skate board tape on the grip have helped me be alot more consistent in placing my shots.

[Duane Thomas]

It sounds ridiculously simple, but one of the best things you can do is simply hold your hand up in front of your face, fingers curved as if wrapped around a gun, and move your index finger back and forth like you're pulling a trigger. At this point, watch your other three fingers. Do that until you see no movement in anything other than the index finger.

You didn't say what kind of gun you're shooting though since you say you're shooting in Limited I assume a wide body 1911. In any event, if it's a "short trigger movement" gun like a Glock, 1911, etc., bear in mind you don't have to move your entire index finger to fire the gun. Actually only the first two joints move, everything from the second knuckle back stays absolutely immobile.

I'd suggest lots of dry fire focusing on prepping the trigger before breaking the shot. Like, if your gun has a four pound trigger pull you should have 3-1/2 pounds of pressure on the trigger. That in effect turns the gun into a super-target pistol with a 1/2 pound trigger pull. That's all the energy you're applying to fire the gun that could possibly pull it off target.

Begin practicing by taking up the slack in the trigger action until you hit the "link" resistance point, then prep the trigger with almost enough energy to fire the gun but not quite, then apply that last little bit of energy to fire the gun. Hold the trigger to the rear while you hand cycle the gun to reset the trigger. Slowly let the trigger forward until you feel the trigger reset. If you're firing a Glock or 1911, at that point there will be no slack to re-uptake since the "link" point is in the same place going both forward and back with no re-uptake travel. Then you're back to doing the same thing again: prep the trigger, fire the shot, hold the trigger to the rear, cycle the action, hit the link..... Do that several thousand times to get it into your mind and your muscle memory where the link is, what it feels like to hit it, and how hard you can prep the trigger without actually firing the gun.

Eventually, in both dry and live fire, you want to start making the time interval you hold the trigger to the rear shorter and shorter. Eventually you'll get to the point you've got the trigger reset and prepped while the gun's still in recoil. If you can do that, and get the gun tracking consistently so it comes right back to the same point every time - a completely different topic - you can fire the gun as fast as it comes down out of recoil and still be accurate.

Hope that helped.

[pjb45]

Try this link. Go to their home page for some very interesting articles.

http://www.bullseyepistol.com/training.htm

Note that since this was set up for a right handed shooter you just mirror the diagram for a lefty.