Glock shooting left

[TimH]

I'm willing to bet that its a shooter error...NOT a gun or sights error

[boudreux]

Mine doesn't start shooting left until I get out to about 20-25 yards. From a bag or free hand. Damn thing shoots dead center out to 15 yards. Not factory sights either, I am running TTI's. 

[Hi-Power Jack]

9 hours ago, boudreux said:

starts shooting left until I get out to about 20-25 yards.  shoots dead center at 15 yards.  

 

At 15 yards, it's dead center, but at 20 yards, it's shooting left ?

 

How far left at 20 yards ?  Group sizes at 15 and 20 yards ?

 

Wonder what's going on from 15 to 20 yards ?  Eyesight ?

[boudreux]

On 3/10/2018 at 4:48 AM, Hi-Power Jack said:

 

At 15 yards, it's dead center, but at 20 yards, it's shooting left ?

 

How far left at 20 yards ?  Group sizes at 15 and 20 yards ?

 

Wonder what's going on from 15 to 20 yards ?  Eyesight ?

It will shoot a good group, maybe 2” at 15-20 and still a good group at 25, but it’s about 2” left. Have no idea what’s going on. My vision is 20/15 so that’s not the issue.  

[Hi-Power Jack]

22 hours ago, boudreux said:

It will shoot a good group at 25, but it’s about 2” left.

 

I would sight it in at 25 yards, and I'd be willing to bet that it will

 

still be "right on" at 15 yards.

 

Then, I'd try it at 40-50 yards, and see where that hits     

[boudreux]

11 hours ago, Hi-Power Jack said:

 

I would sight it in at 25 yards, and I'd be willing to bet that it will

 

still be "right on" at 15 yards.

 

Then, I'd try it at 40-50 yards, and see where that hits     

I’ll try that. I may just put an optic on it and say the heck with production and shoot carry optics! 

[Hi-Power Jack]

49 minutes ago, boudreux said:

I’ll try that.  

 

Sighting in for a distance allows you to really determine if the

gun is sighted dead on.

 

At a shorter distance (15 yards), it seems like it's sighted in 100%,

but is usually off at 30 yards.

 

In reverse (sight in at 30 yards) and it's usually perfect at 15 yards    

[Jay63]

I have an acquaintance who's duty weapon is a Glock. He had issues shooting it accurately for years. Someone told him to only apply front to back pressure with his strong hand. Apply side to side pressure with the weak hand. This technique worked like a charm. I saw him shoot 5 rounds in a quarter sized area at 15 yards and under 5 seconds.

[kneelingatlas]

On 3/5/2018 at 9:47 PM, redpillregret said:

If it won’t adjust, drift it! I don’t know how to make it easier for you.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Drift the damn sight!

 

If by your 10,000th round it's shooting right, drift it back.

[crispyrice]

Break out the calipers and check if it is centered then shoot it at 25 meters. Every time I get a new gun and the place throws new sights on it I have to re adjust them. I did shoot my work qualification recently and was shooting left by several inches and it was pissing me off. After it was over I looked at my sights and sure enough the were about to fall off the gun... still confused on that one it never happened again lol.

[boudreux]

I installed the sights myself. I actually have them drifted slightly to the right side of the slide to overcome the shooting left issue. It has to be an issue with the gun. I have the same exact trigger and sight set up on my Glock 35 and it is dead on at any distance out to 35 

[Frank705]

Have someone with experience check the lock up, make sure you dont have any issues with your locking block. I have heard of Glocks that have had a locking block replaced and then shoot straighter.   Just a thought. Other then that you may just have one that shoots left some Glocks do. 

[BikerJon]

fire a 5 shot group from say 10 yards and post a pic. 

 

aim at the center of the target

 

if the sights are off, the shots will still group somewhere. 

 

I'm betting you're not using enough weak hand grip. very common

[Hi-Power Jack]

1 hour ago, BikerJon said:

 

 

if the sights are off, the shots will still group somewhere. 

 

In my experience, groups at 10 yards will be very small, and very close to

the center of the point of aim.

 

However, groups at 20 yards tend to increase in size and distance

from the aiming point     

[Chris iliff]

On 3/6/2018 at 1:04 AM, MemphisMechanic said:

All Glocks shoot left.

 

For the first year. 

 

Over time they astonishingly enough begin to shoot closer and closer to dead center.

 

This is a tongue-in-cheek reference to your consistent trigger press issue with the larger grip and stouter recoil of the .40, which will slowly go away with routine practice.

 

On 3/6/2018 at 10:05 AM, MemphisMechanic said:

Step one, if you’re convinced this is the problem?

 

Use a 2 hand grip and shoot the gun lefthanded. I bet even momey it suddenly stops pushing shots left. 

 

On 3/6/2018 at 6:13 PM, MemphisMechanic said:

It is.

 

The reason I’m so insistent that it’s probsbly not the gun is because this is a really common problem for newer Glock shooters.

 

The larger frame and snappier recoil *do* matter more than you think.

 

 

The only advice I’d take right there^^^^^

 

 

This is more than common and well documented. Do what you want, but MemphisMechanic nailed this. 

 

 

[MemphisMechanic]

20 hours ago, Chris iliff said:

The only advice I’d take right there^^^^^

 

 

This is more than common and well documented. Do what you want, but MemphisMechanic nailed this.

 

I’ve never seen an M class Production shooter with his sight hanging off the right side of the gun, or a gun “that shoots left.”

 

Plenty of them began as novices who struggled with that issue - using the exact same gun they now shoot as an M.

 

Edited March 16, 2018 by MemphisMechanic

[boudreux]

8 minutes ago, MemphisMechanic said:

 

I’ve never seen an M class Production shooter with his sight hanging off the right side of the gun, or a gun “that shoots left.”

 

Plenty of them began as novices who struggled with that issue - using the exact same gun they now shoot as an M.

 

I have. I know an M class shooter that shot glocks for years and shot them left. Switched guns, made M and still shoots glocks left. I agree that technique is probably the major issue the majority of the time, but not always. 

[Jake Di Vita]

16 minutes ago, boudreux said:

I have. I know an M class shooter that shot glocks for years and shot them left. Switched guns, made M and still shoots glocks left. I agree that technique is probably the major issue the majority of the time, but not always. 

 

Someone with a gun that does not hit where the sights are aimed have something wrong with either the equipment or the shooter's ability to execute a shot. If the gun is working properly and the shooter is working properly, the bullet will go where the sights were pointed at the instant the bullet exits the barrel.

 

There is no such thing as perfectly working equipment and a perfectly working shooter that shoots left. If a M class shooter hits left with glocks, he's making a mistake somewhere. It's the shooter's fault frequently enough to be logical to attribute all errors to the shooter. I'd have to be having trouble for a good long time to even consider the gun being at fault.

Edited March 16, 2018 by Jake Di Vita

[10X]

Move the sight.   

 

YOUR job as the shooter is to work towards shooting the smallest groups that the gun and ammo will allow.   As your skill increases, the group size will shrink.

 

If the groups aren't where they should be, it's always the gun's fault--not yours--but the remedy is always as simple as adjusting the sights.

 

That's not to say it's a one-and-done exercise.  As others have pointed out, as you gain experience your technique will likely change, resulting in a change in point of impact.  So you change the sights again, as needed.

 

To recap:  

Precision (group size) is something you improve with practice (and to a lesser extent, fiddling with loads and the gun).

Accuracy (where the group is relative to where you want it) is something you improve with a screwdriver (or sight pusher, or drift punch).

[impact]

On 14.3.2018 at 8:09 PM, crispyrice said:

Break out the calipers and check if it is centered then shoot it at 25 meters. Every time I get a new gun and the place throws new sights on it I have to re adjust them. I did shoot my work qualification recently and was shooting left by several inches and it was pissing me off. After it was over I looked at my sights and sure enough the were about to fall off the gun... still confused on that one it never happened again lol.

 

I did that to mine too. In Austria they come zeroed by a machine (I'd guess everywhere else too?), so I wouln'd mess with the sights on factory-fresh guns. However I don't like to buy new glocks. You can typically get them very cheap from frustrated shooters, that haven't even put more than 1000 rounds through them. ^^

With stock sights, and dawson carry sights I used calipers and some other aids, to bring rear sight's notch and front sight blade exaclty to the slides center, and it was dead on ever since. I don't know if that's the norm, but I think the POI shouldn't be off by much. I also never noticed any serious shift in POI between common 124gr Factory Loads and even 145/147gr handloads (9mm) for competition (PF ~135) out to ~25m (27yards). Also I'm pretty confident that most (stock!) Glocks are able to hold 2"@ 27yards (5cm@25m) or better with medium to high quality factory loads and handloads.

 

I would not drift the sights. I would want to learn the proper technique and be able to learn from the patterns that print on my targets. True feedback is essential to develope good technique. I've seen plenty of Glocks with their rear sight drifted all the way to the right. I don't believe you're doing yourself a favour by doing so. Your lying to yourself, masking errors. If you can't handle a Glock's trigger, do extensive dry fire training or get a different Gun. There are quite a few good alternatives to Glocks nowadays that got triggers that are easier to manage. But that's just my opinion.

But I likely would get rid of the Glocks adjustable rear sight. They doesn't look and feel very trusty. I used the standard plastic sigts (fixed rear) for quite some time, and they are fine. Depending on what you do with your Glock I'd recommend getting "proper" IRONsights though, since especially the front sight's edges can get damaged pretty easily with use and compromise your ability to line them up precisely.

 

Anyways, what I would recommend doing is:

1) Do a lot of dummy and ball drills. Maybe even increase the ratio to 1:10 (one life round, 10 dummies) and pay very close attantion to a smooth trigger pull and the front sight blades top edge. You will likely see what you are doing wrong. And with so many duds the POI of the few rounds that are actually life should give you a quite good representation of the true POI.

 

2) Get a Mantis X training system. This system should be able to allow you to compare the muzzle movement during ignition to the bullet's actual POI. This should give you some insight on how valuable the shots you made are to represent the guns true POI.

 

Glocks, to me, are a gift and a course. They provide you with very pronounced feedback. You can use that to become a very capable marksman if you are up to challenges. However, they'll punish lack of (trigger- / shooting technique-) discipline with serious "flyers". That of course can hurt someones ego and/or scores during matches. So decide.

Edited March 18, 2018 by impact

[Jake Di Vita]

23 minutes ago, impact said:

I would not drift the sights. I would want to learn the proper technique and be able to learn from the patterns that print on my targets. True feedback is essential to develope good technique. I've seen plenty of Glocks with their rear sight drifted all the way to the right. I don't believe you're doing yourself a favour by doing so. Your lying to yourself, masking errors.

 

Couldn't agree more. Doing things like drifting the sights to make up for crappy shooting ability is extremely short sighted. Setting your gun up to where a well executed pull of the trigger makes you miss due to the drifted sights requires laughably poor decision making skills. The sooner you decide to fix the shooting error the better off you'll be even if it means having an immediate short term struggle.

 

24 minutes ago, impact said:

Do a lot of dummy and ball drills. Maybe even increase the ratio to 1:10 (one life round, 10 dummies) and pay very close attantion to a smooth trigger pull and the front sight blades top edge. You will likely see what you are doing wrong. And with so many duds the POI of the few rounds that are actually life should give you a quite good representation of the true POI.

 

I see this drill posted all the time, but I think it is generally a bad idea because it doesn't differentiate between movement that happens before the bullet would have exited the barrel (accuracy inhibiting, aka a flinch) and movement that happens after the bullet would have left the barrel (no effect on accuracy, simple compensation for recoil). I think a dot is a significantly better strategic choice to highlight your problems.

[impact]

30 minutes ago, Jake Di Vita said:

I see this drill posted all the time, but I think it is generally a bad idea because it doesn't differentiate between movement that happens before the bullet would have exited the barrel (accuracy inhibiting, aka a flinch) and movement that happens after the bullet would have left the barrel (no effect on accuracy, simple compensation for recoil). I think a dot is a significantly better strategic choice to highlight your problems.

 

Its funny you mention that. It actually happened to me when I started doing that drill after competing in IPSC for a half year or a year. At first I couln't belive how much I "flinched", but with more time and attention I was able do differentiate between pre and post shot pushing. And it was kind of uncomfortable at first to see how close the timing is between pulling the trigger and your muscle impulse to manage the recoil.

But even with that in mind, I found that tracking the frontsight as a firing pin hits a dead round (as you expect a live one) gives you very valuable feedback. I don't think it's a very effictive cure for flinching. But I do believe it gives you quality feedback to develope good shooting technique. You will learn to differentiate between postshot pushing, flinching and movement induced by improper trigger pulling I think. It all combines to a very chaotic front sight path sometimes. And it even saves money, since you are doing more repetitions with fewer life rounds and increased feedback. That's what I call efficient training.

 

A dot I found helpful too. I had a MOS Glock for some time to help my dryfire training and I even shot a Production Optics Match with it (it was a blast -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ksx3kyb5lGI ) What works similar well is a laser/light combo for your rail. Sometimes I use that for dryfire too. It only works for target focus but this also highlights you errors during trigger manipulation. But I only do this every once in a while when I work very specifically on finetuning trigger pull. Doing this too often might create the habit of focusing on the target too much instead of learning how to read the front sight.

 

Edited March 18, 2018 by impact

[Jake Di Vita]

29 minutes ago, impact said:

Its funny you mention that. It actually happened to me when I started doing that drill after competing in IPSC for a half year or a year. At first I couln't belive how much I "flinched", but with more time and attention I was able do differentiate between pre and post shot pushing. And it was kind of uncomfortable at first to see how close the timing is between pulling the trigger and your muscle impulse to manage the recoil.

But even with that in mind, I found that tracking the frontsight as a firing pin hits a dead round (as you expect a live one) gives you very valuable feedback. I don't think it's a very effictive cure for flinching. But I do believe it gives you quality feedback to develope good shooting technique. You will learn to differentiate between postshot pushing, flinching and movement induced by improper trigger pulling I think. It all combines to a very chaotic front sight path sometimes. And it even saves money, since you are doing more repetitions with fewer life rounds and increased feedback. That's what I call efficient training.

A dot I found helpful too. I had a MOS Glock for some time to help my dryfire training and I even shot a Production Optics Match with it (it was a blast -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ksx3kyb5lGI ) What works similar well is a laser/light combo for your rail. Sometimes I use that for dryfire too. It only works for target focus but this also highlights you errors during trigger manipulation. But I only do this every once in a while when I work very specifically on finetuning trigger pull. Doing this too often might create the habit of focusing on the target too much instead of learning how to read the front sight.

 

I can see where you're coming from. It's just like shot calling. Ultimately the information you are trying to get with the dummy round drill is what is the gun doing as it fires. If you're able to call your shots the dummy round test doesn't show you anything that you aren't seeing in every other aspect of your training.

 

I also think this flaw shows itself in dryfire IF you are pushing the intensity of your practice. You should be shot calling every time you pull the trigger in dryfire. If someone is just going through the motions they are not creating the conditions that their skills will be exposed to on match day or even live fire practice day. If you dryfire at a higher intensity than when you shoot, the flaws you have in your live fire will show themselves more readily. It's a similar concept that I use when I coach lifting. Watching someone take 30 minutes to set up perfectly for a lift while fresh shows you the current best possible version of the athlete. This is great, but if I'm trying to make someone better I need to see where they break down...the first place that fails is what I need to shore up. If I want to see someone's true ability to control their body or the outside world I don't want to see them move fresh, I want to see them move when they're breathing hard. The way this translates to shooting is that flaws are exposed when the intensity is increased. If you have a flinch it will rear it's ugly head when you're pushing your par times down in dryfire. It's up to you to see it.

 

Anyway, that's a long winded way of saying you shouldn't need a special drill to check your flinch as that should be happening continuously throughout the vast majority of your training. Obviously shot calling is required for this. But let's be real, if someone can't call their shots they should do nothing else until they can (which a dot also helps a ton). I don't find the habit of focusing on the target with a dot to be a problem with irons. I think most people's problem with shot calling is getting a feel for the speed and timing of when the sight moves and being able to visually process the information fast enough to have a snapshot of the sight position at the instant of lift. The reason why the dot is awesome is it slaps you in the face with this information. Once you know what to look for I think it translates perfectly to iron sighted shooting.

[impact]

7 hours ago, Jake Di Vita said:

 

Anyway, that's a long winded way of saying you shouldn't need a special drill to check your flinch as that should be happening continuously throughout the vast majority of your training. Obviously shot calling is required for this. But let's be real, if someone can't call their shots they should do nothing else until they can (which a dot also helps a ton). I don't find the habit of focusing on the target with a dot to be a problem with irons. I think most people's problem with shot calling is getting a feel for the speed and timing of when the sight moves and being able to visually process the information fast enough to have a snapshot of the sight position at the instant of lift. The reason why the dot is awesome is it slaps you in the face with this information. Once you know what to look for I think it translates perfectly to iron sighted shooting.

 

You just reminded me to work more on my shot calling skills. Thanks for that.

 

I absolutely agree with you on the fact that one you ramp up the speed/intensity flaws of your technique will show up pretty quickly. But I guess thats true for everything. The grip that's off once you push your draws, the magwell you miss as you speed up reloads, the target you overshoot as you speed up your transitions.... I guess that's the point of good training. Do meaningful repetitions and then every now and then push you to the point of failure and learn from that where your technique lacks detail or more disciplined reps.

Edited March 18, 2018 by impact

[Jake Di Vita]

6 hours ago, impact said:

 

You just reminded me to work more on my shot calling skills. Thanks for that.

 

I absolutely agree with you on the fact that one you ramp up the speed/intensity flaws of your technique will show up pretty quickly. But I guess thats true for everything. The grip that's off once you push your draws, the magwell you miss as you speed up reloads, the target you overshoot as you speed up your transitions.... I guess that's the point of good training. Do meaningful repetitions and then every now and then push you to the point of failure and learn from that where your technique lacks detail or more disciplined reps.

 

For sure. To be a little more specific it isn't enough to just do some reps at high intensity to cause failure. If you highlight an error and then slow down to try to fix it, you've changed the conditions that created the error. In order to actually expand abilities the trick is to fix the error at the same speed/intensity which caused the error in the first place. The reps that you can fix your problems without slowing down are the most productive reps in training.

 

This is the general method I use for learning or teaching any skill:

1- Be able to execute a given skill with minimum or no intensity.

2- Add intensity until errors creep in.

3- Fix the errors at that same intensity.

Repeat steps two and three indefinitely.