Why would I shoot better with a Browning 9mm

[Johann the Horrible]

This Saturday I shot my daughters P35 Browning since my competition gun is having a full lenghts dust cover fitted. The trigger is crappy and has a long release and the magazine capacity is small(13 rounds). The gun is(obviously) in 9mm so I shot minor, adding a further disadvantage. I always shoot in Standard gun.

In spite of all this I shot one of my best scores ever. I battled with the trigger the whole day long and had "trigger freaze" on the last stage. Surely this does not make sence?

My normall gun is a tricked out Para 45 and the gun has a several expensive custom features- to make me shoot it better.

Is there an obvious answer out there that I am missing?

[G-ManBart]

It could be a bunch of things but I'd bet it was simply that you were taking your time, calling the shots and moving on....see one, shoot one, see one, shoot one. If you're doing that, you're not trying to go fast which can lead to a huge mistake. R,

[AikiDale]

It's because it was a 9mm.

[Coach]

I cannot believe someone has not been here already and said it is the Indian not the arrow.

Edited May 11, 2008 by RoyceLowellPatton

[Flyin40]

It could be a bunch of things but I'd bet it was simply that you were taking your time, calling the shots and moving on....see one, shoot one, see one, shoot one. If you're doing that, you're not trying to go fast which can lead to a huge mistake. R,

Your attention was placed elsewhere than where it normally is with your regular gun. You were worried about trigger pull so you probably made sure most of your shots had a nice squeeze to it. In your mind the gun was "crappy" and your were shooting minor so the pressure was taken off of you to perform. You just shot. Now if you can figure out how to apply what you did at this match and transfer it over to your standard gun you'll be in business.

Its also know as the trick of the day. Do a search for "trick of the day" and do some reading.

Flyin

[Johann the Horrible]

Obviously it was the Indian and not the arrow, but it is difficult to shoot well with a bent arrow and for me I shot well.

I know - it is just the Universe screwing with my mind. LOL

[RePete]

You basically knew what the problems with the gun and overcame them.

[tightloop]

No pressure to shoot well because of your competition gun...

[HSMITH]

It could be a bunch of things but I'd bet it was simply that you were taking your time, calling the shots and moving on....see one, shoot one, see one, shoot one. If you're doing that, you're not trying to go fast which can lead to a huge mistake. R,

Your attention was placed elsewhere than where it normally is with your regular gun. You were worried about trigger pull so you probably made sure most of your shots had a nice squeeze to it. In your mind the gun was "crappy" and your were shooting minor so the pressure was taken off of you to perform. You just shot. Now if you can figure out how to apply what you did at this match and transfer it over to your standard gun you'll be in business.

Its also know as the trick of the day. Do a search for "trick of the day" and do some reading.

Flyin

+10. With an unusual gun you shot each shot. With a crappy trigger you had to be attentive to the sights and the trigger press. When your mind is doing that you can't get in your own way and screw things up.

[Joe4d]

Well the mental part has been addressed but lets talk mechanical. I started out with Hipowers The Hipower is a very naturally pointing firearm for many people with smaller hands. I like Para's but lets face it the grip is like holding a 4X4. I have taught several smaller hand shooters to shoot who were doing very bad with other guns who immediately improved with the Browning because it just fit their hands better. The magazines are a little smaller and easier to handle, the gun recoils less, It's also 12 oz's lighter making the transitions faster. There may have also been a luck of the draw issue where there were alot of close fast stages that played into the advantages of the Hipower and minimized the disadvantages another match might go the exact opposite.

[Johann the Horrible]

I am 6 foot + and have big hands. I have always shot the Hi-Power very well, but not that well. A couple of years ago I did a Advanced instructors course. I started of with a Beretta but was going nowhere fast and borrowed a BHP and passed the course with flying colors.

I am having the trigger sorted on the BHP and is almost hoping that my competition gun is not ready- Just to see if I can shoot that well again.

[Jman]

Yes, it's heighten awareness. Same thing happens to armature golfers who try a different driver. Best hits ever. Sadly, it's short term. When the "player" shifts his awareness more to the course (as he should) the hooks and slices come back and usually dramatically.

Jim M

[Duane Thomas]

Maybe you just shoot better with a Hi-Power?

(I know, how simple.)

[Johann the Horrible]

Maybe you just shoot better with a Hi-Power?

(I know, how simple.)

Maybe it is just that simple. It has made me rethink my shooting and why I am doing certain things. It seems I will be shooting the Hi-Power again this weekend. If I shoot it well again I will be throwing money at the problems with the gun. Just think this might be my dream come true - a bought solution!! No need to practice, just buy gun X, Y, or Z and all your problems go away by "magic". I think not, but it is fun though.

[Crusher]

Awareness and focus, that's all it takes.

[Duane Thomas]

I've noticed over the years, if you go to a serious handgun training class where there are about 40 shooters, Glocks will be far and away the most popular gun choice. In second place, probably 1911s. Three or four SIGS, a couple of HKs, maybe a Beretta 92, a few hardy individualists with revolvers....and one guy with a Browning Hi-Power. However, something strange I've also noticed: if you begin having the students compete against each other in an eliminations fashion until you're down to the three or four strongest shooters in the class....the Hi-Power guy will always be one of them. Years ago a custom pistolsmith - and I wish to God I could remember which one - said to me, "When you've eliminated everything else, searching for the best, what you wind up with is the Browning Hi-Power." (I'm not totally convinced that's always true for everyone....but it makes a great quote!)

[Matt Griffin]

There's not a heck of a lot of difference between a Hi-Power and a 92fs, and I've never been able to fault the 92 for anything. Reliable, nice trigger with a bit of work, feels great in the hand, etc. Long and short, if it's 100% reliable then you've just lost most of your equipment excuses. There hasn't been a pistol made in the last fifty years that isn't accurate enough for USPSA competition.

H.

[Flexmoney]

If you can accept that it has little/nothing to do with the gun, you can start to shoot better with any platform.

[Duane Thomas]

There's not a heck of a lot of difference between a Hi-Power and a 92fs

Well, except that one is a double action and the other is a single action. And one has a slide mounted, hammer dropping decocking lever and the other has a frame mounted, sear blocking thumb safety. And one has a huge grip with an extremely forward-set trigger and the other has a compact grip with a rearward-set trigger. And one operates through the drop lock system thus is very thick through the slide and the other operates through the internal tilt-barrel system thus has a trim and rounded slide. And one is bigger than a Government Model while the other is about the size of a Commander. Other than that, there's not a lot of difference between them.

[Duane Thomas]

If you can accept that it has little/nothing to do with the gun, you can start to shoot better with any platform.

Actually, personal opinion here, it has a lot to do with the gun. It's critically important how the gun fits the shooter's hand, for instance. We needs sights we can see, and a trigger we can control. And some guns just work better for some people than some other guns. Is the gun less important than the shooter? Yes. But "less important" doesn't equal "unimportant".

[wide45]

No expectations.

[Duane Thomas]

There hasn't been a pistol made in the last fifty years that isn't accurate enough for USPSA competition.

I profoundly - though politely, I hope - disagree. This is one of the great fallacies about USPSA/IPSC shooting, that the guns, and the shooters, don't have to be particularly accurate. I recall having one career D-class shooter lecture me - lecture me! - about how guns in USPSA don't have to be particulary accurate because the targets are usually so close, and the A-zone is so big. There's a reason this guy was a D-class shooter, and a lot of it was that attitude.

On Saul's Kirsch's 3GM DVD, Angus Hobdell makes a great point: USPSA/IPSC shooting is a process of trading accuracy for speed. But in order to trade accuracy for speed, first you have to have a gun/shooter combination that's capable of great accuracy. The same is true for IDPA, actually. Let us say - just because it's easier to discuss the concept with an 8" circle than a rectangle - our mission description is to put a bullet somewhere inside the -0 area on an IDPA target as fast as we possibly can. Let us also say that, if we take our time and turn in the ultimate in refined sight alignment and trigger control we possibly can, we can put our rounds through one hole, right in the center of the -0 zone, at that distance. Now, how much refinement of sight picture and trigger control can we afford to trade away for speed, how far away from our maximally accurate group size, can we be with that level of accuracy and still hit the eight inch circle? Four inches, right? So we can afford to trade away a LOT of our accuracy potential for speed, because we started out with great accuracy.

Now, let's say that at that same distance, when we take all the time in the world to shoot the best we and our gun can, the best we can do is a 4" group. How much accuracy can trade away, in any direction, and still hit the 8" circle? Two inches, right? So we can't go nearly as fast as the guy with one-hole accuracy potential if we're going to avoid dropping points at that distance.

What if our accuracy potential is eight inches? Then we have nothing to trade. We cannot hit that target, at that distance, any faster than our slowest speed if we don't want to begin dropping points.

This is mostly a function of the shooter's skill level, true, but the gun does matter, as well. While shooters who have occupied the lower skill levels for a considerable amount of time tend to think that having an accurate gun doesn't matter, you would be hard-pressed to find a highly skilled shooter who doesn't think it matters a lot. The more accurate the gun, the more acccuracy we can trade for speed, especially as distance increases. And though long range shots don't come around that often in USPSA/IPSC, they do occur. When that time rolls around, the guy with the accurate gun, and the skill to use it, then finds himself in an enviable position. They've gonna come out way ahead of almost everybody else.

Also, we always want to know, if a shot ever goes wide, it was US, not the gun. This does away with an immense amount of self-delusion. Or, put another way, the gun only doesn't matter once you've got a great gun.

[Duane Thomas]

No expectations.

Meaning?

[Merlin Orr]

There hasn't been a pistol made in the last fifty years that isn't accurate enough for USPSA competition.

I profoundly - though politely, I hope - disagree. This is one of the great fallacies about USPSA/IPSC shooting, that the guns, and the shooters, don't have to be particularly accurate. I recall having one career D-class shooter lecture me - lecture me! - about how guns in USPSA don't have to be particulary accurate because the targets are usually so close, and the A-zone is so big. There's a reason this guy was a D-class shooter, and a lot of it was that attitude.

On Saul's Kirsch's 3GM DVD, Angus Hobdell makes a great point: USPSA/IPSC shooting is a process of trading accuracy for speed. But in order to trade accuracy for speed, first you have to have a gun/shooter combination that's capable of great accuracy. The same is true for IDPA, actually. Let us say - just because it's easier to discuss the concept with an 8" circle than a rectangle - our mission description is to put a bullet somewhere inside the -0 area on an IDPA target as fast as we possibly can. Let us also say that, if we take our time and turn in the ultimate in refined sight alignment and trigger control we possibly can, we can put our rounds through one hole, right in the center of the -0 zone, at that distance. Now, how much refinement of sight picture and trigger control can we afford to trade away for speed, how far away from our maximally accurate group size, can we be with that level of accuracy and still hit the eight inch circle? Four inches, right? So we can afford to trade away a LOT of our accuracy potential for speed, because we started out with great accuracy.

Now, let's say that at that same distance, when we take all the time in the world to shoot the best we and our gun can, the best we can do is a 4" group. How much accuracy can trade away, in any direction, and still hit the 8" circle? Two inches, right? So we can't go nearly as fast as the guy with one-hole accuracy potential if we're going to avoid dropping points at that distance.

What if our accuracy potential is eight inches? Then we have nothing to trade. We cannot hit that target, at that distance, any faster than our slowest speed if we don't want to begin dropping points.

This is mostly a function of the shooter's skill level, true, but the gun does matter, as well. While shooters who have occupied the lower skill levels for a considerable amount of time tend to think that having an accurate gun doesn't matter, you would be hard-pressed to find a highly skilled shooter who doesn't think it matters a lot. The more accurate the gun, the more acccuracy we can trade for speed, especially as distance increases. And though long range shots don't come around that often in USPSA/IPSC, they do occur. When that time rolls around, the guy with the accurate gun, and the skill to use it, then finds himself in an enviable position. They've gonna come out way ahead of almost everybody else.

Also, we always want to know, if a shot ever goes wide, it was US, not the gun. This does away with an immense amount of self-delusion. Or, put another way, the gun only doesn't matter once you've got a great gun.

I hope to remember where this post is for future use...... Every time I hear the tired old BS about "It's not the arrow but the indian.." I cringe and wonder how shooters, most more accomplished than I will ever be, otherwise intelligent people can subscribe to this indefensible position. Above is the most articulate and, IMHO, most accurate rebuttal I have yet to see in print.

I'm jumbing on this wagon and saying - + 1 from me....

[J-Ho]

I used to give a buddy crap because he would borrow his wife's hi-power a shoot really well. I told him the only gun he could handle was girl's gun.