Why would I shoot better with a Browning 9mm

[Crusher]

No expectations.

Meaning?

Just do

[wide45]

No expectations.

Meaning?

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=62688

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=54610

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=44808

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=39266

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11194

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6142

[Flexmoney]

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".

You have yet to accept it.

[JimmyZip]

I shoot a HiPower! When I got back into this game last year I thought that I would have to go out and get rid of all of them so that I would be competitive.

That may be true one day but for now I would say this, I love my HiPowers!. Sure you need to really go out and search for someone who really understands them to work on them, but they are great guns to shoot and they fit my hands well. Check out the HiPower on the EGW website! That is my DREAM GUN!

When I started out shootin, I started out revolver. But my first auto was a HiPower. I have owned seven diffferent HiPowers over the years. I once had one of what may have been the first 9mm major HiPowers that my dad built with the help of Irv Stone. (The father of the current owner of BarSto Precision) I uset to shoot Czech SMG ammo through that thing and could hit out to 50 yds easily. Thats an 8" target out at 50 yds. Now that pistol had a 6" barrel and heavy Wolf recoil springs and mainsprings. ( wish I couild remember what weight/tension) My father and I put many thousands of rounds through that pistol. Only drawback was competing from a Gordon Davis IWB and reholstering after a long stage! HOT BARREL! We had others which I inherited when I turned 21. They have been great guns. ( Or some were. Some were stolen a few years ago)

What I have found though is that since I've been back at this game and have shot many other platforms now and over the years is that my hands like them. They are the original doublestack. They are accurate enough for me, and many who shoot mine are surprised at the triggers. They break crisp at 4 lbs. I can track the sights shooting the loads I make and the pistol is easy to maintain. That is what I like, that is what I shoot.

Sure there are many who say bad things about the HiPower, I say so what. You shoot what you like! If what you like gets you to where YOU want then WHO CARES WHAT YOU SHOOT?

Just my .08

[Flexmoney]

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....

I've defended the position, with real live math and cool stuff like that.

- It's impossible to miss.

- Wanna-b-speedy (part 2) - how an 8in group/wobble can work

What makes me cringe and wonder (and I'm not saying that to start a debate) are the shooters that have been coming to this forum...this fountain of information...for years, and yet they have shown minimum improvement on their fundamentals, basic techniques, and mental game. 3 Aspects of Shooting Pistol

There is nothing wrong with good gear...and it should fit the shooter. Eventually, you run out of things to look for on the outside (well, SHOT show probably keeps that from happening). If and when a shooter really shines the light internally, that is when they will have the opportunity to really improve.

Wanna move up 2 or more classifications? The information is here. Anybody can have it. It's not even hard to look up. It's not found in the spring forum. It's not found in the reloading forum. It's not in the "Handgun & Technical" section at all. The info is found in the "Shooting Forums" section. It's stuff like Brian's fundamentals, calling the shot, visual patience, follow through, defining the target, etc.

When I read through the posts in the "Shooting Forums" section of this place...the guys in the conversations there...most all of them are very accomplished shooters now. They took the big bright light and shined inward on themselves.

[Johann the Horrible]

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.

In this case it is a girls gun - a 14 year old girls one and she wants to shoot it today. I will be shooting my highly modified super duper Standard gun complete with all the bells and whistles. If she creams me again(on a stage) with her "inferior" gun I will take it away. LOL

I have to agree with Duane, what he says has to carry a lot of truth. It can explain why I would shoot +5% better with a minor caliber in a sport where major caliber is important. My score is expressed as a percentage of our National Champions score(we shot at the same club). My grasp, or lack thereof, of the fundamentals stays the same. The Indian is the same, it is just the arrow that changes. Maybe, just maybe this arrow works "better" for this particular Indian.

If I work on improving this arrow(Browning) would it still work so well for me? Only time(and a lot of money) will tell.

[Michael Carlin]

Duane Thomas' post is absolutely true in all aspects.

In both my most proficient shooting sports, NRA Conventional Pistol (Bullseye), and Service Rifle, accuracy sufficient to clean the target with all Xs is the best way to go.

As Duane says if you are shooting a pistol/ammunition combination that from a Ransom rest will only hold 8" at 25 yards it will be a long time before you can truly see how much minor error in sight alignment or how violent a trigger yank will put you into the C zone.

Ideally the inherent accuracy should be as laser like as possible. Whether the goal is to go as fast as you can up closeor to hit a distant stop plate with first round

more accuracy is better. And it aids is learning the fundamentals immensely.

[wide45]

Forget the Ransom rest. If you can't shoot a good group, it makes no difference what the gun will do in a rest.

If you are capable of shooting a good group, you can get the best a gun will deliver, even if that is not as good as you wish.

[Duane Thomas]

You have yet to accept it.

You may well be right. I tend to be very cautious about disagreeing with anyone I know has a higher skill level than myself. It could be my disagreement is based on ignorance of facts and impressions that came with the skill level they possess - when I get there myself I may well find myself agreeing with them.

Musashi did say, "You should not have a favorite weapon. To become over-familiar with one weapon is as much a fault as not knowing it sufficiently well." This mindset was how, when attacked by a swordsman on a beach when fishing, with no sword to hand, he was able to pick up an oar and kill his opponent. The most famous swordfight in Japanese history, despite - actually because - it didn't even involve two men with swords.

On the other hand, Musashi was also a master sword maker. When building a sword, did he really think, "It doesn't matter what attributes I put into this sword, or the experience level or preferences of the person wielding it. I'll just throw in whatever combination of tempering, length, weight, balance, edge I feel like." I think not! Or did he build the best tool for that person he possibly could?

Here we get into the old argument between versatility and specialization. "You should not have a favorite weapon" on the one hand versus "Beware the man with one gun" on the other. It's a nice ideal to be able to shoot superbly with anything. Maybe one day I'll agree with that. But at this time it seems to me, nice ideal though that may be, it ignores individual differences and the fact that certain guns will work better for certain people - that might not work particularly well for someone else.

[Matt Griffin]

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.

Whoops! Sorry, I got the controls of a P38 mixed up with a Hi-Power. Retracted.

H.

[benos]

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

Good stuff. Yes, it's SO easy to take what you do with your regular gun for granted.

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

That's deep... Way past the surface.

be

[G-ManBart]

There is nothing wrong with good gear...and it should fit the shooter. Eventually, you run out of things to look for on the outside (well, SHOT show probably keeps that from happening). If and when a shooter really shines the light internally, that is when they will have the opportunity to really improve.

Wanna move up 2 or more classifications? The information is here. Anybody can have it. It's not even hard to look up. It's not found in the spring forum. It's not found in the reloading forum. It's not in the "Handgun & Technical" section at all. The info is found in the "Shooting Forums" section. It's stuff like Brian's fundamentals, calling the shot, visual patience, follow through, defining the target, etc.

When I read through the posts in the "Shooting Forums" section of this place...the guys in the conversations there...most all of them are very accomplished shooters now. They took the big bright light and shined inward on themselves.

That's pretty much what I'd call a gospel truth.

There's a huge similarity here to golf. For a number of years I played pretty seriously (100-300 rounds a year) and built clubs for a number of good players. I also knew a lot of players that spent time changing their equipment constantly and they never got better than mid to high handicapper levels. They just didn't get it....no matter what they changed, or what they tried, it was the guy swinging the club that made all the difference. Hand Tiger Woods my driver, and while it wouldn't be optimum for him, he'd knock the ball down the middle and far longer than I could with it.

If it fits reasonably well and runs 100% the rest is icing on the cake. You have to be really, really good before a subtle difference is going to help you shoot better. That's one of the reasons why I've spent so little time chasing different loads for my Open gun. I found one that works perfectly, the dot tracks consistently and is accurate. A little bit flatter, or a little bit softer won't change my scores....practice and improvement on MY end of the gun are the only things that will do that. R,

[Johann the Horrible]

Wow. I got so much feedback on a question that was asked mainly in frustration. It is extremely gratifying to get so much help from a group of very knowledgeable shooters

I took my regular gun out this weekend(it was just finished just in time) and shot my second best score ever. As I normally shoot against the National Champion, and he shot on Saturday this is a relevant score. He said he was going well. Did the full length dustcover and square firing pin stop make up the difference? I honestly do not think so. I saw my front sight clearly and did not shoot a single Mike all day long. 4 Dogs got shot on one stage where I went all out for speed and I did not like the minus 13 that came out of that stage. For the rest of the day I took the Alphas.

Two other stages were full-house stages and that is where I made good score. On one stage I lost about 10 seconds and I am still trying to work out where they all went. The best shooter shot it in 9 seconds and I only managed 23. I cannot see where the time went.

What I did notice was that if I drew the Browning the front sight just naturally pointed to the middle of the A-zone. With the Para it is different. I need to look for the front sight and adjust my aim every time, also after my first shot at a target. In other words my "Natural point of Aim" is a left low Charlie. I believe that a lot of time goes missing there. I dry-fire the Para a lot and even find it there, the front sight always a little left and low. The Browning is quite rounded at the back so maybe I should try a rounded mainspring-housing to push the front sight up a bit.

I plan to be a "B" class shooter before the end of the year so 57% simply does not "do" it any more. (The plan was to be one last year, but "stuff happened"). The time is past for finding reasons why I shot badly. It is now the time to know why things went well and to find ways of making it go better even more.

[Duane Thomas]

I think it's very important to have a gun that fits your hand and points naturally. With sufficient practice we may, to a certain extent, be able to compensate for the tendency of the gun to point other than where we want, but in recoil, in my experience, the gun is going to want to "bounce" right back to where it naturally wants to point. It's an immense positive aid to getting the gun on target, and keeping it there between shots, if "where the gun wants to point" and "where I want the gun to point" are the same thing. Like I said, we may, with sufficient practice, be able to make a gun that doesn't fit our hand work for us, but we're never going to be able to totally overcome the fact that we're compensating for a built-in handicap.

My $.02. YMMV - but I doubt it.