Single Action Shooting Advice

[putnro01]

I can't seem to shoot well with my Blackhawks. That's a.357 and .44 spec bisley, .41 mag and 44 SBH. I'm all right with my .44 spec blackhawk. Love the guns but have yet to find the right grip. I doubt it's recoil sensitivity b/c when I shoot my GP100, Security-Six, or Redhawk DA with full-tilt loads I feel like a strutting rooster. All the guns are stock, no modifications or heavier/lighter springs. 

Any thoughts or suggested threads/books/videos/prayers on shooting single actions?

Thanks in advance. 

[halfmoon]

putnro01

Is there any particular pattern to what you're seeing? Shooting low, high, left, right, just plain oversize groups?

[putnro01]

High and left with the sbh.
Oversized with the 44 spec Bisley.

[halfmoon]

OK let's start with high and left. Particularly since you mention having a hard time finding the right grip you may be pushing too hard with the heel of your hand against the grip. This will tend to drive shots high. For going left you may not be placing enough of your finger inside the trigger guard. This would tend to lead to pulling left. I'd adjust thing one at a time and observe what changes as you make changes.

Almost certainly folks here that are better qualified to address this. I rarely shoot at more than 30 yards with a handgun. Be interested to see how some of the long distance shooters diagnose this.

[45MAN]

THERE ARE SA GRIP FRAMES THAT I SHOOT BETTER WITH AND WORSE WITH, FA REVOLVERS WITH PACHMAYRS: NO PROBLEM, RUGER BISLEYS: I DO VERY WELL, BLACKHAWKS WITH FACTORY GRIPS: I TEND TO MILK THE TRIGGER, SO I BOUGHT A RUGER SINGLE SIX BLACKHAWK TO PRACTICE WITH W/O ANY RECOIL. THERE ARE GRIPS ON A BLACKHAWK THAT HELP QUITE A BIT (FOR ME). e.g. PACHMAYRS, BUT THEY ALL TAKE THE TRADITIONAL LOOK AWAY FROM THE BLACKHAWK.

[halfmoon]

Here's a nice article with some diagnostic advice and chart:

www.lasc.us/FryxellCrackShot.htm

Took a bit to remember where I'd seen that chart...

[smokingun]

Are you just shooting paper? I've had the same issues with my S.A. wheel guns. I have terrible target panic on paper but can hit pine cones and snuff cans every time at all distances. The comment about the single six is what I've had to do. I can shoot like a laser with a 1911 but I just figured out im anticipating the recoil/gun rolling up on the big revolvers and gripping harder as the trigger breaks causing me to shoot left.

[oddshooter]

Welcome to the Forum !

I mostly shoot l00 yard steel with single action pull.

I noticed DA revolvers in your list.  Do you shoot them DA or SA.

When some cop buddies started harassing me for not shooting double action, I decided to spend a few months working on it. I have a bad trigger finger where the last digit is just dead. Double action just showed how little strength I had in that finger and what I had done to adjust.

Shooting DA was really tough. I'm not talking about that sissy stuff where you stage the trigger. These guys expect a strait-back, one movement, squeeze.

I couldn't separate the trigger squeeze from the finger grasp on the grip. DA was all over the place. I kept at it. Eventually I became much better at centering my concentration on that squeeze and not the grip or wobbling sights. The heavens parted. Once I had that squeeze down, the sights landed naturally on the target.

I highly recommend DA to work on SA trigger pull. Shooting SA now is like cheating.

Prescut

[putnro01]

Thanks for the suggestions. I suppose I'm compensating for poor groups by increasing the strength of my death-grip (if the gun can't move the bullets *must* go into the same hole).

There is a sinlge-six in the safe as well, may have to take that one out more often.

Paper targets. Well, duct tape cross hairs on cardboard for the most part. Shooting 25 yards or so. And 8" steel plates. Can hit the plates, groups on paper are poor.

Shoot primarily double action with the DA's.

-Joe

[jd]

Single actions roll in the hand under recoil, which makes them EXTREMELY sensitive to grip pressure. If you don't use consistent grip strength / pressure, you're not going to get good groups or shoot well. Every time you change your grip pressure, the gun is going to roll a different amount and that bullet is going to go to a different place than the previous bullet. I know this well because I too struggle with it, but when I make sure that I use consistent grip pressure my groups settle down into respectable sizes....

[wildcatter]

The two things I find most important is follow thru, and a consistent grip, I find that a consistent grip is one of the most important things to place shots in the same location on any target. I also find many that have trouble shooting offhand do so because of anticipation. I hear all the time no I am not, and then when they let me load their revolver, and I load 4 live rounds with two empty casings, randomly, and hand it to them, it is amazing what they see when they come up on an empty cartridge without knowing it. Unless you don't know where these empty cases are when your shooting, it does little good to use this for a practice technique.

Another important practice method to overcome self inflicted accuracy problems is to practice by drifiring. This can be very inexpensive and excellent for learning muscle memory. It can show you a lot resting the revolver, or shooting offhand. Practice watching the sights as if you were waiting to see the bullet hit the target, and where they end up on the target, when the hammer strikes the frame. I have spent thousand of empty shots in the past showing I am the issue not the loads or the gun.

As far as shooting high right, left, low, whatever as long as it is consistent, sight regulation or adjustment will cure that. Until I did those things above years ago, I chased sights all the time, every time I went to the range, my revolvers shot somewhere else, once I learned by practicing over and over to grip the revolver the exact same over and over, and to squeeze the trigger slowly till I was surprised when the hammer finally fell, and concentrated on the sights and watching the target picture and concentrating on the target even after the hammer dropped I was never happy with my results.

Of course you have to have a good load the revolver likes to begin with. I spend days and weeks sometimes finding a load each revolver likes, some calibers I have loads that seem to shoot well in all revolvers, but often each different revolver in the same caliber, will need a tweak to the load, or sometimes different components all together. But no matter how good the load is, until you have conquered anticipation, and consistence in sight picture, grip, and follow thru,, no load is going to fix poor shooting form. I would first get someone to load your gun as I said above, and see how well you follow thru especially when an empty chamber is fired and you don't expect it,, priceless information in very short order, Good Luck.

[simple45]

Jul 12, 2018 11:56:23 GMT -5 oddshooter said:

Welcome to the Forum !

I mostly shoot l00 yard steel with single action pull.

I noticed DA revolvers in your list.  Do you shoot them DA or SA.

When some cop buddies started harassing me for not shooting double action, I decided to spend a few months working on it. I have a bad trigger finger where the last digit is just dead. Double action just showed how little strength I had in that finger and what I had done to adjust.

Shooting DA was really tough. I'm not talking about that sissy stuff where you stage the trigger. These guys expect a strait-back, one movement, squeeze.

I couldn't separate the trigger squeeze from the finger grasp on the grip. DA was all over the place. I kept at it. Eventually I became much better at centering my concentration on that squeeze and not the grip or wobbling sights. The heavens parted. Once I had that squeeze down, the sights landed naturally on the target.

I highly recommend DA to work on SA trigger pull. Shooting SA now is like cheating.

Prescut

I'm right where you were at with double action shooting. I can shoot double action great when I stage the trigger and have even gotten pretty fast at it. But I'm still trying to master the one quick pull of double action shooting. I just can't get the consistency of nearly the same accuracy as when I stage it which I can do fairly fast. single actions I have no issues with but that fast double action squeeze is tough. Any suggestions? Thanks

[oddshooter]

I walked up to a guy in NYC and asked how I do I get to Carnegie Hall. He said, "Practice, practice, practice".

There is no magic bullet !!!
I may not be the one to ask. It took me more months to learn DA than I like to admit. I'm a hard headed kind of guy sometimes and I don't like looking foolish. Honestly, I was embarrassed by my groups at the firing line. I preferred to look like a pistolero and so avoided that DA.

I got past my ego and just went ahead and practiced and practiced. It got better. Lots of dry fire at the TV with no one around.

Funny story: the horrible double action triggers like my SP101 were pretty good practice. If you can learn to shoot a hard, heavy, and gritty DA trigger, the good DA triggers are like a gift from the heavens.  Pure joy !

I try to never blame my tools for a workman's poor performance. But a bad DA trigger is about as bad as it gets for shooting consistent small groups. Good practice, but bad for your ego.


Prescut
Our OP, Joe, kinda stumps me. His wheelgun collection shows some sophistication. Shoots DA, but has trouble with only some SAA; including a Bisley 44 spl. He's aiming at grip as the issue? I suggest getting a good shooter buddy, have him shoot your guns, have him watch you shoot.

[oddshooter]

OP,

I think you were kidding when you said death-grip, but Jerry Miculek actually has a death-grip recommendation that I use shooting big bore 44 mags, and my 357 Maximums. or my 13 oz S&W 360PD scandium monster in 357mag.

I learned a rule early to never cross your thumbs or would get slide or hammer bite.  Rules are made to be broken. Jerry has you cross your left thumb over your right thumb and use your entire left hand to squeeze the right hand hard. Then you can relax your right grip hand and isolate that trigger finger squeeze from the grip hold.

I don't use that grip except when recoil/grip is getting too much attention away from the trigger squeeze.  I love the death-grip, but only when applied by the left hand.  Just a firm and comfortable right grip that allows the trigger finger to work independently is best for consistency. 


Prescut

[2 Dogs]

Wow, guys please. Lets all take a minute and think about this.

First, Purnro01, welcome to the forum and thank you for asking a valuable question.

But lets talk about the too much too little trigger thing. In all my years of teaching people to shoot, one of the fundamentals things people do wrong is they don't pull the trigger right. Well, what does that mean? Simply put, it's about pulling the trigger while the sights are aligned with where you want the bullet to go and not doing so in a manner that keeps that sight alignment for as long as possible. Think about all the kids, small statured ladys and some of our vets you see on the range with hand injuries that are shooting quite well despite small or injured hands.

The other thing that students fundamentally do wrong is not look or see the sights right. You can shoot pine cones but not paper? Why is that? What are you looking at? I can tell you that once you see where you need the bullet to go you need to be focused on the sights. A target that does not have legs is not going to go anywhere. You already looked at the target and decided you wanted to shoot it. Now it's time to look at the sights. More in a minute.

Grip. Your grip will adjust itself once you learn to "see" what it is you need to see. For example, I recently mounted and started shooting a scope on my 44 Magnum. I immediately learned that to steady my crosshairs I had to ease up on my grip. Once I did that the wobble decreased a great deal. Upon ignition I could see my crosshairs recoil on the target just like my iron sights and my rifle scopes. Quit worrying about your grip. The same thing goes for your stance. I promise you if a Cape Buffalo decides to stomp toss and gore you your subconscious mind will take off and start defending your person and your feet will engage themselves and you will have to shoot on the fly.

Double action shooting isn't different. You just have to look at your sights longer!

There are a lot of really good pistol shots out there, but they don't particularly "know" why it is they are so. More, they cannot define or explain it. So let me take a stab here for you.

So let's circle the wagons and start over:

Let's tear this down to the most basic fundamentals if we can. For all my years of teaching, I have figured out the student is either not looking at the sights right, or the student is not pulling the trigger right. So, how do we fix this? Well, first, let's define "What is looking at the sights right". This is VERY IMPORTANT and most of you guys don't get this! Simply put, that means you should be focused on your front sight to the point that you can see the serrations on that front blade before, during, and as long after the gun goes off as possible. Done correctly, you should see the front sight "lift" in recoil in the rear notch as the sixgun goes off. So, how do we manage to do this? Try it for yourself first with a small bore or a 22 LR. It is much easier to see. Sit down and rest your sixgun like you are going to shoot a group. Clear your mind of all other distractions. Take deep breaths to load up on oxygen. If you can "see it" with your small bore be sure to alternate your bigger bore with your small bore cylinder for cylinder to help you stay focused on these fundamentals. If you start with a small bore and DO NOT see the sight in focus upon ignition then you have to break this down even further. Have a experienced shooter pull the trigger for you while you hold the gun otherwise normally. That way you have no idea when the trigger is going to break and all you are doing is looking at the sights. All of the above should be first done from a steady rest if possible. It will amaze you to actually see what has been going on right in front of your nose all this time. Then your going to be pissed off at yourself. This level of focus requires a relaxed state of mind. Remember drive in movies? Remember that ice cold Coke that flashed on the screen? That was 1 frame out of 20 in 1 second. That means your eye can see objects clearly at least that fast. Think about race car drivers at some 200 mph! Now, the trigger squeeze. You ain't going to pet that dog if it's biting you every time you lay a finger on it. Back off that load. When you load your cylinder, load some empty cases with the live ones. Look away and spin the cylinder and shut the gate. Now you don't know if you are going to get a bang or a click. If you get a click and the front sight did not stay in focus and in that rear notch you aren't pulling the trigger right. Again, the small bore helps us here, I personally always have one along when I am shooting a "big" sixgun. You must repeat this until you conquer that level of ammunition with that sixgun. This is the best place to practice "dry fire" because it will blatantly show you when you goofed your trigger pull or lost focus on your sights.

I don't care how good you are. I don't care how much ammunition you have shot. I have shot a ton. I still do the above. Don't let outside factors interfere with your shooting even if they are just thoughts. Quit thinking about the heat or the cold. Or how far away the target is or what may be. Just look at the sights and control the trigger. See the sights when the gun goes off and recover the front sight and get it back in the notch so you can send another. You should "KNOW" your shot was good because you "SAW IT" right.

Finally, this is most respectfully submitted to my peers on this forum.