Hello Edcowden69
A few more details may help us sort out your problem.
Which gun, Caliber, Bullet Weight and velocity?
I hate to be the one to ask the question...
Could it be the shooter instead of the gun?
No offence intended at all, just a question.
It might be worth having a friend try shooting the gun to see what they get.
Also maybe try shooting it from a rest instead of offhand?
It is a very common thing to flinch on heavy recoiling handguns. Many people will jerk down. That could be where your low shots are coming from.
I had a friend who was a regular gun enthusiast, he even had more guns than I did!
While he was great with medium bore handguns, when he shot the big bores, sometimes he would skip the bullets off the grass.
Way back when... I was stationed out of Alameda California when I was in the Navy.
I was at a shooting range and ran into a Japanese business man who was there shooting also.
I guess he couldn't own handguns in Japan, so he bought guns in California and kept them stored at the range and shot when he came to town on business.
Anyway, he had a Buckmark 22 that he shot very well.
He also had a Sig in 9mm that was all over the place.
He noticed a friend and I shooting and asked for help wondering if there was something wrong with his Sig.
I tried it and got several bullseyes with no fliers, so I told him there was nothing wrong with his gun.
He felt a little embarrassed, but there was an old guy in the next stall with a 38 special that came over and we gave him some shooting lessons.
We loaded the 38 with random cartridges leaving empty spots. He wanted to look at the cylinder, but we told him to just concentrate on the sights and squeeze the trigger.
The first one was empty and he flinched hard. The second one was empty also and he flinched again. I told him to just relax, concentrate on lining up the sights and squeeze. He cut the X ring with the first live round! The next one was empty and he flinched again. We worked with him on the 38 for several minutes to show him that he could shoot and shoot well.
We then switched him to his Sig 9mm. We loaded it behind his back, then passed the gun to him to shoot. The first chamber was empty and he flinched. The next one was live, but he probably thought it was going to be empty, and he hit the bullseye with it. You should have seen the grin on this man's face
We kept working with him through a few magazines until he was shooting full mags without problems.
I'm not saying I'm the worlds best shooter, there are many others on here with way more skill and experience than I have. I'm still learning myself, but I really do enjoy casting bullets, reloading, shooting, hunting...
I was at a shoot one time and saw a world renowned man flinch on an empty chamber of a Ruger Single Six 22lr. I am not going to name names, it can happen to the best of us. When you are shooting .475 and .500s all morning, it can wear on you sometimes.
Post the details of your gun and load, a picture is always nice to look at
If it is a sight problem, there are probably solutions for it.
A few decades ago, a friend bought an El-cheapo 22lr revolver. he said it was shooting a little off and asked about the fixed sights. I had read about putting a crescent wrench on the front sight blade to tweak it a little bit and told him about this.
So he comes back a few days later with his revolver and the front sight in his hand and told me that I owed him a new gun.
He said that he bent the front sight all the way over to one side and still couldn't hit anything, so he bent it all the way over the other direction and still couldn't hit anything, so he went all the way over to the first side again to try that and the sight fell off!
I think the barrel consisted of a steel liner inside of a plastic tube with a thin metal tube on the outside that the front sight was mounted to. So there was no soldering the front sight back on.
I told him that he was only supposed to tweak it a little bit, not bend it back and forth. I asked if anyone else had shot the gun as maybe it was just him flinching?
I did not buy him a new gun.
Anyway, I'm starting to ramble...
A few more details may help us sort out your problem.
