Pistol Improvement; Rifles Still Depressing

I had a fine and dandy day at the range. The Good Lord was with me. Although I am starting to suspect He does not want me to shoot rifles.

I decided to give the Nylon 66 and scope one more chance. Last week I found that trying to make myself comfortable at the bench improved my shooting with the K31, so I thought it might work with the .22. But I think it’s futile. The zero was way off from the second I started shooting, and I never managed to get consistent. Here’s a target, from 50 yards. It’s silly to even put it up, because in addition to my inability to get the gun and scope to work, I fiddled with the windage and elevation while I shot, so even if things had gone well, the target would be a mess. Not sure if this is the first or second target.

I got out the K31 and produced this questionable result at 50 yards. Not all that bad, but it didn’t make me happy. I got so exasperated with the uncomfortable bench, I got up and twisted it sideways to give my left elbow something to sit on.

I was fairly happy with my result at 100 yards, although you can see the scope needs to be shimmed or something. I was aiming at the black dot.

Okay, so I still have a lot of work to do with the rifles. Time for pistols. I realized I never shot my tiny Glock 26, even though I carry it for self-protection. So I decided today was the day. I dug out some steel-cased Wolf ammunition, and here are my first 25 shots, at 7 yards. This is with a three-inch barrel and a short grip. If you can look at this and say Glocks won’t shoot, you’re a fool.

I was really happy with that. So I shot 25 more.

That is one fine carry piece. I can’t shoot any better with a full-size 1911, and this thing holds eleven rounds, and it’s super-reliable.

I felt it was time to shoot the .38 Super. It was getting late, so I put all 50 shots on one target. I’m thrilled with these results. Naturally, the last ten shots managed to open the hole considerably, but I’m still very happy with the way I shot.

Finally, I dragged out the SW1911 and shot 25 rounds. Things went very well. I’m improving.

I felt like it was time to try 50 feet again, so I went back and shot 50 rounds. Even though there are a lot of flyers, I was happy with this target, because I learned a lot while I was shooting it.

In the past, I always assumed the size of my patterns would increase linearly with distance, but that’s not what happens. It’s worse. Maybe that’s because the inaccuracies of cheap ammunition don’t increase linearly. I suppose anything that makes a bullet shoot more of a curve would give deviations that increased above a linear rate with distance. And maybe it’s even more complicated than that. Whatever the explanation, I’ve been shooting more than twice as badly at 50 feet than 21 feet. Today I realized part of the problem comes from the weak fingers of my right hand. If I don’t squeeze tightly with those fingers, I get more flyers. Maybe this is why I did so well with the Glock 26. I can’t put my pinky on the grip, so it has no negative effect. I now suspect that the best way to pull a pistol trigger is to lead with the weakest finger on the grip. Start squeezing with the pinky or ring finger, not the index finger.

I’m looking forward to my next range visit so I can check it out. And hopefully I’ll have nice, consistent reloads by then, so I won’t have to wonder about the vagaries of the ammunition.

I’m fairly sure my struggles with the rifles are improving my pistol shooting.

I’m thinking I should go ahead and buy a for-real, brand-new accurate rifle instead of farting around with milsurps. The K31 is accurate, but scoping it makes it uncomfortable to shoot, because the scope is way off to the right. Maybe I should drop a few hundred bucks on a Savage, learn to shoot like a serious person, and THEN fart around with milsurps.

In any case, I had a blast today.