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One Handed Shooting

4K views 9 replies 9 participants last post by  ezhunter 
#1 ·
I am having a hard time hitting a paper plate at 10 yards one handed. Two handed is much better, but one handed is giving me problems. I am not trying to be John Wayne, it is just in my mind that a handgun was intended to be shot one handed. I am shooting a 45 colt and am taking my time and squeezing the trigger slowly. I do much better with my 22. I can't afford to practice much with my 45, so I need to make every shot count.
 
#2 ·
Practice, practice, practice. I remember when I couldn't hit a plate a 10 yards two-handed! But I have burned lots of powder and cast lots of bullets to allow me to improve. Today I was at the range shooting both .357 and .45 ACP S&W revolvers and could pretty easily keep my shots within a 6 inch circle at 25 yards shooting one-handed with either left or right hand. Granted, I am not that fast with one hand, particularly with my off right hand. It takes concentration on sight picture and trigger control. I can't hold a steady bead one handed. Rather, I bring the gun down slowly across the target and when the sight picture is correct, I press the trigger. Follow-up shots are done likewise. As the gun settles back down from recoil, I look for the correct sight picture. Recoil is a little different with one hand as the gun twists more than when using two hands. Just hold on and watch for the sight picture. When it's there, shoot. And keep shooting. And keep reloading more ammo.
 
#3 ·
You can practice the same thing with your .22 handgun. Now that I think about it, I have put a lot of .22 ammo down range through my revolver also. Do the same thing. Start above your target and work on lining up the sights. When you get that down, work on lining up the sights and putting the front sight on target. That's when you will start to get hits. Recoil will be negligible compared to the .45 Colt, but it will still be there, particularly the twisting. Maybe shoot several cylinders or magazines out of the .22 and then switch to the .45 and shoot one cylinder. Then go back to the .22 for a bunch more shots. Repeat as finances allow. It will come. One day, you will show up at the range, plug that plate 6 times one-handed, and think nothing of it.
 
#4 ·
Back up the plate, with a large piece of paper, and then you can figure out what is happening by using the guide that I attached to this post.

After you have diagnosed your problem area, you can work on correcting it. If your problem area is flinching, the instructor at the local indoor range told my wife to practice at home, with snap caps. That way you get the feel of pulling the trigger after you have the correct sight picture, but without the "scary" bang. This should help to correct the flinch, by build muscle memory. Once you have the correct muscle memory, you should not have the fl;inch once shotting live rounds.
 

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#6 ·
Shooting a handgun is a hand eye coordination thing. Practice will get you there and like byrl says the 22 is the key to successful practice. I don't know one top target shooter that didn't learn trigger control and sight picture control by shooting the 22 first.
 
#7 · (Edited)
With the .45, use snap caps and practice plenty of dry fire at a blank wall. Concentrate on sight alignment while exercising trigger control. When the hammer falls, there should be NO movement in sight alignment. Each time the hammer falls, it should be a "surprise shot". Knowing when the hammer falls induces flinching. Keep working on this until it becomes second nature.

By practicing on a blank wall, you are forced to concentrate on sight alignment NOT sight picture, the relationship between sight and target. With correct sight alignment, your bullets will travel in parallel paths as if in a pipe and you can still get a good hit on the target even if the sights are not positioned perfectly. With incorrect sight alignment, your bullets will travel as if in a funnel and impact all over the target.

By the time you get to the range and actually put your sights on the target, your scores should show improvement regardless of which gun you shoot if you practice "dry firing" diligently.

Shooting one-handed magnifies "wobble", the natural movement of the arm. Few of us can hold a handgun perfectly still one-handed for long periods of time. The longer you wait to shoot, the more wobble you will experience. Best results come with not holding the shot too long. Your shot should break within 6-8 seconds, sooner when you become more proficient. Your wobble will decrease but not entirely disappear with more practice.

If you follow my suggestions to the letter, you probably will not become the next National Pistol Champion, however, your shooting will improve. You can bank on that.:)
 
#8 ·
sorry to be redundant,but the answer is practice,practice andmore practice.
Before Weaver showed us that two was better then one,we all relied on the one hand hold.Some excellent scores were shot that way.
I can say that establishing a comfort zone with a .22 cal pistol is a good idea.But,as soon as you can,go directly to the .45 cal.The reason is,at least,to me,my 45 scores fell off when I spent more time on the 22.I instintively held the 22 'lighter'in the hand.The 45 has to be really 'grabbbed'to control it.
Frank
 
#9 ·
When I was learning to shoot the 1911, I used the 22LR adapter kit so I could shoot 22s out of my Colt. This allowed me to keep the same grip and sight picture all the time since I was using the same pistol, just different ammo.
 
#10 ·
as marshalkane stated"6to8 seconds to get on target and pull trigger before natural muscles start to go south and shake. another tool to use to help find out whats going on is a laser grip. i had a similar problem one hand shooting redhawk 44. shot several deer two handed out to 75yds, couldn`t hit a bull in the *&^#@ at 5yds one handed. talked to my dad which is pushing 80 but has instructed and competitive shot in and out of military. he explained to me when most people shoot two handed (and get used to it) they don`t mentally fear recoil as much as when they shoot one handed. in our mind shooting two handed takes alot of recoil part out of art of shooting and lets us concentrate on other basic skills. in my case when i was one handing.instead of squeezing round off just moving trigger finger, i was gripping tighter as i was pulling trigger. with dads talking to and the help of a laser grip it didn`t take long to straighten problem out. the laser grip against target with big background shows you what your doing. also with snap caps practice aiming and single actioning your hammer back to point where your pistol is going to fire but doesn`t and slowly lower hammer back down with trigger. good exercise on only moving trigger finger. good shooting:D
 
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