As I train with pistol I am noticing I am getting sloppy, especially beyond 10 yards, groups opening and pulling shots low and left. I don’t recall having this much trouble; but then, it’s probably been an incrementally slippery slope. This time of year being what it is I don’t have the greenbacks for a class, so I am thinking about getting a laser (I think it is a trigger control issue, not a sight picture issue, but I don’t know). Would this be helpful, and what type of laser/trainer to get?
I would try to borrow one first. Whether it’s a friends or you rent from a local gun shop and see if it works for you. Might be your holy grail.
Most likely it is the trigger control issue that you suspect, and not the sight picture. Is everything completely blury at 10 yards?
I think if you can keep it accurate at close range, but just get sloppy at longer range, then it seems like practice could fix that. A laser could help prove all that if you aim it at 10 yards and see it creeping or wiggling before the shot.
YMMV
There are some well respected guys on here who use lasers on their carry guns…and by default, train with those lasers…so I know that some will say that it is helpful.
IMO, a laser “can” be a tool, but most people just end up turning it into a crutch. I don’t personally like to use them because I know I’ll end up looking for the dot rather than focusing on my sight picture. With a laser, I actually feel slower getting on target (and getting first round hits) and don’t shoot as accurately overall, but that’s just me. The shortest/best way I can explain it is that a laser causes me to “oversight” the weapon, thus making me slower.
*The only caveat to the above statement is that I haven’t trained extensively with it…mostly because my first impression was that it didn’t help me at all, rather it hurt my performance.
However, I think that if you want to use it solely as a training tool, then it might be beneficial. It sounds like you’re slapping the trigger or just anticipating recoil due to where your rounds are hitting.
If you wanted to use a laser for a training tool, install it and zero the laser a few inches below your iron’s POA. When you shoot for groups, get your normal sight picture through your irons and ignore the laser. Have someone stand next to you and watch the laser for movement just before you break your shot. This should help diagnose exactly when/where you’re moving while breaking the shot…or if you are at all.
Of course, the cheaper way of doing this that will get you the same effect is “ball and dummy” drills (my personal favorite for trigger slapping/recoil anticipation problems), dry/live fire with a coin/case on your front sight (my second favorite), and of course regular dry fire. You don’t even necessarily need a partner for these.
Good luck.
Not sure what price point you are looking at but I would think a class and a quality laser would be pretty close in price. For me personally I would get more out of a class but may be different for you. Like the previous poster said you could try to rent or borrow one.
IMO, a laser isn’t what you need. Go back to the basics and focus on your trigger control, breathing, grip, sight picture…A laser is a tool that only needs implemented in low light scenarios. Otherwise, it becomes habit to look for the dot rather than acquiring a good site picture…
I used to run lasers exclusively, and now I refuse to run a gun with one, because of percieved disadvantages that I’m not willing to deal with.
They usually break.
When the laser comes off target during recoil cycle my eye naturally tries to “find” it again, which slows down my follow ups.
My CTC lasers couldn’t keep zero.
Thank you. Your comment just saved me some money.
I’m glad I could help. But I do recommend finding somebody who shoots with a laser (preferably the gun you prefer using) and shooting it a little bit, and seeing if it works for you.
chuckman I second the “borrowed” laser recommendation. I’ve not run one enough to comment on their effectiveness but they do seem to have their place(s).
Now back to your “pulling shots low and left” concern. That can sometimes be the result of the sympathetic tightening of all fingers when working the trigger finger for right handed handgun shooters. Dry fire and the aforementioned “ball and dummy” drill are good ways to diagnose a situation like that.
Keith
I don’t like lasers. They deviate from the fundamentals since you don’t focus on the front site. Handguns are all about the front site and pressing the trigger smoothly. You start training otherwise, and I don’t see how you have not screwed up your fundamentals. What happens when the laser breaks, the batteries die, you take it off the gun, or you use a different gun that doesn’t have a laser?
I certainly wouldn’t use it to fix problems with your fundamentals. If your groups are opening up and/or you are shooting poorly, start from the ground up and fix that which is out of line.
Low and left is very, very common for right handed shooters, especially new/novice/inexperienced/poor shooters. Low often comes from anticipating recoil and pushing the gun down, left often comes from a poor trigger press where your right hand twists/torques inwards as you tighten.
Go back to dry fire drills, ensuring the sites don’t move as the trigger breaks. Also ball and dummy drills.
There are a lot of good dry fire and live fire drills on this site. If you have money for a decent laser you have money for a few boxes of ammo. You can work on your goupings with out going to a class.
On topic of the laser. They can be a great tool on top of a basic set of fundementals they are not a tool to fix your problems.
Utterly false. Lasers are inanimate objects that can neither make decisions nor take actions. SHOOTERS do that. They no more deviate fom the fundamentals than putting an Apex part into a pistol does so. The fundamentals remain the same; how the shooter chooses to approach them is where things get upgefuched.
Lasers are a “force multiplier,” to use a buzzphrase…
…provided that the shooter understands all of the limitations of any add-on, and remembers to use the laser to enhance performance regarding things he already knows how to do instead of depend upon it to allow him to do things he otherwise wouldn’t be able to do.
Instances in which a laser would be a smart choice in terms of allowing a shooter to do something outside of his normal scope, particularly on a handgun, would be a shooter that isn’t physically capable of pointing a gun in the way a healthy/whole person can.
From a technical, standpoint, don’t expect to get much use out of them in full daylight. Most of them are 5mW systems, and red. That gets attenuated fairly rapidly; dot is hard to pick up in general, and can effectively disappear at 20yd. There are greens available, which works better in daylight (that wavelength, 532nm, sits right in the middle of our visible range, red is near the top of it). The green ones stick out like a turd in a punch bowl under virtually any lighting condition, and CTC makes them.
CTC is the most “mature” type, the most reliable, I think has the best/ most intuitive switchology, more often than not does not require any holster modifications or type-specific holster. Other types can’t say the same as that last one. CTC CAN alter how one grips the gun, maybe/maybe-not in a desirable way, whereas other brands (rail-mounted, TG-mounted) may not. Judgement call – the “borrow some” aspect rears up, again…
The comments regarding zero-shift and making the mistake of tracking the laser dot between shots (instead of treating it like a RDS, maintaining target-focus, and floating the dot to the target from the periphery…) are valid…to a point. The latter is a training thing; if you can use an Aimpoint and not follow the dot, you can do it with a pistol-mounted laser.
Personally I find lasers to be a good tool for dry firing, with a buddy who observes what the laser does. I will present the gun as normal, acquire a proper sight picture, front-sight focus and press the trigger.
I don’t really understand the point about the laser detracting from the fundamentals, ie sight picture and such. The laser is an aiming tool, so if I am using a laser when I shoot, that is my sight picture. I am not using the sights and the laser. And shooting with a laser isn’t going to suddenly affect how you shoot without a laser. Two different techniques, and it is possible to practice both.
Agreed that a laser cannot compensate for fundamentals that are not present.
What I was getting at is that focusing on the target deviates from focusing on the front site.
I believe you’re right, but it is an issue I could never get over. In a few thousand rounds.
Agreed with your other points as well.
Is that an issue when using the laser as the primary sight? When I shoot utilizing a PEQ mounted on my rifle with NODs mounted on the helmet I can easily revert back to using my red dot, in daylight…
Its just a matter of learning to shift focus quickly
My fastest draws are when I can force myself to maintain focus on the spot I want my sights to appear…and what do you know, my sights automatically appear there too. My focues shifts quickly, its not that hard. It should be practiced, but its not that hard. I’ve had a laser shut off in me in recoil once while shooting an IDPA classifier (for fun)…didn’t slow my overall time. Just drove on with the sights.
I use a laser, but probably not as much as I should. I find it a great tool for training new shooters (being able to see and diagnose the effects of poor trigger control), and a game changer when trying to shoot in low light, especially on moving targets, quick target transitions, or shooting on the move.
I probably shoot over 98% of my rounds without laser, and the same goes for dry fire. I should probably use it more. But every time I do it in low light…results amaze me. My times shooting Stage 1, string 3 on the classifier (2 ea headshots on T1-T3 at 7 yds) are consistently fastest using a laser, usually I go from approx 4.5 sec with sights to 4 sec with laser.
With good indoor light, I’m faster with my sights unless there’s multiple transitions.
They can be a usefull tool, if used properly and not as a crutch.
I getcha. One such reason for that, though not the only, can be not quite getting the knack of not tracking the laser dot as it jitterbugs within what is actually the same wobble zone they have with irons, but with something more likely to draw the eye than a front blade.
Can get worse with a device that uses a strobing laser…though even that’s not insurmountable.
That’s actually the exact reason I had a hard time with it, I think.
I’d draw, my eye would catch the front sight blade, then I’d focous on my target, and laser, and my eye would follow the laser during recoil, and I’d lose it, and it’d slow down my splits, and make me less accurate.
Also, I didn’t like the strobing laser. I tried one of the LaserMax guide rods for a Gen3 17 I had, and hated it. (It also kept getting carbon, and shit on the lens and made the laser really blurry, and it lost zero. BTW: There’s absolutely no way to manually adjust zero on the guide rod laser. It’s zeroed from factory. I guess. Seeing as how every Glock has a different POI I find that hard.
I sent it back, and they fixed it. But I sold it shortly after, with disclaimer as to why I let it go.
Now I use green glow in the dark paint on my front sight (10-8), and it dramatically helps me in low light.
I agree with what you say in theory, but you have to remember that a RDS equipped rifle will be a MUCH more stable platform than a laser equipped handgun (thanks to the 3 points of contact, spread out over a greater area Vs. 1 point of contact in one spot). The extra stability will decrease the “jitterbugs” thus allowing for faster and more controlled sighting/sight allignment as well as getting back on target after breaking a shot.
Also, what I touched on in my first post is that a laser seems to make me “oversight” the weapon, trying to line up the laser on “the perfect” spot on the target for that “perfect” shot. You’re exactly right about laser and irons having the same wobble zone, but (without getting too Pincus on you) the brain will see the laser as a precise point that needs to be aligned with a precise spot before you feel ok with breaking the shot.
I’m sure training can help, but I think lasers just slow me down. Since I have great eyesight, grip strength, ect, it’s really not necessary FOR ME. Someone who can’t get a good sight picture due to a physical ailment may actually “need” the laser.