Visit
the NRA WebsiteDISCLAIMER: For once, I am arguably an expert on this subject, since I've just gotten my NRA certificate to teach the Basic Pistol and Personal Protection courses. Also, I've been shooting pistols for 11 years and I can usually hit the target. Nonetheless, if anyone wants to submit a better article on this subject I'll happily defer to it - until then, my humble best follows. I will be paraphrasing the NRA instuction book "The Basics of Pistol Shooting", as modified by my own experience. It is a fine book which can be ordered from the NRA for a reasonable price.
INTRODUCTION: To shoot a pistol accurately you must first decide which eye to look at the sights with and which hand to hold the pistol in. Then you must learn and consistently apply several fundamental techniques. The NRA lists these as: Position, Grip, Breath Control, Sight Alignment, Trigger Squeeze, and Follow Through. Then you must practice regularly. Shooting a pistol is a skill which must be maintained - you will quickly lose speed and accuracy if you do not practice. IMHO firing 1000 rounds in initial training, plus 100 rounds per month forever thereafter, is the minimum to acquire and maintain reasonable skills.
Advanced shooters will notice that I say nothing about the Weaver Stance and similar isometric shooting techniques. IMHO these techniques are suitable mostly to competition, and people who get into IPSC or related sports are way past needing to read a tract on basic marksmanship.
SAFETY: Know and apply the gun safety rules at all times. Always use eye and ear protection when shooting, even outdoors. "Dry firing" is a very useful training technique in which you go through all the motions of shooting, but with an unloaded gun. If you dry-fire, be super careful that the gun really is unloaded, and then aim at something which will stop bullets. A refrigerator is good, a gunsafe is even better, and practicing in the basement is best of all if you have one. Remember that it only takes one moment of inattention or carelessness to undo years of gun safety, so never handle guns casually and never handle guns while you are thinking about something else.
WHICH HAND & EYE: If one of your hands is much stronger than the other, then your decision is pretty much made: use that hand and the eye that goes with it. Similarly, if one eye is much better than the other, use that eye and the hand that goes with it.
If you have a much stronger hand, and a much better eye, which are on opposite sides, you have a problem. All I can advise is to try various combinations and go with whatever works. It is awkward to shoot with your right hand and left eye, or vice versa, but it can be mastered with practice and it is the best approach for some people.
If your eyes and hands are more or less equal, you will probably want to identify your dominant eye, and then use the hand on the same side. To identify your dominant eye, hold your arms out straight in front of you, make a small opening with your hands, and look through that opening at a distant object. Then close your eyes one at a time without moving your hands, and see which eye is actually lined up with the opening - that is your dominant eye. About 10% of us do not have a dominant eye - they see two objects, or two openings. If you don't have a dominant eye, then you can use whichever eye you like - you will probably have to shoot with the other eye closed, which is not desireable, but that's life.
FUNDAMENTALS:
Position: The most generally useful position is the two-handed, straight-armed stance, sometimes called the "Isoceles" stance. You should face the target, grip the pistol in both hands (see "Grip" below), and extend your arms until the elbows lock. Shuffle your feet around until the pistol lines up with the target. Try for a relaxed stance, weight somewhat forward, knees slightly bent. Your neck should be straight and your shoulders should be relaxed, not hunched up. Your arms will probably need to reach upwards somewhat to bring your eye, the sights, and the target all into line.
The one handed position is a simple variant on the Isoceles: just let go with your non-shooting hand and put it somewhere out of the way - in your pocket, on your hip, whatever feels right. Keep your shooting arm straight and move it sideways until you find the most comfortable angle for it (for most people this is about 60 degrees away from straight ahead). Now keep your arm in that position and shuffle your feet until the pistol is lined up with the target again.
The benchrest position is good for first learning to shoot, and for shooting as accurately as possible (say to adjust sights). You grip the pistol in both hands and extend your arms straight, but do this while sitting in a chair in front of a pile of sandbags on a bench. Your wrists rest on the sandbags. Move the chair, bench, and sandbags around until the position is comfortable and the pistol is pointed at the target. Most commercial ranges can get you set up for benchrest shooting if you ask.
People's bodies vary a lot, and there is no one shooting position which is right for everyone. What you want is a position which lines up your eye, the sights, and the target, while not putting too much strain on any of your muscles (strained muscles start to tremble almost immediately, and there goes your accuracy). Experiment a bit and find out what works best for you, and don't worry if no-one else where you shoot does it that way. One good trick is to close your eyes and take up the most comfortable position, then open them and see where the pistol points - shuffle your feet around until you can open your eyes and see the sights on target without moving anything.
Grip: You want a grip which lets you hold the pistol firmly and comfortably, line up the sights with your eye and the target, and pull the trigger straight rearwards using the first pad or first joint of your trigger finger. Your grip should also transmit recoil straight backwards into your arm. For most people, the best grip is taken by putting your shooting hand as far up the grip as it will go, placing your trigger finger against the frame outside the trigger guard, and wrapping your other three finger around the grip with the second finger snugged up against the bottom of the trigger guard. Your thumb should lie along the other side of the frame. You should squeeze firmly with your palm and the three fingers, but the thumb should be relaxed (squeezing with the thumb will push the sights sideways). Notice that there is a long bone inside your palm which connects your first finger to your wrist, and similarly a long bone which connects your thumb to your wrist. Imagine that those two long bones make a V - the back of the pistol's grip should be snuggled into the base of the V, and the long bones should each be on one side of the grip. Ideally the pistol's barrel, the imaginary central axis of the V, and your forearm should all be parallel. If you have trouble getting into this grip, try a different pistol, or different grip panels on the same pistol. If you just cannot find a pistol which you can hold with the V centered, then you will need to make adjustments, but there are so many models on the market that something can be found to fit almost anyone.
A two-handed grip is taken by following the directions above to obtain a good one-handed grip, then wrapping your non-shooting hand around your shooting hand and squeezing with your non-shooting hand to increase total grip strength. Place your non-shooting thumb over your shooting thumb and wrap your non-shooting fingers around your shooting fingers, then squeeze firmly with both hands. If your knuckles are white or your hands are trembling, you are squeezing too hard. If your hands are big enough, lay your entire non-shooting thumb over your entire shooting thumb (all the way back to the wrist) - this gives you the strongest possible grip, but not everyone's hands are big enough to manage it. In the two handed grip, the shooting wrist may turn out slightly instead of being straight - this is all right because recoil will be distributed into both forearms.
Breath Control: It is impossible to keep your arms stationary while you breathe. So you should take a deep breath, let it out partially, and then hold your breath through the rest of the shot. Remember to breathe between shots, or lack of oxygen will make you tremble.
Sight Alignment: This is the most fundamental of the fundamentals. You must focus your eye on the front sight. The rear sight will be slightly blurry and the target will be very blurry - just shoot into the center of the blur. Different guns have different sights but most pistols have a square front post and a square rear notch. In this system, the tops of the front and rear sights should be on the same horizontal line, and there should be an equal amount of space visible through the notch on each side of the front sight. Generally, when you have the sights aligned in this way, the bullet will go along the line through the center of the top of the front sight, so move your body and arms while maintaining the sight picture, until the center of the top of the front sight is lined up with where you want the bullet to go. Some target pistols have adjustable sights, and some people adjust them so that the bullet goes at an angle upwards from the line through the center of the top of the front sight. This is done so that they can aim at the 6 o'clock point on a bullseye target and expect to hit the bullseye. This gives a more precise sight picture and better groups, but remember that the sights must be adjusted for a particular size of bullseye at a particular distance - for general use it is better to have the sights adjusted so that the bullet goes along the line through the center of the top of the front sight.
No-one can hold the sights perfectly aligned or perfectly still, although anyone will do this better with more practice. Keeping the sights aligned with each other (maintaining the sight picture) is more important than keeping the sights precisely pointed at the target (maintaining the point of aim). Spend a lot of effort on keeping the sights aligned with each other as best you can, and whatever is left over on keeping the point of aim somewhere close to the center of the target.
Ideally both of your eyes should be open, but if you do not have a dominant eye then you will see two sight pictures and/or two targets. If you must close one eye to obtain a good sight picture, then so be it. One good trick is to put a piece of tape over the center of one lens of your shooting glasses. This way you keep your peripheral vision and don't strain your sighting eye, but still have only one sight picture.
Trigger Squeeze: Once the sight picture is obtained and the sights are aligned on the target, you must squeeze the trigger to fire the shot, without disturbing the sight alignment. This takes a lot of practice. The longer and heavier the trigger pull, the more difficult it is to execute without disturbing the sights. Generally, you want a smooth, even motion with steadily increasing force, the force exerted straight to the rear. Experiment to see what works best for your particular pistol and your unique anatomy. For target shooting your trigger stroke should take one or two seconds - much shorter and you will be jerking the pistol, much longer and you will start trembling. Defensive shooting must be done faster, but still with a squeeze, not a jerking motion (remember, you cannot miss fast enough to win).
Follow Through: To shoot accurately, you must maintain all of the fundamentals above until the bullet has departed the barrel. The best way to accomplish this is to trick yourself by concentrating on maintaining the fundamentals after the shot has been fired. This sounds strange, but is really no different from many other sports - follow through in golf, tennis, or batting a ball cannot logically influence the ball after it has departed, but nonetheless follow through is very important to playing those sports well. The same with shooting - concentrate on maintaining your stance, grip, sight picture, and trigger squeeze before, during, and after the shot.
LEARNING TO SHOOT: Work on these skills in small steps, first practicing a skill without a gun, then with an empty gun, then at the range with live ammo. Start with a great big target 15 or 20 feet away, and shoot to get a tight, consistent group. Gradually work your way up to smaller targets at longer ranges, but make sure that the target is always hit - a bullet which misses the target is completely wasted because you will not know where it went and therefore you will not know how to correct your technique. Once you are shooting a consistent group the sights can be adjusted to move the group to the point of aim, but be very conservative about sight adjustments - it is easy to blame the sights for what are really errors in shooting technique. Consult your owner's manual for sight adjustment procedures. Some guns have fixed sights (machined into the frame and barrel). These can be adjusted with a hammer or a grinding tool, but this is an irreversible operation, and should be done by a gunsmith unless you really know what you are doing or you are feeling really lucky.
Many people's first pistol is one suitable for self protection. This is a problem because such pistols have a lot of noise and recoil, which are hard to manage, especially for a beginner. If you can arrange it, it is much better to start shooting with a .22LR pistol (revolver or semi-auto). Try to borrow one from a friend, or rent one at a commercial range. In the long term, buying your own .22 pistol can make sense, because the ammo is so much cheaper than .38Special, 9mmLuger, or whatever your self-defense pistol consumes. You can shoot the .22 for most of your practice sessions, using the big-bore pistol often enough to remember how it works and what recoil feels like. One particularly good idea is to have a .22 which is a close relative of your self-defense gun. For example, I have a Ruger SP-101 .357Mag revolver, and also a Ruger SP-101 .22LR revolver. The two guns are identical in the grip, frame, and trigger action (they differ only in the cylinder and barrel) so shooting the .22 is very much like shooting the .357, except cheaper and more pleasant.
COMMON PROBLEMS:
Flinching: The most common shooting problem is anticipation of the shot. Shooting a pistol, especially one suitable for self defense, produces unpleasant noise and recoil, and it is natural to tense up if you know that this is coming. A common symptom of flinching is that your shots string vertically downwards from the point of aim. This means that you are pushing forward on the pistol right before the shot, attempting to counteract recoil in advance. The remedy is a Zen-like attitude (recoil hurts - so what?), or failing that, a "suprise release". If your trigger stroke is sufficiently even and with steadily increasing pressure, then you will not know exactly when the pistol will fire, and if you cannot predict the shot then you cannot flinch in anticipation of it.
Another common symptom of flinching is that the shots are scattered all over the target. This usually means that you are closing your eyes just before the shot, another form of anticipation. Again, cultivate Zen and/or the suprise release, and concentrate on keeping your eyes open. I like to try to see the muzzle flash (on a revolver) or the ejected brass (on a semi-auto).
A good trick to counteract flinching is the "ball and dummy" drill. With a revolver, load the chambers with one or two live rounds and the rest empty cases, then spin the cylinder and close it without looking. With a semi-auto, have a friend hand the pistol to you either loaded or unloaded (have him flip a coin each time so that you do not get into an outguessing contest), or have him load a magazine with some live rounds and some plastic dummy rounds. Either way, you will have the bang and kick to get your flinch to happen, and when you fire a dummy round you will be able to see what you are doing wrong and correct it.
Jerking: A common symptom of jerking the trigger is that the shots are strung out to one side of the bullseye (usually to the left if you are right handed). Pulling the trigger too fast usually causes your shooting hand to curl inwards (to the left for a right handed shooter). This is because the muscles which pull your index finger also tend to curl your whole hand inwards. Normally you counteract this tendency with other muscles without thinking about it, but if you suddenly speed up your trigger stroke you usually don't compensate completely for the extra force being exerted. Remember, you cannot miss fast enough to win. Get accurate first, then gradually speed up your stroke will maintaining accuracy. It takes a lot of practice to shoot fast and straight at the same time - be patient and keep working on it.
Fatigue: Shooting uses muscles which otherwise don't see much action, so they tire out fast and your performance degrades rapidly. If you shoot or dry-fire regularly, these muscles will get stronger and therefore fatigue will take longer to set in, but fatigue can never be avoided entirely. General exercises to improve upper body strength and grip stength are also helpful. Most people shoot their best scores at the beginning of a session and go downhill from there. Several short sessions are better than one long session, and IMHO you don't get much training benefit after the first 100 rounds no matter how many years you have been shooting.
ADVANCED SHOOTING: After the basics are completely mastered you may take
up advanced topics, depending on what type of shooting you want to do.
I'm not into competition shooting so I won't comment on it further.
Defensive shooting is a specialty in and of itself. You will want to
practice rapid fire, shooting with your weak hand and eye, shooting from
kneeling and prone positions and from behind cover, shooting at low
light levels, jam clearing, and so on. Your emphasis should always be on
consistent shot placement with acceptable accuracy (often given as
hitting a 5 inch circle every time from 20 feet) and as much speed as
possible. There are a number of good schools which teach these
techniques <> and many people seem to
like them, although I've found that for the same money that one Massad
Ayoob course costs I can buy every book he ever wrote plus several of
his videos, and learn a lot more. It can be hard to find places to
practice defensive techniques (many commercial ranges forbid drawing
from a holster, etc) but it is worth the effort to shop around. Use your
imagination to make your practice as realistic as possible. Practice all
techniques with an empty pistol until you can do them 100% correctly,
then practice with live ammo if possible. Practice all relevant
techniques, even if you can only do them with an empty pistol, and
remember that under stress you revert to your training, be it good or
bad, planned or unplanned. Every time you handle a pistol you are
training yourself, so be conscious of this and train yourself with the
techniques you want to have when the chips are down.