[jyl]

I’m using the NRA 50 ft pistol slow fire target. The 9 ring is 1.54” diameter, the 7 ring is 3.07” diameter. From dead center to the edge of the 9 ring is about 9 MOA, to the edge of the 7 ring is about 17.5 MOA. So I figure the difference between scoring 9 and scoring 7 is roughly 0.15 degrees of barrel angle - call it 2 tenths of a degree.

My eyesight is awful but the red dot optic mostly addresses that. With the optic, shooting my .22 one-handed, after a couple weeks of practice, what I observed was that about 10% of my shots are inside the 9 ring, about 80% are in the 8 and 7 rings, and about 10% are way out there in 6 or lower rings (the white part of the target). Hmm, that is *worse* than a random distribution!

Since I’m mostly putting the shots in an annulus (donut) centered on the bulleye, I theorize that I am probably aiming more or less accurately at the bullseye, but when I pull the trigger I’m throwing the shots off, and in all directions (that 80% is pretty evenly distributed between high, low, left, right).

So I think I need to work the most on my trigger pull. And that’s about where I am. I haven’t figured out a clear or consistent pattern for what I’m doing wrong or what I need to do. I’m just trying different things with each range trip, looking for the pattern.

Squeezing the trigger very smoothly and slowly seems to help. Bracing the tip of my finger on the edge of the left grip and squeezing the trigger with the first joint of my finger seems to help.

If I take too long on the shot, it seems to hurt. My aim seems steadiest between about 5 seconds and 15 seconds, after that it wobbles more.

I had initially thought the process should be sequential: aim then squeeze. But doing them at the same time - aiming while squeezing - sometimes works better. The few bullseyes I manage are usually when I’m doing that. Conversely, it sometimes produces the most awful flyers.