New newby

[Gwhite]

Looks VERY promising! Now work on eliminating the 7's...

You have a lot of shots at 3:00. Assuming you are right handed, my first guess is that you have your thumb on the side of the grip, and are varying the pressure. It's hard for beginners to eliminate because you are used to grabbing things between your thumb & trigger finger. When you pull back with your trigger finger, the thumb automatically wants to push the pistol to the right.

There is no need to apply pressure on the side of the pistol with your thumb. The most consistent pressure you can apply is ZERO. Get your thumb off the grip, and I suspect a lot of the 3:00 eights will move into the 9 ring.

I had a student tonight who had a bunch of shots at 9:00 in the 8 ring. He had his finger tips on the side of the grip. I got him to keep them off the grip, and all those 8's disappeared into the 9 & 10 rings.

[GarField000]

Thx for the tip ....
My thumb is on the left side indeed. I don't know where else to put it :).
I try to think about not squeeze but trigerpressure might be to hard set as the Steyr was way more soft.
I will check what I do with my thumb :). Never had any focus on that.

[Agt. Smith]

........I had a student tonight who had a bunch of shots at 9:00 in the 8 ring. He had his finger tips on the side of the grip. I got him to keep them off the grip, and all those 8's disappeared into the 9 & 10 rings.

I was doing exactly the same thing. I was getting shots at 9:00 and at 2:00 (which I know was from yanking the trigger.....!!)

I was told to essentially let the pistol "rest" on middle finger and the "V" between you thumb and index finger. That, and the XL Rink grip, has helped immensely.

@Gwhite - when time permits, please PM me with contact info. I'm up near Keene NH, and although I do this purely for fun - I would travel a bit for another set of eyes looking for bad habits (which I KNOW I have in spades.......).

[Gwhite]

You don't have to stick your thumb out totally sideways, just keep the pressure to a minimum, especially forward of the last joint where the thumb has more leverage. If you feel you HAVE to use your thumb, you can do it, but it requires a LOT more careful training to keep the pressure consistent.

My first coach got tired of telling me to keep my fingertips off the side of the grip. His solution was to tape a row of thumbtacks on my grip. Problem solved... I just had to warn anyone else who might try to pick up the pistol (like a range officer after a malfunction) before they impaled themselves.

My youngest daughter has the thumb problem when shooting her Benelli .22. I glued a short piece of one of these under where her thumb would rest as a reminder not to push there:

It has lots of tiny teeth. Much safer than the thumbtacks. You can feel it, but it won't draw blood...