Do you know where your guns shoot on paper with your chosen load?
If they doing shoot to Point of Aim (hereafter, POA), do you know if
it's your technique, or the gun?
I've already written an
article on the importance of developing a load that prints tight groups,
so I won't cover that again here. This one is about making sure that the
point of impact (POI) matches the POA.
When I sent my guns out for action work, I also provided the gunsmith
with my load information. One of the things that he did was to adjust
the windage on the guns. This made sure that all shots were centered
from left to right. He left the front sight high so that I could file it
down and contour it myself. I spent an hour or so at the range with
paper targets, a lot of ammo, and a good file. Shoot a few rounds, file
a little. Shoot a few rounds, file a little. Eventually, the POI
came up to match the POA. I sighted the revolvers in at 20 yards.
 To
test it, I set up another target at 25 yards. Loaded 2 guns with 5
rounds each and holstered. At the beep, draw and fire 1 aimed shot.
Holster. Repeat for 9 more rounds. The target I shot is to the right,
click on it for a big image.
Looks like I was still a little bit on the low side. I took a little
bit more off the top of the front sights and checked it one last time to
be sure.
Now I know that my guns shoot POA with my chosen load. The load is a
125gr bullet at 725fps. I've used both Bullseye and American Select for
powder, and both shoot to the same POI.
All of the above also holds true for your rifle rounds. I sight my
rifle in at 30 yards, which is generally going to handle any CAS
situation that comes up.
Here's a situation that comes up some times. A stage has one
long pistol target, or one long rifle target. Let's call it a pistol
target at 25 yards and a rifle target at 40. If you've sighted your guns
in with the ammo that you normally use, and at distances a little longer
than the CAS norm, you won't have any trouble hitting those. Just aim
for center mass and break the shot. No need to load up hotter ammo,
since you sighted your guns in at a longer than normal distance.
How light is your load? There has been a lot of attention on light
loads recently and I think that SASS is going to make a ruling on that
and institute some sort of minimum. If your loads group well, then they
should be fine. Really light loads (let's call at 97gr bullet at 550fps
in a 38spl a really light load) generally don't group well. Velocities
at that level are very inconsistent and the twist rates of most revolver
barrels aren't optimized for these lighter and shorter bullets. If your
load is one of these, hitting those long (or small) targets is going to
be a matter of chance. Do you really want to leave that up to chance?
Work up a good load and get used to it. It really won't slow you down at
all, and your times could very well improve.
So get to the range and shoot some paper. Find out where your guns
print and adjust the POI to match the POA with the ammo you shoot, and
sight them in at longer than normal distances. It's possible that you'll
need a gunsmith to turn your revolver barrels a little. Ask around at
your local club and there is likely to be someone local that can help
you out with this.
If your guns print all over the place, and the paper target looks
more like a shotgun pattern, then you either need to work on your
fundamentals or improve your load (or maybe both). Get that straightened
out and then try it again. You can't adjust the POI until you can shoot
a good group. |
