Hurry Up and Wait! And a Question!

[DLBConductor]

I Just finished the CHL Class with 100 on the written and 247 on the shooting. I flinched on one of the shots - made me mad at myself. However, for only having shot a pistol for one month, I was pretty happy.

11/10/2011 - Purchased Springfield Armory XD Sub-Compact 9mm
11/12/2011 - Shooting lessons with a Professional Instructor
12/09/2011 - Completed 28 days of daily target practice
12/10/2011 - CHL Class (247 on Shooting & 100 on Written)
12/12/2011 - CHL On-line Application Completed
12/14/2011 - L1 Fingerprinting Completed
12/14/2011 - CHL Application Mailed Registered Mail
12/15/2011 - Application Received by DPS Austin, TX

All of my paperwork has been sent, so now all I can do is practice and wait.

TWO-HANDED GRIP:
Speaking of practice, I had been doing all of my shooting with two hands. Quite often, my shots were low and left of center. 95% of my shots stayed on an 8.5"x11" target but only about 50% in the 6" or smaller target.

ONE-HANDED GRIP:
I am left-eye dominant and right handed. Yesterday, I decided to practice one handed. I was really shocked: 9 out of 10 shots were in the bulls-eye! I tried several different targets including a 6" square target and again hit bulls-eyes from 50'.

I am at a loss to figure out why my two-handed shooting is not as effective as my one-handed shooting. It could be the grip, the angle of the pistol, or the eye-hand dominance difference.

QUESTIONS:
Any suggestions on how to develop a successful two-handed grip?
Should I just forget about shooting two-handed and stay with one-handed shooting?

[TonyNE]

I'm on the waiting boat with you. My permit should be here in the next 2 or 3 weeks.

As for your two handed shooting, I'm not sure but I had the same problem back when I first started shooting and it was my trigger finger. I had the trigger right at the knuckle on my finger and when I pulled i would move the gun slightly. When I shifted my finger over so just the tip of my finger was on the trigger my accuracy increased dramatically.

[john_bud]

If you have decent trigger mechanics and are still spraying the target - you may have eye dominance issues. Especially as you are left eye dominant, it's easy for the brain to switch targeting back and forth between your left and right eye.

If you have glasses (or sun glasses) get a post-it note and cut out the glue part in an oval. Put that on your glasses to cover the left eye. That will force your brain to choose the "right eye" for targeting chores. You may have to use the blocker for weeks to months until you retrain your brain.

[ericmt]

My guess is you are flinching. I am also right-handed, and when I started shooting my shots were going low-left also. You are anticipating the recoil and compensating by pushing your dominant hand down and to the left. What I did to fix this was the ball-and-dummy drill. Buy some snap caps (fake rounds you can get at a sporting goods store or online) and have someone else load your magazines, mixing the live ammo and snap caps. If the gun moves when you pull the trigger on the snap cap, you know you are flinching. Keep practicing until you don't jerk the gun when the gun doesn't fire. Then practice this drill once in a while when you go to the range to make sure you haven't gotten back into the habit. Also, this gives you a chance to practice the tap-rack drill. When you are shooting a gun and the round doesn't go off, hit the bottom of the magazine with your palm and then rack the slide hard. This makes sure the magazine is seated and gets the bad round out of the gun. I would recommend buying bright orange snap caps because I lost one of mine when I was practicing this drill Good luck and congratulations on getting the permit! Carry everywhere it's legal.