I started to post this in the Glock 43 thread but didn't want to derail it. I've mentioned this in the AR section before but I think it holds true to pistols as well.

In my experience from shooting box-stock to highly modified guns and watching other shooters do the same, I'll offer this....There seems to be something like a bell curve with the level of experience a shooter has and the benefit they'll receive from gun modifications.

At the far left you've got new shooters or the people who might have trouble hitting a bucket at 10 paces. The benefit of gun modifications for those people is minimal. If they're not properly aligning stock sights, they'll probably ignore improved sights. And they'll probably jerk the piss out of an improved trigger the same as a stock trigger.

As a shooter improves the benefit they'll receive from gun modifications will increase. When you know what to look at with your sights and what to do with them, a more refined sight picture can benefit you. When you're able to maintain some control over a stock trigger, a modified trigger will allow you to maintain more control and manipulate the trigger faster without disturbing the sights.

But the better you get, the less benefit you'll receive from gun modifications. Then you'll start down the right side of that bell curve. IMO, most people never reach the point where they'll outshoot a moderately modified gun. Most shooters don't have the time, money, or desire to invest either, to perform at that level. The low hanging fruit is gone, you're back to square one and can't buy the improvements anymore.

At the far right of the graph are the people who are performing at the top. Those guys have developed their personal ability to the point that they can shoot most anything better than most anyone else. They'll still shoot better with their best gun, but they can shoot any gun better than most anybody. I'd guess that there are probably only a few dozen people like that in the country.

Kinda like shooting pool. If your good you can use the house cue

I've figured out that I shoot all pistols about the same. Modified or not.

If I shoot the same course of fire with a revolver, Glock, Sig, or whatever, you'll see almost no change in my scores.

I don't know if that's good or bad.




Dave

Blue,

I have noticed exactly the same phenomenon with high level skeet, trap and sporting clays. Your bell curve analogy is excellent.

RS

Good post, you nailed it completely.

Some other dangers of gun modification for a new shooter.

Adjustable sights - 99% of the time this is a BAD move, because they have not mastered trigger control. They'll think they have when they start to see their shots group well, but not at point of aim. Usually low and left for a right handed shooter, and low and right for a lefty. So they adjust the sights to make the group fall to the point of aim. Problem is, they really haven't mastered trigger pull, they've mastered their trigger jerk, meaning they now consistently jerk the trigger the same way for every shot, and although it's part of what you have to go through to become a good shot, it will lull you into a false sense of security and feeling you're doing well (and you are comparatively); when in fact now you have to do the real hard work to get that last bit of trigger jerk out of your pull.

Extended anything - Danger zone when a new shooter is thinking he knows better than the people who designed the gun. You just have to get your gun handling right with a stock gun before you start mucking with extended anything on your pistol.

Were you watching me shoot this weekend?

Well, we know Blue ain't a marketing exec!

Think the principle is damn near universal when it comes to any 'performance' product. I kept that at the forefront of my mind when I got back into bow hunting last year and needed a bow. Everyone's bow was the smoothest, fastest, quietest, most shock free, etc.

When it comes to things like that I like to start with a middle of the road approach. Buy something above my skill level that I can grow into instead of having to upgrade so soon.

I'm definitely on the 'uphill' slope of the curve. Good enough to notice and take advantage of sight, trigger, grip etc improvements but by no means in the upper echelon. The Dillon is really helping in that regard allowing me to shoot more than ever.

Of course, the whole economy depends on getting people to ignore this principle!


Good post, Eric.

Spot on.

I normally suck at all shooting but it's fun to spend money on the off chance I might one day hit on that magic ingredient that turns me into wild bill hickock. I am that fellow who cannot hit the bucket at 10 yards,

Shotguns are your friend

Since you're shooting perfect scores, it's good.

I want to get a 33 round magazine for my g17 instead. I figure I might get one or two hits out of 33.

I agree with this as well. Some of the shooting competitions that I've been in make it easy to see. Some guys would show up with little practice, shoot in low light, and absolutely spray the range. They'd show back up a couple weeks later, with maybe new sights/grip/trigger work, and they'd get better. This only worked for a while, and the parts were no replacement for practice.

Actually more of a logistic regression (categorical) than a bell curve (frequency), but I realize you're a cop and not a mathematician. Besides, your point is well taken.

Another factor is the math behind the incremental gains in precision. A two inch group covers a four times smaller area than a four incher, and a one inch group covers a 16 times smaller area than a four incher. Add multipliers for speed and/or distance the difficulty factors stack very quickly.

My goals for modifying handguns (or at least buying right in the first place) is related to improvement, but more simply removing obstacles. A poor trigger will always be an obstacle no matter how good a shooter becomes, as will poor sights. Improving either will remove an obstacle to overall improvement that could not be had otherwise. The only argument is the user value of the improvements vs. the monetary value, and good luck defining 'user value'.

for example take the 7.5 pound glock 43 trigger, for some of you marksman pulling a G43 out of a holster and putting 7 rounds in the 10 ring at 7 yards in under 3 seconds is a piece of cake. I mean 7 COM hits with a G43 of all things in 3 seconds or less! While others they cannot keep the gun on the paper with all the time in the world! If the G43 had a 2.5 pound trigger pull these same people might possibly shoot better or then again they might shoot themselves in the leg or ass! Its a real dilemma.

My uncle sorta, kinda, knew Rob Leatham when they were both young.

He said he was shooting with him one evening and Leatham let my uncle shoot his 1911. My uncle said the trigger was a horrendous hunk of schit compared to every other 1911 he'd been competing with.




Dave

Probably more than you might think.

Also, just because the good shooters can shoot a POS better than anyone else, that doesn't make the POS anything other than still a POS.

MM

With your G43, for the intended purpose of a conceal carry defensive pistol, it becomes a safety and reliability issue to lighten the trigger too much below the 5-1/2 pound specs. Start getting down below 4-1/2 to 5 pounds, for concealed carry, you may be asking for trouble.

I just finished cleaning and lubing my G43, after running another 100 rounds or so, and the stock trigger is breaking about 5 pounds 10 ounces. I am very good with that, no trouble at all. To date, I've had the chance to test six different G43s, including mine, and none had triggers that gave me trouble, though some new guns felt like they had been pulled straight from the box without any cleaning or lube.

I'd suggest performing a detailed strip of the pistol. Clean it up well. Apply oil to the contact surfaces of the moving and sliding parts. Make sure you oil the point where the connector and trigger bar meet, that alone will give you an excessive hard trigger if ignored. And then, get a lot of trigger time on the pistol. Likely it will settle down closer to 5-1/2 pound range than it is now. If at that point you cannot master this striker fired trigger, then you will make greater improvements in your marksmanship working on your trigger control vs trying to lower the trigger weight much below spec. Learn to walk before you learn to run. Don't just shoot stuff, make your shots count. Break it down, run stripe drills, one hole drills, etc., etc. It is almost like a workout routine, where you work on specific parts of your marksmanship. When things begin to click, and you can start to appreciate a special trigger, then likely that would be a better time to go that route. But even then, it is not a competition pistol; it is a last ditch, close quarters, uber reliable, self-defense pistol. A light trigger on a striker fired Glock will sacrifice some in the former, (safety and reliability), to gain in the later, (light trigger).

Option for a carry trigger:

http://glocktriggers.com/products/g43/

Good Luck

I've never thought of it as a Bell Curve but it understand the comparisun.

My take on a developed shooter is that he should be able to tell if his gun is zeroed and if not, accomplish that himself.

In precise shooting he will be able to call his misses before looking at the target. A soda can at 25 paces should be a dead SOB 90% of the time, however it is situated.

In fast shooting he should be able to understand and to apply a coarse sight picture well enough to get center mass hits appropriate to the distance. He should understand grip and stance well able to pour 2-4 good hits in behind them.

He will be able to draw, present, acquire a sight picture and fire the pistol as soon as his arms are extended, knowing the shot will be good to 20-25 paces.

Guys who can shoot this well are rarely Gear Queers. If they are competitors, of course they will use equipment appropriate to the game. But the accomplished, serious gunmen I have known rarely carried anything but the basic enhancements (night sights, Pachmayrs etc.) you might find on a duty gun.

I believe that shows good technique and probably better than average hand strength. My goal is strictly to be safe and competent in self defense. I, until recently, worked at a gun range and had the opportunity to shoot a wide variety of handguns. technique was to use a shot timer and start from low ready to test in a uniform fashion.

I found that DA revolvers were the quickest to accurate 1st shot hits if I excluded the Glocks that I shot more frquently. My worst results on 1st shot accuracy were the light trigger 1911s. This speaks mostly to my trigger technique.

The big difference appeared when engaging multiple targets at speed w/ 3 or more shots /target. In this scenario I found that for me the sights were the biggest enhancer and more important than the trigger or grip size/geometry. I am old, weak and have average vision so I rely on technique a great deal and require regular practice and dry fire to maintain competence.

All that being said I shoot most consistently w/ my Glocks w/ grip reductions, stipling and good sights. All triggers are OEM. Good topic producing many interesting points of view.

mike r

Gary, I am pretty happy with my G43, its about the right size, the trigger does not bother me that much, I like the Trijicon big orange front sight dot and the U shaped rear, the pistol comes out of the holster and seems about in the right place in front of me when it goes bang. Of course I am certainly not near as good a marksman as many here, but I do get a hit occasionally.

Well, if it means anything, just took a new G40 out the box and the trigger pulled around 7 pounds +/-. Detail strip, cleaned, oiled, dry fired the trigger a bit. Now breaks 6 pounds 1 ounces, no polish, just clean and oil. I never fired the pistol, but imagine when I run it a bit, the trigger will settle down about like my G43. This gun, however, is not a carry gun, it is specifically for hunting. Depending on what type of accuracy I can squeeze out of it, and I am even prepared to change barrels, I likely will likely run a drop in trigger before it is done. Not looking for light, but looking for crisp break.

I dunno, it depends on what your definition of "the top" is.

I'd say that if there's more than 25-30 then you can start refining your definition of "the top".

There are lots of really good shooters that can shoot very well, but a very small percentage are exceptional.

Only when nobody is watching.




Dave

I started building my hand strength around age 12.






Dave

I have tried the 10mm twice now, both in G20's, of course now that they have the 40 released I am sure that I must waste more money proving to myself again that I cannot shoot a Glock with enough confidence that I would try to hit a deer at 40 yards

Yeah, I guess it depends on the definition.

I've shot against a lot of really good shooters at various levels in a lot of different classes & with a variety of guns.

While your number might only encompass the very elite professional full time shooters, my number would include most of the really high level competitive shooters that are more than just really good; they are really, really good.........some of the consistently very best that I've seen are, either currently or past, military team shooters.

MM

Good shooters in the sport/comp world are abundant while great shooters are rare. The best shooters are able to shoot w/out missing while discriminating the bad guys and not shooting through or around innocents. They can do so in the dark while wearing a respirator and may have arrived via parachute or submarine.


mike r