Most reliable and shootable 9mm semi auto pistols

[RockAndSage]

Some more shooting this morning. Tried to do some dry fire nearly every day the last week.

7 yd, not timed. For 10 rounds I tried target focus with fuzzy sights, which are nearly all outside the black . Doesn't work as well for me. All one eye sight focus are in the black.
View attachment 871691

25 yards, 5 rounds, not timed. One eye front sight focus
View attachment 871692

The FBI qual drill. Not good. I'm not sure the details of scoring but I counted cut line as the higher point. I also estimated the ones outside the ring as 5 or 6, but not sure if that's correct or if they should be 0. My hold was getting pretty shakey by the time I did this. I guess I need to do a lot more dry fire and get my hand and forearm endurance improved. The timing component also makes accuracy much harder.

120 depending on scoring
View attachment 871693

With the soft-focus/fuzzy focus, you can see from your target that you'd still have them all in the chest at 7yds, which isn't bad at all, as long as you keep things in context.

Generally speaking, "soft focus" or a target focus for iron sights is best for very fast and very close, but beyond conversational distances. It does have its place, but it's also something I generally wouldn't really do beyond 7-10 yards, without very pressing and very specific, unlikely circumstances. Below 5 yards, try just covering up the target with the back of your gun's slide. Below 2 yards, it's point shooting. Beyond 10yds it's a kind of flash-focus on the front sight without spending lots of time trying to get everything just perfect, and beyond about 15yds you really need to start carefully focusing on that front sight. There's a window of time and distance where each of these and other techniques becomes more or less useful. But the foundation should definitely be front-sight focus, with the rest of these techniques being add-ons after a solid foundation has been laid.

You won't hear much of this from most instructors in most introductory handgun courses, because of the need to lay that foundation. And because of most guys' predilection for getting way ahead of themselves too early in just about anything we try to learn. That foundation needs to be focused on first, crawling and walking, before trying the stuff that's more running and sprinting.

It's also important to always remember your instructor's zero. Guys coming out of .mil units and guys who spend most of their career on tactical teams will gravitate far more towards front-sight focus or, with red-dots, target focus, because their reality revolves around having the initiative, and knowing when they're going into a gunfight. The sudden fight/flight adrenaline dump doesn't hit them instantly and unexpectedly, as they're usually the ones moving in on a target and starting the gunfight themselves. Guys coming out of deep cover work of various kinds or street law enforcement tend to teach more of the point-shooting variations, taking into account those instant full-bore adrenaline dumps, and how to shoot at arms-length from holstered or concealed, and face-to-far distances. Both of those worlds have different techniques and priorities in moving to cover or through, into, or out of a threat environment - hostage rescue is very different from what matters to officer survival in a suddenly violent traffic stop. Which is something not even on the radar of a high-end competitive shooter, who will teach you how to shoot fantastically well, but not necessarily how to survive a violent encounter. So, always know your instructor's zero, when evaluating what you're being taught and how it may or may not make sense for your situation. Just assemble all the tools you can, and evaluate what's best for a given job.

 

[Thegman]

Some more shooting this morning. Tried to do some dry fire nearly every day the last week.

7 yd, not timed. For 10 rounds I tried target focus with fuzzy sights, which are nearly all outside the black . Doesn't work as well for me. All one eye sight focus are in the black.
View attachment 871691

25 yards, 5 rounds, not timed. One eye front sight focus
View attachment 871692

The FBI qual drill. Not good. I'm not sure the details of scoring but I counted cut line as the higher point. I also estimated the ones outside the ring as 5 or 6, but not sure if that's correct or if they should be 0. My hold was getting pretty shakey by the time I did this. I guess I need to do a lot more dry fire and get my hand and forearm endurance improved. The timing component also makes accuracy much harder. I did not time out on any. I'll try again soon taking a little more time in aiming.

120 depending on scoring
View attachment 871693

Nice job. Looks to me like your 7 yard target is already a big improvement over your first run(?), especially your sight focus shooting.

I'm not an expert in this, at all, but I'd focus on shooting at 7 yards and in until you're getting really confident in placing your shots and figuring out what works best for you, like you're doing. Once you're there at 7 yards, back up a few yards at a time and continue working on groups. Jumping from 7 all the way to 25 is tough.

 

[HighUintas]

With the soft-focus/fuzzy focus, you can see from your target that you'd still have them all in the chest at 7yds, which isn't bad at all, as long as you keep things in context.

Generally speaking, "soft focus" or a target focus for iron sights is best for very fast and very close, but beyond conversational distances. It does have its place, but it's also something I generally wouldn't really do beyond 7-10 yards, without very pressing and very specific, unlikely circumstances. Below 5 yards, try just covering up the target with the back of your gun's slide. Below 2 yards, it's point shooting. Beyond 10yds it's a kind of flash-focus on the front sight without spending lots of time trying to get everything just perfect, and beyond about 15yds you really need to start carefully focusing on that front sight. There's a window of time and distance where each of these and other techniques becomes more or less useful. But the foundation should definitely be front-sight focus, with the rest of these techniques being add-ons after a solid foundation has been laid.

You won't hear much of this from most instructors in most introductory handgun courses, because of the need to lay that foundation. And because of most guys' predilection for getting way ahead of themselves too early in just about anything we try to learn. That foundation needs to be focused on first, crawling and walking, before trying the stuff that's more running and sprinting.

It's also important to always remember your instructor's zero. Guys coming out of .mil units and guys who spend most of their career on tactical teams will gravitate far more towards front-sight focus or, with red-dots, target focus, because their reality revolves around having the initiative, and knowing when they're going into a gunfight. The sudden fight/flight adrenaline dump doesn't hit them instantly and unexpectedly, as they're usually the ones moving in on a target and starting the gunfight themselves. Guys coming out of deep cover work of various kinds or street law enforcement tend to teach more of the point-shooting variations, taking into account those instant full-bore adrenaline dumps, and how to shoot at arms-length from holstered or concealed, and face-to-far distances. Both of those worlds have different techniques and priorities in moving to cover or through, into, or out of a threat environment - hostage rescue is very different from what matters to officer survival in a suddenly violent traffic stop. Which is something not even on the radar of a high-end competitive shooter, who will teach you how to shoot fantastically well, but not necessarily how to survive a violent encounter. So, always know your instructor's zero, when evaluating what you're being taught and how it may or may not make sense for your situation. Just assemble all the tools you can, and evaluate what's best for a given job.

I agree on walking before running. I need to go back and work on my trigger, grip, and recoil management. It seems I shoot the best when fresh and start getting shakey and not so smooth on the trigger after 30-50, and then the muzzle really starts to flip. I'm not sure why, other than being new, as I don't death grip it. I also need to work on getting the sight picture return more consistently.

 

[HighUintas]

Nice job. Looks to me like your 7 yard target is already a big improvement over your first run(?), especially your sight focus shooting.

I'm not an expert in this, at all, but I'd focus on shooting at 7 yards and in until you're getting really confident in placing your shots and figuring out what works best for you, like you're doing. Once you're there at 7 yards, back up a few yards at a time and continue working on groups. Jumping from 7 all the way to 25 is tough.

That's now the plan. I just had to see how I'd do on that drill. Back to square one.

 

[RockAndSage]

I agree on walking before running. I need to go back and work on my trigger, grip, and recoil management. It seems I shoot the best when fresh and start getting shakey and not so smooth on the trigger after 30-50, and then the muzzle really starts to flip. I'm not sure why, other than being new, as I don't death grip it. I also need to work on getting the sight picture return more consistently.

A couple of things that might help with this:

1) Do 1 mag live fire, then 5-10 dry fires, then another live mag.

2) Buy a pack of dummy rounds, and load them randomly into 1 mag of live ammo.

My suspicion is that getting shaky and not as smooth on the trigger may be related to recoil anticipation. The first technique will help you get back to basics after each mag, and the second technique will help expose when some of that recoil anticipation is creeping back in.

 

[Fatcamp]

I shot today. Didn't have any competition targets so used the 10-8 targets Form posted.

2.6 was my best Bill drill but 3 rounds were in the 8 ring. 3.2 was my last with all shots 9/10. That's with no significant practice the last two years and a phone timer just downloaded, that I have my doubts about.... My draw is killing me, splits are OK but slow. G17 out of a Bladetech OWB.

Shot both G19 from concealment. First with ball ammo at 7 yards, 15 rounds in 6.6, 12 in 9/10 and 3 spread out. Second with Gold Dot and a TRL-1, 15 rounds in 7.6, 11 9/10, 4 spread out.

Just like boxing and Jiu-jitsu it's a perishable skill. The longer I go without practice the worse I get. Was looking at switching guns and getting an optic, but I think I'm gonna buy a real timer and a couple thousand rounds of ammo to burn up.

 

[ShootOkHuntWorse]

CZ-USA Shadow 2 Carry 9mm 4" Bbl 15rd Optics-Ready Compact Pistol 91244 For Sale - EuroOptic

CZ-USA Shadow 2 Carry 9mm 4" Bbl 15rd Optics-Ready Compact Pistol 91244 For Sale

www.eurooptic.com

This is getting a lot of press today. Thoughts?

Im glad you brought this up. I love my CZs but I shoot my pcr like shit

 

[HighUintas]

@RockAndSage @Formidilosus

How much does grip consistency influence POI? For example, recoil management matters a lot for POI with a rifle due to the gun moving under recoil before the bullet leaves the barrel. Is it the same with a pistol even if your trigger control is good?

 

[RockAndSage]

@RockAndSage @Formidilosus

How much does grip consistency influence POI? For example, recoil management matters a lot for POI with a rifle due to the gun moving under recoil before the bullet leaves the barrel. Is it the same with a pistol even if your trigger control is good?

The bigger issues with grip consistency are 1) your grip/hand/fingers not moving the sights during your trigger press, and 2) consistency of the grip when you first grab the weapon, so that your sights are aligned the exact same way every time.

 

[Formidilosus]

@RockAndSage @Formidilosus

How much does grip consistency influence POI? For example, recoil management matters a lot for POI with a rifle due to the gun moving under recoil before the bullet leaves the barrel. Is it the same with a pistol even if your trigger control is good?

In pure POA/POI with no other errors- the difference is unnoticeable.

 

[zdc1775]

@RockAndSage @Formidilosus

How much does grip consistency influence POI? For example, recoil management matters a lot for POI with a rifle due to the gun moving under recoil before the bullet leaves the barrel. Is it the same with a pistol even if your trigger control is good?

Like Form and Rockandsage said, if your sights are aligned properly the bullet is going to the same place. That being said, with handguns failure to establish a proper grip will very much impact a shooter's ability to ensure that proper sight alignment, much more so than it will on a rifle in my experience. Most of that is due to the shorter sight radius and how much more easily the grip can influence that alignment.

With a rifle, a shooter can more easily overcome slight misalignment and pressure from their fingers/hand/shoulder with other major muscle groups, while with a pistol having your little finger in a slightly different place than normal will greatly affect the shooter's ability to align the sights.

On a most basic level, I have been able to instruct almost any shooter to be competent with a rifle out to 1000 yards within a few weeks where with pistols it routinely requires making them "forget" their bad habits and then relearning the right way to shoot/hold the handgun to shoot tight groups at 25 yards.

 

[HighUintas]

Some more dry firing and slow fire practice. I broke up the groups every couple of shots with a few dry fires.

There's a a couple wild ones per group. It's getting much easier to tell from the trigger press when it's going to be off target.

I've also found that my trigger press is much cleaner with a looser grip. Putting pressure in the right areas of the grip and loosening the rest keeps the muzzle flip down but allows better trigger control.

10rd groups
1.5" orange dots
124 blazer fmj
7yds

The one low left shot with the arrow actually belonged to the center group with black ring.

 

[Dave0317]

With the soft-focus/fuzzy focus, you can see from your target that you'd still have them all in the chest at 7yds, which isn't bad at all, as long as you keep things in context.

Generally speaking, "soft focus" or a target focus for iron sights is best for very fast and very close, but beyond conversational distances. It does have its place, but it's also something I generally wouldn't really do beyond 7-10 yards, without very pressing and very specific, unlikely circumstances. Below 5 yards, try just covering up the target with the back of your gun's slide. Below 2 yards, it's point shooting. Beyond 10yds it's a kind of flash-focus on the front sight without spending lots of time trying to get everything just perfect, and beyond about 15yds you really need to start carefully focusing on that front sight. There's a window of time and distance where each of these and other techniques becomes more or less useful. But the foundation should definitely be front-sight focus, with the rest of these techniques being add-ons after a solid foundation has been laid.

You won't hear much of this from most instructors in most introductory handgun courses, because of the need to lay that foundation. And because of most guys' predilection for getting way ahead of themselves too early in just about anything we try to learn. That foundation needs to be focused on first, crawling and walking, before trying the stuff that's more running and sprinting.

It's also important to always remember your instructor's zero. Guys coming out of .mil units and guys who spend most of their career on tactical teams will gravitate far more towards front-sight focus or, with red-dots, target focus, because their reality revolves around having the initiative, and knowing when they're going into a gunfight. The sudden fight/flight adrenaline dump doesn't hit them instantly and unexpectedly, as they're usually the ones moving in on a target and starting the gunfight themselves. Guys coming out of deep cover work of various kinds or street law enforcement tend to teach more of the point-shooting variations, taking into account those instant full-bore adrenaline dumps, and how to shoot at arms-length from holstered or concealed, and face-to-far distances. Both of those worlds have different techniques and priorities in moving to cover or through, into, or out of a threat environment - hostage rescue is very different from what matters to officer survival in a suddenly violent traffic stop. Which is something not even on the radar of a high-end competitive shooter, who will teach you how to shoot fantastically well, but not necessarily how to survive a violent encounter. So, always know your instructor's zero, when evaluating what you're being taught and how it may or may not make sense for your situation. Just assemble all the tools you can, and evaluate what's best for a given job.

You may or may not be familiar with it, but this could be a summary of a chapter of Brian Enos’s book. He talks about how guys see things as having to be defined by particular technique or system. In reality, a good shooter is going to flow between methods or even blend them, to “see what you need to see” to make your hits. Point shooters probably subconsciously see feedback from the sights of some sort. Or even just slide alignment at close distances. And front sight focus hard aiming proponents probably do some intuitive pointing if they get close to the targets and push their speed under, especially under stress.

 

[RockAndSage]

You may or may not be familiar with it, but this could be a summary of a chapter of Brian Enos’s book. He talks about how guys see things as having to be defined by particular technique or system. In reality, a good shooter is going to flow between methods or even blend them, to “see what you need to see” to make your hits. Point shooters probably subconsciously see feedback from the sights of some sort. Or even just slide alignment at close distances. And front sight focus hard aiming proponents probably do some intuitive pointing if they get close to the targets and push their speed under, especially under stress.

I didn't know about his writings, though I've certainly heard of him and it is good to see, and makes sense. The part I emboldened above is one of my particular hobgobblins, in several worlds I've walked in and orbited - the root cause of it is identity formation, cemented by tribalism. It's a human thing though, cross-culturally, and not just limited to US gun guys. You see it everywhere from the foreign policy establishment in DC and global academia, to martial arts and to the culinary world. But it's always rooted in identity and tribe. That's what causes it to lead to binary, black-and-white thinking, rather than blending and experimenting. And why those doing that kind of blending and experimenting are often viciously kicked out of any tribes they had been rooted in initially. At a gut level, it's seen as treasonous rejection of the tribe's values.

 

[HighUintas]

I picked up my chest holster from Wasatch Holsters today. I've not used a Kenai, but this unit seems very well done and high quality, especially for the price of $80. It has adjustable retention as well.

A new addition to this that may not show in the pictures on the website is the elastic portion sewn into the rear of the harness. The lack of elastic was a downside that I was prepared for and was happily surprised when I picked it up. In the pictures on his site they all appear to have the outer upper portion covering most of the rear of the gun (the same way the body side does). I requested that he cut the outside lower, which he did and you can see that in my picture.

He can do fully custom holsters if you need one, but needs the gun in hand to do so, I believe.

After using it a bit, I may make a review thread on it to get his name out there as another quality option.

 

[RockAndSage]

I picked up my chest holster from Wasatch Holsters today. I've not used a Kenai, but this unit seems very well done and high quality, especially for the price of $80. It has adjustable retention as well.

A new addition to this that may not show in the pictures on the website is the elastic portion sewn into the rear of the harness. The lack of elastic was a downside that I was prepared for and was happily surprised when I picked it up. In the pictures on his site they all appear to have the outer upper portion covering most of the rear of the gun (the same way the body side does). I requested that he cut the outside lower, which he did and you can see that in my picture.

He can do fully custom holsters if you need one, but needs the gun in hand to do so, I believe.

After using it a bit, I may make a review thread on it to get his name out there as another quality option.


View attachment 875930View attachment 875931View attachment 875932

That's nice work, like the idea of the elastic segment too.

 

[Tim14167]

Walthers PPQ

 

[HighUintas]

Here's the fit of my holster with my bino harness. You can see I'm a small ish guy with little chest real estate.

High holster placement makes a more awkward draw arm movement





It's a bit more natural/comfortable draw having it lower.



Does anyone have any recommendations for adjustments of both bino harness and holster?

I realize I need to do this with my pack on to take the pack shoulder straps in account.

 

[ElPollo]

Here's the fit of my holster with my bino harness. You can see I'm a small ish guy with little chest real estate.

High holster placement makes a more awkward draw arm movement

View attachment 876763View attachment 876764



It's a bit more natural/comfortable draw having it lower.
View attachment 876765


Does anyone have any recommendations for adjustments of both bino harness and holster?

I realize I need to do this with my pack on to take the pack shoulder straps in account.

I would try lengthening the strap over your shoulder and moving the lower holster straps below your bino harness.

 

[Thegman]

Here's the fit of my holster with my bino harness. You can see I'm a small ish guy with little chest real estate.

High holster placement makes a more awkward draw arm movement

View attachment 876763View attachment 876764



It's a bit more natural/comfortable draw having it lower.
View attachment 876765


Does anyone have any recommendations for adjustments of both bino harness and holster?

I realize I need to do this with my pack on to take the pack shoulder straps in account.

Although I haven't done it, that does look like it would be awkward to draw at that height and might be even more difficult with pack straps added to all that.

I know you have the holster already, but have you thought about a holster that clips to your pack belt? Might be worth trying, but may not work depending on how you carry your rifle (?).

I know people mention not having your pistol when your pack is off, but if the pack needs to be off for any length of time, it's pretty easy to just clip some holsters to your person in a few seconds and it isn't competing with the shitshow that can happen with a lot of straps and gear on the chest. I rarely if ever carry a pistol when I'm carrying a rifle, so there is that, but when I'm hiking/packing without a rifle, that works pretty well for me and is a really simple set-up.