Accuracy issues

[aarolar]

I am having serious accuracy issues with my glock that I am attempting to build up for hunting. With both cast and Jword bullets at 50 foot I am grouping about 10'' and about 12 inches high. I am shooting off a bench supporting the bottom of the gun and my wrists. Gun has factory glock sights and I can't figure why its shooting so high? Should I be looking at adjustable sights to get it down or maybe just a higher front sight, I am really getting fustrated with this gun and am getting ready to give up on it and go with a revolver instead...

[para45lda]

How does it shoot without the bench? What model is it? Factory barrel?

Try supporting the trigger guard area not the butt. Any difference?

Could be any number of things up to and including the operator - no offense.

Wes

[aarolar]

How does it shoot without the bench? What model is it? Factory barrel?

Try supporting the trigger guard area not the butt. Any difference?

Could be any number of things up to and including the operator - no offense.

Wes

No offense taken I am starting to wonder my buckmark groups beautifully but then again maybe I have aquired a flinch due to recoil.

Model 21 I have a KKM Comped barrel shooting Rowland level loads, off the bench just plinking I seem to be able to hit what I am aiming at (ie tin cans) almost 95% of the time. I myself wonder if maybe I am just letting it get in my head when I start shooting paper?

[subsonic]

Sell it and buy a revolver :mrgreen:

Ok, now that we have that out of the way...
Make up a couple of dummy rounds with spent primers and no powder, but seat and crimp boolits so that they look the same as loaded ammo and feed from the mag.
Put one or two in your pocket and dump in 3 or 4 live rounds. Load the mag out of your pocket and don't look to see where in the stack the dummies are. Commence shooting and watch how you react when you drop the striker on a dummy. If the gun moves... You have found your problem. Repeat this drill until the gun does not move.

Other things to consider are:
Fouling in the bore or muzzle brake
Twist too slow for bullet weight
Bullets too small for bore
Cracked frame or rails
Bent takedown pin thing
Hitch in the trigger
Sights moving around
Brake keeping slide from going all the way into battery


There really aren't too many thing that can cause accuracy that bad.

[aarolar]

Sell it and buy a revolver :mrgreen:

Ok, now that we have that out of the way...
Make up a couple of dummy rounds with spent primers and no powder, but seat and crimp boolits so that they look the same as loaded ammo and feed from the mag.
Put one or two in your pocket and dump in 3 or 4 live rounds. Load the mag out of your pocket and don't look to see where in the stack the dummies are. Commence shooting and watch how you react when you drop the striker on a dummy. If the gun moves... You have found your problem. Repeat this drill until the gun does not move.

Other things to consider are:
Fouling in the bore or muzzle brake
Twist too slow for bullet weight
Bullets too small for bore
Cracked frame or rails
Bent takedown pin thing
Hitch in the trigger
Sights moving around
Brake keeping slide from going all the way into battery


There really aren't too many thing that can cause accuracy that bad.

Lots of good things to think about here, I have done plenty of dryfire practice to try to and eliminate flinch but I will try the dummy rounds as well. Im going to go through your list and tell you what I know and see what advice you give.

Fouling in the bore or muzzle brake
-I have noticed alot of lead buildup on the comp, I really only need the comp with rowland loads. I want to work up cast rowland loads but worse case I will use only Jwords with my rowland stuff but the accuracy issue are there when shooting j words through a clean comp as well so...

Twist too slow for bullet weight
-I have no clue what the twist rate is in the KKM barrels but I am shooting a 230grn cast and jword which is standard for 45ACP. I would imagine that KKM would have the appropriate twist rate for this bullet.

Bullets too small for bore
-Bore slugs at .4995 boolits are sized at .452. Besides this the accuracy issues are with jwords and cast boolits.

Cracked frame or rails
-Ill check and may find something I don't want to, it does seem that this happend all of a sudden. I haven't had the KKM barrel long but it seems groups were way better when I first got it. It's possible the rowland loads may have broken something I guess but I haven't even pushed it all that hard yet.

Bent takedown pin thing
-See above

Hitch in the trigger
-Seems smooth enough to me, no worse than any other striker fired gun I have shot.

Sights moving around
-Checked them and they seem solid enough everything is a possiblity.

Brake keeping slide from going all the way into battery
-I have been having issues with it not going into battery with both jwords and cast where should I be looking for contact. I assumed it was a overly tight throat in the "match barrel" I need more imformation on this as this is my first comped handgun.

[jblee10]

I hate to ask, but how does it group with J-words?

[aarolar]

I hate to ask, but how does it group with J-words?

Same as with cast no difference.

[David LaPell]

The other question I have is what kind of trigger are you running (weight) and how did the gun shoot in the factory setting (granted I know you cant shoot lead from the factory barrel)? I would try several different things, one a different bullet, some guns just shoot badly with a certain bullet. I also think you should try different powders and run the gamut from the basement to the hotter loads until it can shoot where you want it. Personally I have shot Glock 21's where I can group an inch at 25 yards with nothing other than factory ammo. I would prefer a Glock 10mm for hunting over a .45 ACP but that is just me. I think you should be shooting for 1-2 inch groups at 25 yards if you want to seriously hunt with this gun.

[Alan]

Try resting your arms on the sandbag, and not letting the gun touch the rest at all. That said, that is a fairly extreme POI change and lack of accuracy.

How does it shoot w/ FACTORY ammo?

[Rico1950]

Maybe I missed it in the above posts, but are you shooting factory J words when you refer to jacketed? What alloy are you using for cast? What powder? Is overall length correct? (check with your barrel removed). Try .451" sized boolits. I hope your cleaning really good between shooting J & cast.

[subsonic]

It's not good if it's not going into battery.

Take the slide off and flip it over. You will see a little round plunger. When you push on it you should have free travel and feel spring tension. If that thing gets dirty and sticks in the depressed position, the gun can fire out of battery and you will be an internet sensation with your very own KB to post about. But that is not what's keeping it from going into battery. What recoil spring do you have in it now? I it is lighter than stock that can do it.

With an empty gun, point the muzzle up and ride the slide forward slowly and see if you can get it to hang up right before it closes. That is the last part of the cycle where the barrel should cam up and lock into the slide. You could have a burr or something on the barrel or slide hanging it up or the barrel could be too big to drop into the slide. You can test i with the slide and barrel off of the frame with the recoil spring out. It should have a slight amount of wiggle room.

The comp could be screwed on too far and simply be hitting the slide as it tries to close when hot.

The shooting high makes me think it's unlocking too fast - or you are moving the gun when pulling the trigger.

[aarolar]

Yall have given me alot to think about here I am really thinking it's the injun and not the arrow, its just getting fustrating to me and I start wanting to blame the gun...

No factory Jwords have been fired through this gun ever, don't really intend to it hurts my feelings to pay so much for 50 rds...

[Beau Cassidy]

I am just east of Atlanta. If you ever get over this way let me know and we can look things over.

[Alan]

.

No factory Jwords have been fired through this gun ever, don't really intend to it hurts my feelings to pay so much for 50 rds...

You need to have a baseline to compare against. There is a real possibility that your gun is not going into battery correctly with an aftermarket barrel. I seriously advise letting a good 'smith look it over.

As a side note, in my experience you will never get a good picture of the accuracy or POI of a pistol by letting the barrel or any part of the slide/frame/grip touch a rest. Rest your wrists/arms, not the gun.

[JayinAZ]

As a side note, in my experience you will never get a good picture of the accuracy or POI of a pistol by letting the barrel or any part of the slide/frame/grip touch a rest. Rest your wrists/arms, not the gun.

I second this 100%.

[aarolar]

I hate typing long responses so please bear with me.

I cleaned it up and checked it over real well and found no obvious cracks or damage, and the sights seem tight.

I sat down and began troubleshooting the not returning to battery issue and it ended up being that my COAL was too long. This barrel obviously has a extremely tight throat and both the cast and jwords are a TC design. I had them seated at 1.220 and they were hanging up in the throat preventing it from going into battery. I pushed them both back to 1.200 and all seems to be well now.

I intend to get away from jword bullets entirely and go to cast. I want to hollowpoint a mold for my hunting and defence ammo and shoot the same cast boolit non hollow point for practice. Whenever I finish off the last of these jwords I have I don't plan on buying more.

The plan for next weekend is to

#1 Back off the load with my cast boolits, this weekend I was using a 235grn above 5.0grns unique which is pretty hot. I am going to step it down a notch and slowly work up and see if I can find a happy spot.

#2 Find some different ways of supporting myself off the bench, I really feel like the POI issues are related to this because freehand plinking I can hit what I want just fine and even off the bench I had a few shots land on POA. Earlier testing was done with the accessory rail resting on a 2x4 and were closer to POA.

From there I will see what happens hopefully the results will be less discouraging if there are any members from the Augusta area that would like to meet up with me and shoot this thing I would love to see the results. If someone else can take it and shoot to POA and hold good groups the we will know what the issue is.:bigsmyl2:

And I have said it before but I am going to say it again, this is the most helpful forum I am a member of. All the responses are on topic, helpful and polite and that is rare on the interwebs these days.

[subsonic]

If it was not 100% into battery, that would support the shooting high...

Good luck with it and be safe!

When I have shot my G20 from the bench I rested the rail area (mine is pre-rail) on a sandbag and pushed forward into the bag with the grip floating above the bench.

[aarolar]

If it was not 100% into battery, that would support the shooting high...

Good luck with it and be safe!

When I have shot my G20 from the bench I rested the rail area (mine is pre-rail) on a sandbag and pushed forward into the bag with the grip floating above the bench.

That is essentially what I was doing with the 2x4 I need to get another sandbag my last one busted.

[aarolar]

Update on my troubles

I got home early today and snuck outside to shoot alittle, results are still dissappointing. Still shotgun patterns even with just resting my arms instead of the gun. I have some more observations...

I am getting leading in the first half of the barrel and I have researched and found there are 2 thought on why I would be getting this.

#1 is that I am not getting a good seal and gas cutting is causing my issues, I belive this isn't my issue because as I stated I am sizing my boolits to .4525 and my barrel is slugging .4495 so how could the boolit possibly not be sealing?

#2 is that upon firing an amount of lead is shaved off by the sharp throat of the barrel and then "ironed in" by subsequent shots. This seems more plausable to me being that my barrel is so much tighter than the boolit. This could be causing my issues with not returning to battery and possibly my accuracy issues right?

I need input from some more experienced folks on this I am a extreme noob at this. I think I need to size my boolits do .451 at a minimum and possibly smaller than that and maybe possibly get the throat reamed to be more lead friendly...

[Ausglock]

I had the same issues with my G35 in 357Sig.
I could bounce a tin can all over the range with it, but could not get it to group from a bench.

Then the light bulb came on in my head. The glock frame flexes differently with hand pressure when you grip it on the rest.

Try shooting a group with your weak hand resting against a pole or corner of a wall. this way the gun isn't having downward force applied to it.
When I did it this way, the G35 grouped 10 shots into 1.25" at 20 metres.

Good luck.

[canyon-ghost]

Even with a revolver:

#2 is that upon firing an amount of lead is shaved off by the sharp throat of the barrel and then "ironed in" by subsequent shots. This seems more plausable to me being that my barrel is so much tighter than the boolit. This could be causing my issues with not returning to battery and possibly my accuracy issues right?



Right, it leads bad when you shove a big boolit through it. I tried real hard to get one bullet to shoot in my 41 mag. It leaded too much. One day I wandered by the bucket with the caliper and just offhandedly measured one. Dang, they are way to big! I didn't think they could be but, they were.

[subsonic]

What caliber is the barrel chambered in?

What brass are you using?

[aarolar]

What caliber is the barrel chambered in?

What brass are you using?

45 ACP and misc range brass

[jblee10]

I agree with Alan. You need a baseline. Did you ever shoot the gun before an aftermarket barrel was fitted? Did you buy it with the aftermarket barrel already installed? Maybe someone sold it cause it wasn't fitted properly.

Another note, use just on brand of brass. One lot if you can swing it.

[aarolar]

What brand and style ammo would you suggest to get a baseline with? I have the factory barrel I can put it in and try it out to see what happens.

[Alan]

I would try CCI or Rem or Win one notch up from the blazer/umc/white box stuff. Win 230gr HP loads (from a white box, ironically) shoot pretty well in mine. The low-grade stuff will check function, but accuracy can be iffy with it.

Unless I'm loading top-end loads in the Magnums or for some match, I don't bother sorting my brass any more, esp. for .38 spl and .45 ACP. I make sure the .38's are trimmed to the same length, but most .45 ACP cases are way short anyway, and never seem to get longer. When your unit of measure on "how much do I have on hand" is .30 cal ammo cans, sorting by brand just gets a bit tedious.

For my hunting/showing off/match loads for .357, 41, 44's and .500, yes, I sort by brand, the number of times the case has been reloaded, get all anal about case length, primer brand, charge weight and weight-sorting boolits. And for those loads, I am well rewarded for the effort. 8)

[Moondawg]

Glocks are made for combat accuracy, or minute of man. Nor, are they made in what would be considered a really good hunting round. You can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but it would be expensive. If you seriously want to hunt with a pistol, buy a Ruger or S&W in the appropriate caliber There are tons of good used ones out there.

[aarolar]

I would try CCI or Rem or Win one notch up from the blazer/umc/white box stuff. Win 230gr HP loads (from a white box, ironically) shoot pretty well in mine. The low-grade stuff will check function, but accuracy can be iffy with it.

Unless I'm loading top-end loads in the Magnums or for some match, I don't bother sorting my brass any more, esp. for .38 spl and .45 ACP. I make sure the .38's are trimmed to the same length, but most .45 ACP cases are way short anyway, and never seem to get longer. When your unit of measure on "how much do I have on hand" is .30 cal ammo cans, sorting by brand just gets a bit tedious.

For my hunting/showing off/match loads for .357, 41, 44's and .500, yes, I sort by brand, the number of times the case has been reloaded, get all anal about case length, primer brand, charge weight and weight-sorting boolits. And for those loads, I am well rewarded for the effort. 8)

Ill see what I can get my hands on today or tomorrow and try it with the factory barrel and see what happens. I also have some new starline brass I was saving for my SD loads I can try using to see if it changes anything but I highly doubt it's the issue.

[subsonic]

Glocks are made for combat accuracy, or minute of man. Nor, are they made in what would be considered a really good hunting round. You can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but it would be expensive. If you seriously want to hunt with a pistol, buy a Ruger or S&W in the appropriate caliber There are tons of good used ones out there.

Glocks will shoot plenty good and the 10mm and 45+ variations will work fine for hunting medium size game like deer at handgun hunting distances.

Show us groups from yours.

[aarolar]

Glocks will shoot plenty good and the 10mm and 45+ variations will work fine for hunting medium size game like deer at handgun hunting distances.

Show us groups from yours.

Plus I don't want to be like everyone else I like to do something different. Going and buying a SBH is the easy way out not to mention I can produce loads equal to 44 mag in my glock...

[aarolar]

Update on what I accomplished today. By yall's suggestion I went a bought a box of WWB 230grn HP loads. I used the factory barrel and moved to 15yds sandbag under my arms and got this.

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb287/aarolar/IMAG0159.jpg

You can go ahead and blame everything outside the black on the shooter I have a pretty good flinch to over come. So with that I went inside and loaded up some of my boolits a 240grn TC over 5grains of Unique and at 15yds got this.

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb287/aarolar/IMAG0160.jpg

This was loaded progressively I decide to load them on my turrent press and weight out each charge by hand. This is what I ended up with.

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb287/aarolar/IMAG0158.jpg

Granted it still not a great group for 15yds off a bench but hey it's a step foward. Apparently I need to find another powder that will meter more accuately in my progressive if I intend to use it to load accurate rounds with any speed. I am not getting any leading with this load which is good but I want it wayyy tighter at 15yds, I want to be able to eat the center of the black out with ease. I don't really want a 100yd gun I am looking for a load accurate to 50yds for use on deer and hogs and I think I am well on my way. Thanks to everyone who contribuited useful information to this and I am now looking for tips on how to tighten these up even more and some powder suggestions for more accurate metering.

[subsonic]

Try crimpin less, like just roll the bell back in so that the case measures the same over the middle of the boolit and at the case mouth. Over- crimpin will mash your boolits. I bet you had it cranked down too much on your progressive and backed it off a little when you moved the dies to your turret press. Unique should meter great.

[aarolar]

Try crimpin less, like just roll the bell back in so that the case measures the same over the middle of the boolit and at the case mouth. Over- crimpin will mash your boolits. I bet you had it cranked down too much on your progressive and backed it off a little when you moved the dies to your turret press. Unique should meter great.

Didn't move the dies I have two sets, but I see your point. I will invesigate all that later. Checking the progressive it was varying +/- .1grn.

Could I pull a boolit and see if I am over crimping them?

[subsonic]

Didn't move the dies I have two sets, but I see your point. I will invesigate all that later. Checking the progressive it was varying +/- .1grn.

Could I pull a boolit and see if I am over crimping them?

Yes..