Morgan,

I’m really sick of my GLock 19!! I’ve shot it so much and I still cant hit anything!! Me and dad have gone to people and asked for advice, tried all the techniques by all the shooting masters and everything!!! I’ve gotten so discouraged I dont even like to shoot any more.

Dylan
P.S. How about the Browning Hi-Power,Beretta 92FS Inox

Dylan,

 I’m sorry to hear of your frustration.  Shooting can be a tricky business.  As much as we would like to find fault with our equipment, the responsibility of success or failure rests only with the man.  As a martial artist, I’m sure you recognize that it is your mind more than anything that must be trained.
 
You are young.  I would hate to see you sour on shooting at this time in your life.  You and your father have many years to enjoy shooting together.  Take a step back and let’s re-boot your shooting training.
 
Your Glock is a fine pistol.  Glocks are absolutely the simplest semi-auto to operate.  Unfortunately, ease-of-operation does not immediately translate into easiest-to-shoot-well.  There are a lot of things working against the new shooter with a Glock. 
 
1)  Glocks have an ambiguous trigger.  The ingenious trigger mechanism in your Glock feels and operates like no other trigger in any other gun.  It’s squishy, irregular, interacted with from a somewhat unusual angle and has that weird safety lever-thingy in the middle.  It pulls sort of like a revolver, sort of like a cheap plastic squirt gun.  With experience, the Glock trigger can be controlled like no other.  And it can be easily modified.  It is, however, not kind to new shooters.
 
2)  Glocks are fat and blocky.  We pay a price for all that ammo capacity.  Sure it’s great to have 17 rounds ready to go in your Glock 17, but remember that you’re going to have to wrap your fingers around that box of ammo.  For many beginning shooters, the Glock grip is just not suitable in size or shape.    
 
3)  Glocks are light.  For an experienced shooter, light weight is great.  For a newer shooter, a light gun means snappy recoil and that can mean a flinch.  Light guns are inherently less stable.  They bobble with the slightest muscular tremble or nervous twitch.
 
I love Glocks, but I’m glad I didn’t learn to shoot using a Glock.  About a thousand years ago, when my father taught me to shoot, I used three guns.  A heavy competition .22 caliber semi-auto pistol, a Henry lever-action .22 caliber rifle and a Python .357 magnum revolver loaded with .38 Specials.  Why were these three guns the perfect training trio?  I didn’t know it at the time, but the features of these guns were in perfect balance. 
 
I don’t remember the make of the .22 pistol, but I do remember its main attribute.  It was boring.  I hated how heavy it was.  I hated the thumb-rest grip.  I hated the thick barrel and the little Pipp! sound it made when I shot it.  But you know what?  I learned to love that trigger.  It was so light that I could just think that gun to fire.  I got so I could put those little holes anywhere I wanted.  Anywhere I could imagine, really.  And that was exciting.
 
The little Henry was my hunting gun.  It taught me about life and death.  It taught me how heavy a little rifle can get for a nine-year-old on a long hot hike.  The long sight radius gave me practice reaching way out with iron sights.  It taught me to clean my gun and clean my rabbits. 
 
That old Colt Python was my baby.  Naturally I graduated to full-house magnum loads later on for competitions and hunting, but a cylinder full of little .38s is a great way to work the long heavy pull of a double-action revolver trigger.  That is control.  And that is what sticks with you over the years:  Mastery.
 
So don’t throw out your Glock, just because it doesn’t suit your skill level yet.  You are still in training.  Instead of going toward another expensive, complicated semi-auto, I’d regroup.  Pick up a .22 rifle, a Ruger 10-22 or Marlin lever-action.  For a few bucks you can spend most of the day shooting .22s.  Work on trigger control.  Work on sight alignment.  Breathing.  Work on quieting your mind and placing the bullet in the target where your mind sends it.  Shooting is an internal exploration.  A meditation, if you will.
 
Mastery is a long road.  Take it slow and steady.
 
Stick with it, Dylan.
Morgan
 

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