As with
@Heavy Industries and others I agree - your the first time on the gun, at 20 yards - that's really not bad at all!!!
That said, we're all always looking to improve, so.....
It's possible that your issue, being a pure left translation, is directly caused by or are associated to any of a combination of the following (listed in no particular order):
- vision
- indexing
- natural-point-of-aim
- mechanical (i.e. gun)
I like to approach things by shaving down the variables, and I like to begin with the easiest to attack, first.
I think at this point,
unless your first rounds out of the gun were those immediately surrounding the bullseye,
@Sld1959 , it would be worth the effort to try to establish zero as
@Jfal noted. Do whatever you best prefer,
@Sld1959 , in terms of getting a solid and repeatable supported position, and really take your time. I really think that this can potentially pay off, given the performance you showed in the OP. Verifying now can also help you avoid chasing your tail.
Vision certainly could be an issue, and your cross-dominance, given that you're shooting using your right hand, should manifest as shots left of POI. Put this one to-rest for the time being by closing either your dominant or non-dominant eye. As with verifying mechanical zero, taking the shortcut on this one, now, helps us avoid having to chase our tail. [
Overall, don't worry too much about this - or the supposed need to change to dominant/dominant shooting. There's plenty of really good shooters out there who shoot cross-dominant with the pistol, including but not limited to guys like Larry Vickers and Brian Enos. Unless someone who advises you you should shoot the pistol with the same eye dominance can actually shoot better than either of these gentlemen, I would politely and respectfully suggest that they simply don't give you any more pistol shooting advice.
]
And just as a reminder (because I know the giddiness of getting a new gun out on the range for the first time!
), you did establish natural-POA during this, right? I ask this because I am wondering if you observed your shots "walking" farther and farther off the bull as you take subsequent shots...are you losing your NPOA as you go?
Indexing is the last thing I'd like to bring up at this point, but given that it's a new gun to you, and given how consistently you're putting shots to the left, I'm wondering if this isn't potentially the root-cause of your POA/POI discrepancy? See if correcting your index doesn't bring you back onto the bull.
The following Trigger Time TV segments show John "Shrek" McPhee's take on the canonical '"diagnostic pie chart" (which, while useful, needs to have their history and purpose explained -
https://pistol-training.com/archives/292 <----- excellent article by the late
ToddG, and
https://aegisacademy.com/blogs/test-blog-post/pistol-correction-chart ; in both cases, unless you are shooting slow-fire , single-handed bullseye style at the 25 [or greater], understand that this type of target/chart is of very limited value) -
And the index:
The other possibilities include increasing your support hand grip firmness and possibly getting more finger on the trigger.
Towards the latter, here's Pat McNamara's take on trigger finger placement -
The king daddy of all marksmanship fundamentals is Trigger Control. I do not consider this debatable. Partially due to the fact that I cannot see my front s ...
soldiersystems.net
....and a good explanation video thereof -
It's possible that in order to achieve that all-defining "flat finish" (i.e. accomplishing the trigger path without disturbance of the sight package , per Rob Leatham's "Why Aiming is Useless" video -
https://sofrep.com/gear/why-aiming-is-useless-rob-leathams-3-secrets-to-great-shooting/ ), you may well need to have your trigger finger interact with the trigger of this particular gun in a noticeably different manner, either versus the dogmatic ideal "middle of the distal phalanx"/"meat of the pad," or versus how you may interact with the trigger of another firearm.