How To Shoot a Pistol Accurately: Best Practices & Upgrades
As part two of our video and blog describing how to shoot a pistol accurately, in this video we recommend some practices and upgrades.
Dry Fire Practice
So, what are some best practices for improving your shot with a handgun? First, dry fire practice. The most underrated thing you can do to improve your shooting skills is dry fire practice. At home, with an unloaded and safe firearm, you can practice your stance, grip, sight alignment, trigger press, breathing, and follow-through without spending any money on ammo or range time. If you spend even just 10 minutes a day working on your fundamentals at home, you’ll see a dramatic difference in your shooting skills the next time you hit the range.
Being able to work on your sight picture and trigger press without live ammo allows you to focus on your techniques, as well as spot things you might not notice under live fire—like a flinch, for example. You can then identify and correct it.
The Importance of Live Fire Practice
Nothing can beat live-fire practice on the range, though, and I think we all know that. Dry fire helps sharpen your skills and technique, but if you never really put them to the test under live fire, you won’t know if you’re truly improving. It’s also hard to push your skill set to the max without live fire. There are a lot of great shooting challenges out there that you can try on the range, and these will really test your sight alignment, grip, and trigger press. Many of these challenges combine speed and accuracy, and accuracy becomes harder as your speed increases.
Live fire also helps you get accustomed to the feeling of recoil. The more familiar you are with it, the less likely you are to flinch, and the easier it will be to identify areas of improvement, such as your grip.
Increased Magazine Capacity: Mag Extensions
One of the easiest upgrades you can make is a magazine extension. Some companies, like Tyrant CNC, offer fully assembled mags with extensions, so you don’t have to hassle with installation. These benefit you in a couple of ways. First, you can shoot more and reload less. If you’re running drills, this allows you to spend more time practicing and less time reloading. The extra weight also helps your magazine drop free. Most base plates are polymer, while magazine extensions are aluminum. Even if it’s just a metal magazine base plate and not a full extension, I’ve experienced magazines getting stuck when trying to drop an empty mag free, so it's something I can relate to.
Benefits of Upgrading Your Pistol with Aftermarket Parts & Accessories
Are there benefits to upgrading your pistol? To put it plainly, yes—but only if you use your firearm. Aftermarket parts can enhance overall durability, giving you a longer life out of your firearm and helping to protect your investment long-term.
Enhanced Durability
While polymer is a durable material, it’s certainly not as durable as steel or aluminum. Upgrading parts will help them last longer and give you more reliability in the long term.
Boosted Ergonomics: Trigger Upgrades
Trigger upgrades can make triggers easier to reach, give you a shorter length of pull, reduce trigger pull weight, or even just position the trigger better for a proper pull. This can improve your accuracy because you won’t have to reach as far for a correct trigger finger press. You guessed it—this can help improve your accuracy.
Extended Mag Releases, Magwells
Extended mag releases and magwells also go hand in hand. Once you get the empty mag out, you want to reload into the gun as quickly as possible. Magwell upgrades help by directing your mags into the gun. With the emphasis on smaller grips these days, that means smaller openings for your magazines, which can make fast, reliable reloads more difficult. A magwell takes your sloppy reload and guides your magazine into the firearm with steep angles, instead of catching the frame awkwardly. If your reload is a bit off, the magwell acts like a ramp leading you right into the gun.
If you have a small firearm but large hands, magwells can also give you more real estate for your grip.
Personalization & Customization
If you’re like me, and you want a firearm that’s unique to you, or you have a color theme you want for your everyday carry, aftermarket parts can help you customize your firearm to your preferences. Colors, patterns, shapes, sizes—there are tons of customization options available for nearly every firearm on the market. In addition to enhancing performance, you can have an everyday carry that matches your sense of style.
Increased Accuracy: Match-Grade Barrels
Performance upgrades like match-grade barrels are another great way to extend the life of your pistol. If you’re looking to get the most performance and improved accuracy, match-grade barrels will do just that. Tighter tolerances mean fewer moving parts, and fewer moving parts mean more refined accuracy, especially for longer distances.
Did I Mention Mag Extensions?
And don’t forget your mag extensions! We touched on it earlier, but I want to bring it up again. The best benefit of mag extensions is reducing the need to reload frequently. If you’re an armed citizen, this means more ammo, and that means more opportunities to stay in the fight. If you’re practicing reloads in dry fire or live fire, the extra length from the mag extensions can help you get a good, solid grip on the reload, bringing it out of your holster and inserting it into the pistol with confidence. On the range, it means more time spent training and less time spent reloading.
Typically, mag extensions are easy to install, but the magazine extensions from Tyrant CNC are probably the easiest you’ll find. There’s a lot to consider when trying to determine not only how to help you shoot more accurately and improve your skills, but also what upgrades you can add to your pistol to further enhance your accuracy.
So, what are you waiting for? Check out some of those parts, get some ammo, and head to the range to improve your handgun accuracy!
