Problems with sights on Beretta PX4 Storm?

[kg4ghn]

Guy at the last class I went to had the fullsize .40 and it shot fine all weekend, as accurate as everybody else's gun.


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[DefensiveCarry.com]

[johnpcunningham]

I'm an electrical engineer with intermediate shooting time and skills. This means I'm anal about solving problems and willing to admit I'm not a pro. Anyway, here is my story:

I've owned a Colt King Cobra .357 for 20 years and I can shoot a Silver Dollar size pattern at 50 ft. I don't shoot that often, but hey, it's a revolver with a 6" barrels. So adding to my wish for an automatic pistol, I recently purchased the Beretta Storm Compact 9mm. I liked the feel and the safety with double action. A bonus over the Glocks that I have rented in the past. So here I go to the range with my gal to shoot- she has never shot a pistol, ever, and never wrong - so I knew this would be fun to see!!!

So I pull out the trusty .357 and try to show here my skills. And I did. Dead eye at 7 and 15 yards. Then I pulled out the PX4 and tried the same, and boy did I suck. I was all over the place at 21ft (7 yards).

Excuse #1 - must be the crappy ammo
Excuse #2 - must be the sights - what, these are fixed sights! How do I adjust them? Need a special tool to adjust them and only left and right, that stinks.
Excuse #3 - must be the adjustment time for a new gun

Well, I did get aclimated to the gun to some degree and I got the grouping a little tighter, but always to the left and low by 2" each. Geese this sucks, what to do now?

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So I checked the forums and talked to guys at the gun shop about how to hold the trigger finger, loosening my grip with the lower 3 fingers and squeezing more with the thumb and the index finger. Good advice but thought this would be impractical in a "real" situation of self defense.

I went to the range a 2nd time alone and put through 150 rounds with similar low & left results. At his point, I'm not pleased with the Beretta Storm. Grouping was better but I was having to make compensations with the sights, putting the front sight way above the back 2 sights.
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The PX4 comes with 3 changeable back grips and since I had big hands, I had the originally on that was the largest back grip, the one that is much longer as compared to the other two. I wondered if that was the problem, or better yet hoped that would fix my problem. I changed the back grip out to the smaller one, and Voila!!!!! My 3rd trip to the range was beautiful. My grouping was about 4" at 21 feet. And the gun still felt comfortable to hold.

I have not done a follow up by putting the larger grip back on to see if I shoot low and left again. I do not attribute the improvement by getting used to the gun or more range time. When I had gone a 2nd time, I shot 150 rounds through it and took my time shooting the Storm.

The 4th trip to the range, I had a Sig 938 9mm and the PX4 9mm. I was excited about the Sig and had decent accuracy but a little wide pattern at 7 yrds. The gun was stiff and needed to break in since this was its first outing. I pulled out the Beretta and it simply felt like butter in my hands. It was smooth and accurate. Breaking it in with 400 rounds and changing the back grip was the trick for me.
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Not sure if my post will help you guys but it did work for me. Two weeks ago I regretted buying the Storm and now I love it. So try out the different grips and get at least 400 rounds through it to make a good assessment of the weapon. Let me know what you think or come up with.

JC

[threefeathers]

I would check his hold, stance, sight picture and follow through. I just finished Tom Givens advanced Instructor Development course and one of the things we talked about is the tendancy of some folks to fire the polymer pistols Low and Left. My advice is to check his firing technique. Then dry fire the hell out of it, go to the range and fire slowly with someone watching and checking the four things i spoke about.

[ruso]

It has to do with the earths rotation and gravitudational pulling.If the range you use has the targets facing south,you need to find a range with the targets facing north,that will counter the elliptical transgrutionating pulsing effect on the velocitating ergonomics of the bullet in flight

[JJF777]

Just purchased a PX 4 subcompact .40 and had my first round at the range. I have been using the 96A .40 and put about 1000 rounds through that pistol. The first outing with the PX4 was not great, but not horrible. But reading some of the comments led me to the idea of `recoil expectation'. How does one deal with that as I felt it was effecting my first outing with the PX4 even more so than my first outing with the 96A a few months back.

[ZX9RCAM]

Trigger pull.
Pull back slowly on the trigger until the gun fires.
Make the shot a total surprise to you so that you can't "anticipate" it.
Takes practice....