What are some drills that I can do to become a more accurate shot?

This is a question I get from a lot of students…they are new shooters and want to improve their accuracy. From my perspective, the thing that can affect your accuracy the most is your ability to control the trigger. When you think about it…the only thing that moves when you shoot are the trigger and the trigger finger. If your sights are properly aligned on the target, when you pull the trigger you should theoretically hit what you are aiming at.Unfortunately, the average shooter allows a lot of extra movement to be introduced into the shooting process. Most of this extra movement comes from pulling the trigger too hard by “slapping” or “yanking” the trigger. People are in a hurry to make the gun go “bang” and sometimes that rush turns into a trigger slap or jerk. Do this and your shots will generally hit to the left and below the intended point of impact.Here are a few things you can do to get better trigger control:1. If possible, place the center of the first digit of your index finger on the face of the trigger. Too much or not enough finger on the trigger can cause your shots to be off.2. As you prepare to take your shot on the target, take up any slack in the trigger by pulling it back to the point of resistance.3. As you meet the point of resistance, slowly press the trigger straight back to the point of release. The exact point of trigger release should be a little bit of a surprise. This is called a “surprise break”. The idea here is that you are not forcing the trigger to break, just slowly pressing until it does.4. After the shot, keep the trigger compressed. Reacquire your sight picture and slowly release the trigger until it resets. You will hear an audible ‘click’ and feel the trigger reset. DON’T release the trigger any further…you don’t need to. If you do, all that means is that you have to take up all that trigger slack again which will cause excess movement and potentially ruin your shot.5. After confirming your sight picture, again slowly press the trigger, working to get another “surprise break” on the trigger and take your next shot.6. After each shot, you need to prepare to take the next shot by reacquiring your sight picture and resetting the trigger. This is called the “follow through”. You should do this after every shot.An excellent drill is to start with a full magazine of 10 rounds or more and do the following: align your sights on the target, take up the trigger slack, press the trigger slowly until you achieve the surprise break and the gun fires, reacquire your sight picture, release the trigger just until it resets and fire again. Follow the same process on each shot until the magazine is empty. I like to do this drill at least twice during a practice session. IF you practice this you will build muscle memory for reacquisition of the sight picture, a smooth trigger press and a follow through, all of which are essential to accurate pistol shots.