Alrighty. So target analysis, shooter diagnostics. I am very fucking tired. Will maybe do a red dot guide next, all the sight stuff in this is all focused on irons.
Take a moment to think about the actual forces acting on the gun when firing.
1- Gravity. It is pulling the gun down, you are fighting gravity with your arm strength. Being tired of feeble will induce shaking after a short time.
2- Recoil. It drives the gun backwards against your hand, causing the muzzle to rise in a tipping fashion (guns will tip up regardless because of weight distribution). New shooters, even out of practice long time shooters, dip the gun in anticipation of, and to counteract recoil.
3- Your hands/grip. Uneven application of force from the left or right hand will steer the muzzle left or right. Uneven pressure from your fingers can tip the gun up or down.
4- Trigger finger. Your trigger pull should not drift the gun to the left or right when squeezing the trigger, which it will do without practice. You can really use whichever part of your trigger finger suites you as long as you keep a good purchase on the trigger and counteract the force exerted on the gun with your left hand.
Sight picture needs to be as such:
Both eyes open.
You focus on rear sight, front sight, and target all at once. From your perspective, the rear sight should be blurry (out of your vision's focus), the front sight clear (in your vision's focus), and the target blurry (out of your vision's focus). Saying the same thing again but shorter: Front sight is in focus, nested evenly vertically and horizontally between the rear sight posts, overlaying your point of aim on the target.
You know you have it right when as you pull the trigger, the sights stay aligned and your front sight doesn't drift or shake, and stays clear in your vision.
As promised, the target reading part:
Ten Billion hours in Paint:
Blue and Red:
Frequently I see new shooters impact low, left, and with a large group on a target. This as a combination of poor trigger control, grip strength distribution, and sight alignment and focus.
Red:
Our starting point for correction is always recoil anticipation when seeing this blend of malfunctions. Sometimes this is cured as simply as having them do a mag dump, but usually by incorporating dry fire between live rounds. Many instructors have their own preferred methods or well known exercises for dealing with recoil anticipation, most of them work.
Green:
Particularly on many Glocks which typically have a white dot painted on the front sight, you will see the shooters slightly tip the gun up to align the dot with the rear sights instead of the top of the front sight post. This results in shooting high. It doesn't only happen with Glocks, its a natural tendency to get a full picture of the object you are focusing on. But the very base of your front sight typically is occluded some by the bottom of the rear. Correct this by ensuring you have an even (and centered) front sight post with your rear sight posts.
Yellow:
Having the front sight out of focus, or drifting in and out of focus will result in a group centered on the target, or to the left or right depending on what other shit they are getting wrong, but with shots landing somewhat evenly all over it. Also caused by inconsistent/misunderstanding/forgetting alignment with the rear sight. Easily fixed with dry fire and presentation drills, which you will be doing ad infinitum to git gud. These scatterings all over paper are also an indicator a shooting is getting tired, mentally or physically. For training purposes its good to take a break when starting. Later on shooting even while you can hardly keep the gun up is some worth while training, but only because pushing yourself to achieve consistency helps build consistency, you might not be there yet.
Blue:
Trigger pull is corrected by two means: Consistency, and consistency. A consistent manner in which you pull the trigger (pressure applied, finger position on the trigger, good reset) and a consistent amount of support hand pressure being applied to the gun as the trigger is pulled. Again, dry fire as much as possible and try to do it the same way, the right way, every time. Typically poor trigger pull results in groups shifting left in right handed shooters, sometimes people death grip their guns and it can bring it to the right. Trigger pull issues usually cause horizontal shifts in groups, but not always. Slapping the trigger (taking your finger off the trigger between shots) will often pull the gun left, down, and open a group up.
Note:
A combination of factors will result in your groups blending these color coded results as far as where you are actually grouping on the target.
About all I can muster to write right now. I'm going to bed.