How to keep my hands steady when shooting?

I shake quite a bit when shooting my handgun. It's not that I'm nervous or anything, I just have a hard time keeping my heads really steady when shooting. Any tips to help with this? Thanks.|||There are a number of reasons for why this can be happening, with some different resolutions depending on what they are. Andy has actually hit on several.





First - you need to know whether your hands shake when you are NOT shooting. Some people (in fact, I am in this boat) have a tremor in their hands for no reason whatsoever. It's ideopathic. It essentially is excess nerve signals coming from your brain when you are trying to hold your hand steady that make it hard to do.





If this is your problem, then the best thing to do here is simply to practice some kind of relaxation and control drills to see if you can steady your hands.





Second - shooting mechanics. Andy covered this pretty well. The "push - pull" grip and stance that he talks about can be done with an Icosceles stance as well which for some is more comfortable and equally as effective as the Weaver if done correctly.





Third - target panic. Essentially, what happens here is that as you try and control the movement of the gun to a smaller and smaller degree to get the sight right where you want it, your brain is sending too much signal to your muscles and you over compensate. This happens most often where your sight crosses over being the same size as your target so you can't see the target you are locked in on. The way to tell if this is what is happening to you is aim at a blank piece of paper with nothing printed on it. Just try and get the gun still. If you can, target panic might be your problem.





How to fix this? Unfortunately, just practice. as the target gets really small start looking for larger reference points to help you be comfortable with the sight picture.





Good luck,





Thinkingblade|||First could be a lack of upper body strength.





Second believe it or not your holding the firearm to tight forcing your hand to shake in time.





Third and most likely poor stance. I find a proper Weaver stance where a right eye dominate shooter holding the firearm in his/her right hand, pushes out with his/her right arm, while his/her left hand is wrapped over the right hand and the left arm is pulling back locking the handgun in a stable shooting platform.





Fourth, rest (lower your firearm) between shoot. No need to hold a heavy gun up in the line of sight all the time. Even Olympic shooter do this.|||Here's a nice video to help explain the grip, and how to raise your arms properly.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa50-plo鈥?/a>





If you are lucky enough to use a gun with a laser on it, that can really help you learn to be smooth. The laser aimpoint will dance around the target if you are not steady. This was a great tool for me...I'd aim at the wall at home (with my unloaded gun of course) every day, until I developed a firm, but relaxed, comfortable grip. I was actually gripping too hard at first - I have strong hands and arms. Now everything is in balance...|||Not sure why your hands are unsteady. It could be muscle fatigue. Try exercising in activities such as push ups, using your palm in the palm grip thingies (not sure of the name), etc. Also try to steady your hands when shooting, do not reinforce bad habits. (what are you shooting?)|||practice when i first started shooting and i still do it i hold the gun in shooting position for like 30 minutes at a time it works but is hard it a coupe times without shaking and youll have the steadiest shot|||keep your arms locked , stay focus, don't let anything distract you and try to keep your wrists steady to|||A lot of people will tell you to hold your breathe this is only half right. you want to exhale normally and hold your breathe out in a sense|||Drink down two shots a whiskey first.....that always works for me!