sight adjustment

[oldmaster111]

I am the proud owner of a S&W Sigma 9F. Contrary to what some folks say about them, I like my pistol and have only one complaint with it. It shoots a little low and to the left. After about 500 rounds, I still wind up with a nice cluster of target hits a little low and left of the bull. I am not a world class shooter, but I normally can hold my own as far as hitting the bulls eye. My problem is that I have never owned a pistol that needed the sights adjusted or moved to compensate for this left handed aim. Can I ask someone with the knowledge of how to do this to help me?

[PetahW]

The first thing I would try, to correct a handgun's low/left POI would be to try and not grasp it as hard the next time I fired it - as an overly tight RH gripping method can force/throw shots off to the left/low of the sights.
(If you shoot a pistol LH, then the opposite would apply)

If you do need to adjust your sights, there a few things to consider, first:
1) AFAIK, your gun's sights have no elevation adjustments, so if it's too much too low, you might want to try a different bullet weight/ammo to raise the POI. (diff ammo may also impact to a diff windage POI)
2) The sights on a pistol are CLOSE together, so ANY movement will result in a BIG change of the POI.
3) To adjust any gun's sights, move the REAR sight in the SAME direction you want to move the POI - but if moving a front sight, move it in the opposite direction.

Your pistol's rear sight should be mounted in a transverse dovetail slot in the slide, and can be adjusted to move the POI towards the right by tapping/drifting it SLIGHTLY to the right.
BEFORE doing so, mark the position of the sight's edge in relation to the slide with a pencil - so you can see how far the sight's been moved to the right while tapping.
Use baby steps, and firmly support the slide in a padded vise for the tapping - probably no more than 1/16" movement is going to be needed, if at all.

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[oldmaster111]

Thanks for the help. I'll try all of your suggestions.

[Unclenick]

If you're not the world's best shot, be aware that it is not uncommon for many to have a slight flinch they can't identify through the disturbance of recoil. For a right-hander, low and left is the typical result. Try shooting it off bags and see if the POI corrects? Also, try the ball-and-dummy exercise, where a friend loads your magazine to include a dummy somewhere in the stack that you don't know the location of? Keep your eyes open and watch the sight alignment, and when the hammer drops on the dummy, see if you are holding the gun still through the fall of the hammer or if it dips slightly low and left?

Another thing to try is watching the front sight while shooting at a blank page. It will recoil up, then return. It is hard to grip so consistently that it comes down in exactly the same spot each time, but if it tends to land more to one side of the rear sight notch or the other, it is an indication that you need to rotate the gun slightly in your grip until it tends to average around the center.