How firmly do you hold your handgun: Question from a rifle shooter.

[gmerkt]

Well, I don't know much about it. But what I do know is that we are supposed to follow through on shots fired. That is, stay on target at least until the bullet has cleared the barrel. So I find that I need to have a fairly firm grip on the handgun to do this. My bigger problem is staying on the trigger right. I have a tendency to pull shots left and slightly low. So I have to be conscious of my trigger finger position.

 

[zenbreath]

I used to cause great amusement with my Japanese students by writing with both hands, but in opposite directions, across the whiteboard...they thought that was simply hilarious.

Very few Lefties in Japan. Those that are, try to hide it.

Carrying a sword in the scabbard in your right hand was an indication that you were not preparing for violence. Carrying a sword in the scabbard in your left hand was an implied threat.

Lefties were considered untrustworthy.

 

[Dornai]

Cover as much of the frame of the handgun as possible using both of your hands. Grip firmly but not to the point that you are shaking the firearm. This 70/30, 60/40, 50/50 grip crap you hear is irrelevant. Just grab it firmly. Get your meat hook in the trigger guard, this "tactical g-spot" stuff you're taught for rifle shooting, and especially precision rifle shooting, does not apply to handguns. Eliminate space between trigger finger and frame of the handgun, the space between these objects creates tension in the trigger finger which leads to a distressed trigger pull.

I'm a firearms instructor certified through the WA CJTC and OR DPSST. But don't take my word for it. Go take some defensive handgun classes taught by reputable individuals and they'll teach you all about this.

 

[Dornai]

Well, I don't know much about it. But what I do know is that we are supposed to follow through on shots fired. That is, stay on target at least until the bullet has cleared the barrel. So I find that I need to have a fairly firm grip on the handgun to do this. My bigger problem is staying on the trigger right. I have a tendency to pull shots left and slightly low. So I have to be conscious of my trigger finger position.

With a handgun, pulling shots low left is not a trigger finger placement issue. It's a pre-ignition issue. You're anticipating the shot and your body is compensating for the expected recoil impulse by jerking the firearm down and to the left before you actually pull the trigger. Recoil impulse travels up and to the right for a right handed shooter, and your body is compensating by pulling down and to the left... Focus on the trigger press and slow down the trigger pull itself until you master it.

 

[gmerkt]

With a handgun, pulling shots low left is not a trigger finger placement issue. It's a pre-ignition issue.

Thanks for the advice. Sigh. Just when I thought I had this figured out after decades of doing it wrong. I have studied the motion of my hand using different points of contact on my finger with the trigger. With my index finger tip on the trigger, I can actually see the firearm move slightly to the right as I break the trigger. If I move the finger off the tip, the firearm remains mostly centered. If I move my finger farther in, the firearm moves some to the left. So at least it seems like finger placement has something to do with it in my case. But I will also look into your suggestion.

 

[zenbreath]

Practice so you can get hits where you need them, as quick as you need them.

"Amateurs practice till they get it right. Professionals practice till they cant get it wrong."

 

[gmerkt]

Practice so you can get hits where you need them, as quick as you need them.

This. If I spend too much time thinking about how I should press the trigger, I could wind up dead.

 

[zenbreath]

This. If I spend too much time thinking about how I should press the trigger, I could wind up dead.

Think of a self defense shooting like a panic stop on the freeway.

You should already have the traffic knowledge to understand what can make panic stop necessary.

You should always be watching for situations that Can Develop into panic stops.

You should keep a safe distance from the car in front of you and know what is right and left.

When it happens, you wont have time to think.

You should already have your skills practiced.

And even if you do everything right, you could still roll snake-eyes.

 

[Dornai]

This. If I spend too much time thinking about how I should press the trigger, I could wind up dead.

There's 2 philosophies on the trigger press - based on distance to the target. Wish you lived closer so I could go into it with you more in depth.

 

[DLS]

I've always liked Tom Given's trigger press rules:

Close Range ... press quickly
Med. Range … press carefully
Long Range ... press precisely

It's up to the individual to train enough to determine their individual range for each category.

 

[DLS]

Okay, back to grip pressure:

I've been doing my dry fire drills using a monster grip now for the last few weeks. I'm taking the Stoeger route to see if there will be an improvement. I'm thinking there is something to this as both Rob Leatham and Jerry Micheluk are proponents of a very heavy grip. JM states that if you shoot a couple of hundred rounds in training and your support hand and forearm is not noticeably tired you are not doing it right.

I hit the pit yesterday and got a few good rounds in between rain squalls. I basically did Bill Drills with the GP100 I use for ICORE and my G19 carry gun. I had my 1911 along for fun too, but it was just too wet so I cut the day short and the Combat Comander stayed warm and dry in her case.

I did 8 or 9 drills for each gun and had slightly better spits and overall times for both firearms. Only a couple of drills showed lower times than my standard. So, what does this mean? Who knows? It's far too early to know anything for sure, but there seems to be something, for me at least, in holding the gun harder that I've done In the past. I'll keep playing with it the next few months and see if this is actually true, or just a fluke.

Thanks for the good stuff that has been posted here … keep it up!

Merry New Year!

 

[DLS]

... Eliminate space between trigger finger and frame of the handgun, the space between these objects creates tension in the trigger finger which leads to a distressed trigger pull. ...

@Dornai

I'm not understanding this. I do understand if there is a large curve to the trigger finger (with the resultant gap between frame and finger) it's very difficult to press straight to the rear. With a large curve the pressure is directed toward the hand, and the farther back the trigger finger is the greater the lateral force.

But, eliminating the gap completely creates frame drag which is detrimental to keeping the gun still. Also, for most folks I've seen, this will place the trigger finger too far into the guard where you once again inhibit a press directly to the rear and now have to deal with that finger poking out and impacting parts of the support hand during the press.

What am I missing here?

Thanks!

 

[WoodsPlinker]

Grip firmly but not to the point that you are shaking the firearm.

+1

These are the guidelines I attempt to follow.

 

[zenbreath]

I'm not understanding this. I do understand if there is a large curve to the trigger finger (with the resultant gap between frame and finger) it's very difficult to press straight to the rear. With a large curve the pressure is directed toward the hand, and the farther back the trigger finger is the greater the lateral force.

But, eliminating the gap completely creates frame drag which is detrimental to keep the gun still. Also, for most folks I've seen, this will place the trigger finger too far into the guard where you once again inhibit a press directly to the rear and now have to deal with that finger poking out and impacting parts of the support hand during the press.

What am I missing here?

Thanks!

I believe he is talking about the middle finger, not the trigger finger.

The middle finger should be tight against the trigger guard, and the web of the hand should be as high as possible on the back strap.

 

[DLS]

I believe he is talking about the middle finger, not the trigger finger.

The middle finger should be tight against the trigger guard, and the web of the hand should be as high as possible on the back strap.

Hey Zen,

That would make a lot more sense, but @Dornai specifically states trigger finger in his post.

 

[Dornai]

Hey Zen,

That would make a lot more sense, but @Dornai specifically states trigger finger in his post.

@Dornai

I'm not understanding this. I do understand if there is a large curve to the trigger finger (with the resultant gap between frame and finger) it's very difficult to press straight to the rear. With a large curve the pressure is directed toward the hand, and the farther back the trigger finger is the greater the lateral force.

But, eliminating the gap completely creates frame drag which is detrimental to keeping the gun still. Also, for most folks I've seen, this will place the trigger finger too far into the guard where you once again inhibit a press directly to the rear and now have to deal with that finger poking out and impacting parts of the support hand during the press.

What am I missing here?

Thanks!

I was talking about the trigger finger just to clarify for the other poster.

Frame drag is irrelevant. Handguns are designed differently from rifles and serve a separate purpose. They are an inherently inaccurate platform comparatively speaking and are ballistically inferior. We carry handguns due to practicality, not superiority. Now that we have established that let's talk about your purpose.

What do you train for? Competition style bullseye target shooting? Tactical games? Combat shooting? I teach the latter, none of the former. I'm worried about eliminating threats as quickly and efficiently as possible using the simplest and most effective methods currently known to increase the officer, or civilians, survivability.

What is the effective range of a handgun? Definitely beyond 25 yards but how often does one make a shot past 25 yards with a handgun? Just because you can, should you? What's the risk to civilians? As a civilian can you justify that risk? Can you justify why you shot them instead of retreating? If you're an officer taking this long distance shot, why did you not engage the situation with your patrol rifle - an inherently more accurate and ballistically superior platform? There's a lot of questions here that we simply cannot answer while accounting for every possible scenario.

Disturbing the sights on a pistol comes more from uneven pressure applied to the trigger using the trigger finger, not from disturbing the sight alignment due to "too much" or "too little" finger. For those who don't believe this I will usually demonstrate the point at the range at both 25 and 50 yards but alas this is the Internet.

Having a gap, especially a large gap, between the trigger finger and the frame creates tension in the tendons extending from the finger up to the shoulder. This tension makes it more difficult to evenly apply pressure to the trigger with stated finger. This uneven application of pressure leads to disturbing the sight alignment during the trigger press, leading to a missed shot.

From my experience this is a much less prevalent issue than pre-ignition movements. Pre-ignition movement meaning you are anticipating the shot and your body naturally tries to compensate for the expected force (recoil) by pulling the weapon low left for a right handed shooter just prior to the break and thus you miss the target.

This is a loose explanation however. From there we go into 2 separate methods of shooting pistols based on the distance from your threat, but that's for another discussion.

To address the finger interfering with your support hand...you're overthinking it. At least for the application I teach. If you're a bullseye shooter then you're absolutely correct. These methods just don't apply the same exact way to real world defensive pistol shooting.

 

[Jcon268]

Short question: How firmly do you hold your gun?

Context:

I have shot mostly rifle all my years of competition. I did a bit of handgun silhouette and bullseye (now called precision pistol) shooting many years ago. I played a bit at pin shooting with my Combat Commander too. I'm an OK handgun shooter, I have bagged deer, bear and an elk with my .44, shot Pistol Expert in the Corps six years straight, passed the LEO certifications in a couple of states and met the "Pistoleer" level of competency on a recent beta test of the new pistol course that Project Appleseed is developing.

In the past I was trained to shoot handguns with what was described as a firm handshake level of tension in the hand.

Now, recently I've started playing with ICORE matches and shooting DRRCs Rimfire Challenge which has a pistol component. I've also shot a few Speed Steel practice matches. This has caused me to do some research and based on a recommendation here I've picked up Dryfire Reloaded by Ben Stoeger. In his book he recommends a monster level of hold, using terms like crush grip etc.

Is this the new normal?

I've been playing with this level of tension with my dry fire and it seems to hinder clean trigger press and induce tremors in my hold.

Any thoughts or recommendations?

Thanks and Merry Christmas.

I intentionally hold pretty firm but I think a lot has to do with building muscle memory because I don't have to think about it as much but.... I think it's very important not to let your grip be so firm that it affects your trigger pull. I've also learned to use more support hand in my overall grip. I always had a habit of pulling shots slightly to the left and using more support hand grip has allowed me to get a better and more straight back trigger pull to get more consistently centered shots.

 

[DLS]

...

To address the finger interfering with your support hand...you're overthinking it. At least for the application I teach. If you're a bullseye shooter then you're absolutely correct. These methods just don't apply the same exact way to real world defensive pistol shooting.

Thanks of the detailed response @Dornai, I appreciate it and agree with much of what you posted. But I do disagree with a couple of points.

First frame drag does matter and you are the first trainer I've ever heard say otherwise. The AMU, USMC Marksmanship team, top practical shooters all say it matters … and I do too, not just from their statements but from personal experience.

I did not say the trigger finger interferes with the support hand. I stated the support hand interferes with the trigger finger (when too far into the gun) interfering with the press. There is a huge difference in meaning. Perhaps we are thinking of the same issues, just not wording things clearly.

I'm also at a loss as to how I'm overthinking an actual physical issue that I have had, and have witnessed others having while shooting. If your trigger finger is impacting any part of the support hand while moving it will have a detrimental effect on the trigger press.

By the way Bullseye (now called NRA Precision) shooting is done totally with one hand, so there is no support hand to interfere with the trigger press.

Thanks for the thoughts, I appreciate it as I'm always looking to learn.

 

[DLS]

Had another outing to the pits and shot some more Bill Drills and a few El Presidente's (without the turn) as well as played at slaying the evil aluminum cans that like to attack when you are not looking. The hard grip seems to be doing good things for me. I'm getting faster follow on shots and it seems a bit better accuracy. My first shot on target seems to be a bit slower but I'm hoping practice will speed things up here.

With the hard grip the sights seem to be bouncing around a bit longer before settling in the hit zone.

Fun stuff to play with for sure!

 

[zenbreath]

Range time, timer, paper targets and a notebook will give you clear answers on what works and what doesn't.