How hard to grip it!!!!!

you don't want to over clamp your strong hand, it needs to be somewhat relaxed for you to run the trigger smoothly. The majority of the support will come from your support hand. The 40/60 split is probably a good approximation. It depends on your hands and the fit on the firearm in question.

You can't beat the recoil, the firearm is going to move. Let it. A firm stance, not tense. Let your arms act like springs to return the pistol to the same spot each shot. If it's not, adjust your grip. Experiment and watch the front sight. It should travel in the same way every shot. This will make for a consistent return, which will in turn let you aquire the sight faster for your follow up shots.

You DON'T need a death grip to have your pistol cycle reliably, all it needs is a firm platform to recoil against. Unless your letting it move a silly amount each shot it's going to run fine. (silly would be like on TV when the recoil is carrying the firearm up over 45 degrees)
 
StrikerSW said:
Finger placement is important, make sure you have the right size grips on you pistol if it offers that feature. You should comfortably be able to reach the trigger without to much empty space or stretching. Generally speaking the trigger should be centered on your fingerprint. I actually find just slightly past center of my fingerprint. You don't want to have the trigger in the first joint as this is too far, this again will cause pulling of the shot. Hope this is clear enough, you will find the best spot for you by practice and experimenting. One can go on and on, breathing is important as well. Anyway practice until these things become muscle memory. Focus on each point and if you start shaking from gripping to tight or holding your breath don't take the shot. Relax and try it again; bottom line is have fun and don't get bent out of shape if the shot is off, we all stated that way.
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Thanks, I have large hands, so no reaching for me, I am expecting different grips any day, but again as you mentioned I need lots of trigger time.
 
Redneckwannabe1 said:
Thats good shooting at 16 yards I think. If I was shooting like that I wouldn't be asking for advice, i'd probably have people asking me for advice:)
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Thanks for the kind words, but I see lots of room for improvement. But as I mentioned this was only my 200th shot ever with a pistol, so I'm sure I have a very long ways to go haha.
 
Cocked&Locked said:
you don't want to over clamp your strong hand, it needs to be somewhat relaxed for you to run the trigger smoothly. The majority of the support will come from your support hand. The 40/60 split is probably a good approximation. It depends on your hands and the fit on the firearm in question.

You can't beat the recoil, the firearm is going to move. Let it. A firm stance, not tense. Let your arms act like springs to return the pistol to the same spot each shot. If it's not, adjust your grip. Experiment and watch the front sight. It should travel in the same way every shot. This will make for a consistent return, which will in turn let you aquire the sight faster for your follow up shots.

You DON'T need a death grip to have your pistol cycle reliably, all it needs is a firm platform to recoil against. Unless your letting it move a silly amount each shot it's going to run fine. (silly would be like on TV when the recoil is carrying the firearm up over 45 degrees)
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I agree that it isn't necessary or a good idea to lock up your trigger control hand to the point of not being able to press the trigger smoothly, but imo using your arms as springs is how you slow down your follow up shots, not speed them up.
If you become a concrete wall, the gun can only recoil straight back which gives you the fastest possible, accurate follow up shot. Little or no lift means you can press sooner than waiting for the front sight to settle after a spring up. That is beating the recoil by telling it where to go, instead of it telling you where it's going to go.

To clarify my last post, I didn't mean that a concrete wall grip is necessary for a pistol to cycle, but at the other end of the spectrum; limp wristing does cause cycling problems.
With that notion in mind, it makes perfect sense to me to lock the gun in place. Anyone who thinks that more control over a gun will hinder it's ability to cycle is simply wrong and pretty silly the more I think about it...


The opinions in here are exactly what a few of us at my club are fighting, for rapid fire to be allowed.
For some reason many of our board members think that shooting fast means shooting over a berm. It isn't true, and it really bothers me that they can't comprehend the fact that some humans are capable of shooting a gun accurately and quickly.
 
Great topic. I've been trying Massad Ayoob's " if you grip it as hard as you can you can't tighten as you squeeze the trigger", and it hasn't been working very well for me. More relaxed and breathing has definitely been better.
 
metcalfe said:
I agree that it isn't necessary or a good idea to lock up your trigger control hand to the point of not being able to press the trigger smoothly, but imo using your arms as springs is how you slow down your follow up shots, not speed them up.
If you become a concrete wall, the gun can only recoil straight back which gives you the fastest possible, accurate follow up shot. Little or no lift means you can press sooner than waiting for the front sight to settle after a spring up. That is beating the recoil by telling it where to go, instead of it telling you where it's going to go.

To clarify my last post, I didn't mean that a concrete wall grip is necessary for a pistol to cycle, but at the other end of the spectrum; limp wristing does cause cycling problems.
With that notion in mind, it makes perfect sense to me to lock the gun in place. Anyone who thinks that more control over a gun will hinder it's ability to cycle is simply wrong and pretty silly the more I think about it...


The opinions in here are exactly what a few of us at my club are fighting, for rapid fire to be allowed.
For some reason many of our board members think that shooting fast means shooting over a berm. It isn't true, and it really bothers me that they can't comprehend the fact that some humans are capable of shooting a gun accurately and quickly.
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yeah, one of the clubs i belong to can't get their head around rapid fire either.....sigh. And i understood what you meant about the grip, but wasn't sure if it was clear to all reading the post.

When i say use the arms as springs, i don't mean let them flop or bounce freely, but don't try to fight the gun either. The guns gonna move, let it do so under control. If you tense everything up (arms shoulders wrists) you will bring the gun down possibly a bit quicker, but you will be much slower moving from target to target, and less likely to "over muscle" and bring the muzzle down lower then it needs to return, which will take even more time to correct.

I think we're talking the same idea from different directions :)
 
enefgee said:
Here's a fun tip - use a smaller target, that alone will tighten your groups (it's entirely psychological) the old saying 'aim small, miss small' is true.
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Actually tried this this week with a harder to see target and it forced me to pay better attention to the front sight.. and got smaller groups..
 
Lead hammer said:
.....Managed one 20 round 4.5" group, and one 20 round 5" group both at 16 yards.
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Redneckwannabe1 said:
Thats good shooting at 16 yards I think. If I was shooting like that I wouldn't be asking for advice, i'd probably have people asking me for advice:)
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Sorry Redneck and no offense but you're too easy to please. A good but not even exceptional shooter shooting slower for accuracy should be able to manage 2 inch or better groups at 16 yards easily with a CZ Shadow in decent trim.

Lead hammer, as mentioned already I like to call it a "firm but friendly handshake" sort of pressure. The strong hand tending to hold the pressure front to back on primarily the front and rear and the support hand folded around and squeezing through the other hand for side to side pressure. I've also done my best groups when the strong hand pushes forward lightly and the support hand pulls back to balance it. Not a lot but a little of this isometric loading between the hands seems to steady the sights and keep the recoil kick from moving the strong hand within the support hand grip so that your hands are still holding correctly after a string of shots with no need to re-position.
 
For me personally, the biggest difference was made by going to a true push-pull grip. By "true" I mean really putting an emphasis on the force coming not from the fingers pinching the gun but the entire hands opposing each other. My BB instructor had a good visual to drive this home - take it to an extreme, hold the gun with your palms on either side of the grip. It doesn't matter how hard you push and clamp on the gun, it's going to flip with recoil. Now reverse it, and do nothing but pull back with your weak hand and push with the strong, and pull the trigger - exert no crushing pressure with the fingers. It's already going to look pretty damn good!

All that's going to happen by trying to be the handshake douche (you know, the guy at the party who tries to make everyone wince in pain when they shake hands), is you'll get the shakes and not do a whole lot for recoil control. You'll get a lot further ahead by figuring out a grip you're comfortable with, that allows you to get a firm push-pull, get as high up on the gun as possible (leverage - the length of the lever between the bore axis and your grip) and cover as much of it as you can (if you leave a gap between your hands and the grip, the force will find its way there - least resistance).

By the way, all of this is for superior control of the gun for continued shooting. If all you want to do is hit the target, it doesn't actually matter how you hold the gun. You could hold it with the thumb and forefinger of one hand and push the trigger with the pinky of the other. If the sights are on target and the trigger break was clean, you'll be accurate. It may take you a while to pick the gun back off the floor and get it trained on target again but it'll work. If you watch any super slow-mo video of a gun shooting, the bullet is long gone from the barrel before the recoil drama begins due to the mass discrepancy of the projectile vs slide. In short, if you're not shooting accurately, it's not the grip, it's trigger fundamentals.
 
TheJuggernaut said:
For me personally, the biggest difference was made by going to a true push-pull grip. By "true" I mean really putting an emphasis on the force coming not from the fingers pinching the gun but the entire hands opposing each other. My BB instructor had a good visual to drive this home - take it to an extreme, hold the gun with your palms on either side of the grip. It doesn't matter how hard you push and clamp on the gun, it's going to flip with recoil. Now reverse it, and do nothing but pull back with your weak hand and push with the strong, and pull the trigger - exert no crushing pressure with the fingers. It's already going to look pretty damn good!

All that's going to happen by trying to be the handshake douche (you know, the guy at the party who tries to make everyone wince in pain when they shake hands), is you'll get the shakes and not do a whole lot for recoil control. You'll get a lot further ahead by figuring out a grip you're comfortable with, that allows you to get a firm push-pull, get as high up on the gun as possible (leverage - the length of the lever between the bore axis and your grip) and cover as much of it as you can (if you leave a gap between your hands and the grip, the force will find its way there - least resistance).

By the way, all of this is for superior control of the gun for continued shooting. If all you want to do is hit the target, it doesn't actually matter how you hold the gun. You could hold it with the thumb and forefinger of one hand and push the trigger with the pinky of the other. If the sights are on target and the trigger break was clean, you'll be accurate. It may take you a while to pick the gun back off the floor and get it trained on target again but it'll work. If you watch any super slow-mo video of a gun shooting, the bullet is long gone from the barrel before the recoil drama begins due to the mass discrepancy of the projectile vs slide. In short, if you're not shooting accurately, it's not the grip, it's trigger fundamentals.
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I like this push pull idea, and will give this a try at the next outing. Straight up target shooting is fun, but I do plan on rapid fire, I also have a dualling tree built and am almost done building a reactive target to test.
Thanks for all the help so far guys!
 
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