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#Post#: 15--------------------------------------------------
Precision Pistol Shooting
DIR By: allmanav
Date: February 3, 2017, 9:21 am
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Some of what you’re about to read may sound contradictory to
other lessons that have been taught in the past. By no way am I
suggesting they are incorrect. I am merely giving my approach to
learning precision pistol—and what I do as a shooter.
Trigger control
Admittedly hard to describe with a picture, Zin’s grip places
the gun where it naturally fits in hand.
Trigger finger placement really counts when the shot breaks. Now
don’t get me wrong, stance, grip and aiming are important but
keep in mind that you can have a perfect grip and hold perfect
sight alignment all day long. It only counts when the gun goes
bang and only one action causes the gun to do that—pulling the
trigger. You can hold the gun upside down, squeeze the trigger
with your pinky, and align the sights to the target in a mirror
and shoot tens as long as you don’t jerk the trigger. However,
please *do not* try that at home!
Aside from that, this is what I was taught and this is what I
do. Please keep in mind it is only one way, and not the only
way—but I have had pretty good results with it. Also, this is
for a trigger that has at least a little roll—which is my
preference.
First, let’s look at trigger finger placement. And remember this
is an article on precision pistol shooting. If this were an
article on free pistol or air pistol, it would be different.
International shooters, please don’t unleash the hounds on me!
Now, where should the trigger make contact on the finger? The
trigger should be centered in the first crease of the trigger
finger. Why you ask? We have always been taught to place the pad
on the trigger. If you have a trigger that weighs in-between two
and four lbs., that is enough weight to move the fleshy part of
the pad of your finger. Try it! Get something that weighs at
least two lbs. and has a tip or point on it the size of a pen,
or just use a trigger. Put your hand on a table or desk, palm up
and slowly lower the weight onto the pad of the finger. It moves
a lot. Now lower the weight onto the first crease of the finger,
right on the joint. Sure it moves, but a whole lot less than the
fatty, fleshy part of the finger pad.
After having conducted this little experiment, think about
pulling the trigger with the pad of the finger. The first part
of movement you feel is flesh and fat moving out of the way.
This is not part of the movement involved in trigger control.
For example, have you ever been shooting well and in slow fire
you start to get “chicken finger?” The trigger starts moving and
then it stops and feels like it weighs 30 lbs., or did it move
at all? Maybe what you felt was the flesh moving out of the way
because you were shooting well and didn’t want to screw up the
match, so you are really in tune with what you are feeling in
the trigger.
Now think if the trigger were placed at the crease or first
joint of the trigger finger. When the trigger moves, what you
are feeling is really the trigger moving.
Let’s go even deeper—take a pen or a pencil and start tapping
the fleshy part of the web between your trigger finger and the
thumb. Keeping the same intensity, move the tapping up to the
large knuckle on your trigger finger. Feel the difference? The
flesh acts as a shock absorber to the tapping where the tendon
in the joint is more of a conductor. I know what you’re
thinking—why do I want to feel that?
Because it is that important to be able to feel every little
movement of your trigger so you know that you are squeezing the
trigger and not jerking the trigger.
Trigger control is merely a reaction to what the eye sees.
Types of trigger squeeze—when I was in Boot Camp they taught us
about trigger control before we went to the rifle range. I now
look back and realize they were, well not wrong, but mistaken
(just in case I run into my old Drill Instructors and by some
strange twist of fate they read this article). The U.S. Marine
Corps taught two different types of trigger control, Interrupted
and Uninterrupted. And, I still believe that there are two
types, Uninterrupted and Wrong.
If trigger control is ever interrupted in slow fire, the shot
needs to be aborted and the shot started over. If trigger
control is interrupted in a sustained fire stage, then we revert
to our “key word” that triggers us to kick start our shot
process.
Sight alignment and trigger control—often when the fundamentals
are explained, these two are explained as two different acts. In
actuality, it’s hard to accomplish one without the other. They
have a symbiotic relationship. To truly settle the movement in
the dot or sights you need a smooth, steady trigger squeeze.
Trigger control is merely a reaction to what the eye sees.
Sight alignment and trigger control have a symbiotic
relationship.
What? One can hold perfect sight alignment/sight picture for a
long time. Now, apply pressure to the trigger and what happens?
Something moves, right? If this happens in a slow fire shot,
what typically happens is we stop squeezing until everything
settles down again and we start the trigger. It moves. We stop
the trigger. It settles. We start the trigger. It moves and so
on and so forth. From this we can see how the finger already
acts to what the eye sees. We do not have to train the eye to
accomplish this, since it already does it. We need to make it
work for us and get the finger to react at a more opportune
time, before we have obtained perfect sight alignment/sight
picture. Yes, I just said to start squeezing the trigger before
you have obtained a perfect sight alignment/sight picture.
Your sight alignment should be pretty close to perfect, since we
have mastered a perfect grip and the sights are aligned, not
just to each other but also to the other eye as soon as the gun
is raised. If not, we will master that soon. Before the sights
or dot have settled into the center of the target, we should
start our trigger squeeze, taking advantage of the pressure that
is being applied to the trigger to help stabilize the sight.
Continue to squeeze the trigger uninterrupted, using that
pressure to help move toward and stay center and allow the shot
to break.
Therefore as it stands, I am not a big believer in the surprise
break. I know when my gun is going to shoot and what it feels
like right up until it shoots. I really know my trigger and I
have done lots of dry firing without looking at the sights—just
to know what it feels like.
This method has been called steering the sights with the
trigger, but I’m not a fan of the connotation that carries—it is
more of a sight alignment/sight picture through trigger control
concept.
Grip issues
You can have a perfect grip and hold perfect sight alignment all
day long—but if you jerk the trigger it is all for naught.
I am not saying that the grip I describe here is the only one to
use. It is merely an option—it all depends on your hand size and
structure. It works for me, and it has worked for many shooters
that I have taught it to. And just to be clear, it is not unsafe
for those who have questioned it, because the gun will move less
with this grip. Hence, if you do use a grip that aligns the
sights and gun up your arm to your shoulder, you are putting
yourself at a huge disadvantage.
A proper grip is a grip that will naturally align the gun’s
sights to the eye of the shooter, without having to tilt your
head or move your wrists around in order to do that. Also, most
importantly, a proper grip is a grip that allows the gun to
return to the same position that allowed the sights to be
aligned without having to search for the sights after each and
every shot.
Too many times I have seen, and I am sure most of you have done
it yourself. Someone shoots and you can see the front of the gun
waving around as they try to get sight alignment back. This is
not a problem with recoil management, grip strength or position.
This is a grip issue.
As a result, if you line the gun up your arm and to your
shoulder in order to align the sights one of two things must
happen. Your head leaves a natural position in order to see the
sights since they are lined up with your shoulder or you have to
turn your wrists until the sights are aligned to your eye, but
then the gun is no longer aligned up your arm. This was called
“grip alignment.”
Yes, back in the day they taught “grip alignment.” Well, grip
alignment as they described it is BS, just like Natural Point of
Aim with a pistol is BS. But that’s a completely different
conversation. Two-handed shooters don’t even shoot with the gun
aligned up their strong arm to their shoulder. Unless you have
some deformity, and your head is growing out of your shooting
side shoulder, why would you want the gun aligned up your arm to
your shoulder?
Now keep in mind, this is for a 1911 slab-style grip or a .22LR
with slabs. Unfortunately, if you are using orthopedic grips—you
can’t do this with them.
Using Zins grip
Zins says proper grip depends on your hand size and structure.
My grip is simple, it’s not hard to get into and once you get
it, it will feel better, recoil will be better managed and the
sights will always come back to alignment. If you rotate the
meaty portion of your hand below the little finger behind the
back-strap of the gun, every time you shoot, it will want to
move off of it. It is just a squishy, fatty portion of your hand
that cannot control the gun or offer any resistance to recoil
whatsoever. The fatty portion of the hand there cannot be moved,
it is just fat. Try to move it. The movement caused by making a
fist does not count, because the rest of the hand causes that
movement. The place the gun tends to move to is the valley
formed between that meaty portion below the little finger and
the meaty part of the thumb. So I ask—why not start with the gun
in the place it wants to be?
Unfortunately, even with a picture this is hard to describe.
When done in person, I usually have to work individually with
shooters to show them how to do it.
The best and easiest way to get the proper grip, at least a good
starting position as you may need to tweak it around a bit until
it feels good, is with a holster.
Put your 1911 in a holster on the side of your body; not in
front or behind, but on the side of your hip. Put your hands in
the surrender position, like the action shooters form. Keep your
eyes and head straight and allow your shooting hand to come down
naturally to the gun; don’t move it around—just let it come down
and grab the gun. The fatty part of the little finger should all
be on the right panel of the grip. Now, keeping the gun in your
hand with the grip, assume your one handed shooting position.
The sights should be pretty close to being aligned. If they are
not then you need to tweak the grip a bit. For images go to my
site. www.allmanipsc.com
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